Saturday 26th March, 2011

On the trail of Father Ted

26.03.2011

We are in the area of northwest County Clare called The Burren (Irish: Boireann, meaning "great rock"). This is a desolate and unusually rocky area - flat rock, criss-crossed with crevices where varieties of vegetation grow that should not (for example both tropical and arctic flowers).
For Father Ted fans, the opening credits of the show depict 'Craggy Island' as the Aran island of Inishere, but actual film locations tend to be here around the Burren. First stop today was the Burren Centre Exhibition at Kilfenora, which tells the story of the Burren through displays and audio-visual. We continued south to Kilnaboy and turned off the main road in search of Ted's Craggy Island Parochial House. After a few miles there it was (in the isolated area of Glenquin).
Next we drove for a few miles to Poulnabrone Dolmen, situated between Kilfenora and Ballyvaughan. This is said to mark an ancient burial tomb in which numerous remains have been found. We thought how lucky we were there all alone, with the dolmen all to ourselves. Suddenly two tourbuses pulled up in the carpark....and it was on for young and old!
A few miles to the north was Aillwee Caves (better known to Ted fans as the Very Dark Caves). This was an interesting underground walk through waterfalls and stalagmites and tites, only discovered by accident in the 1940s when a man followed his dog down a 'rabbit hole'. There are certainly no bears in Ireland nowadays but there were - very old bear bones, and their hibernation holes lay there undisturbed. (Unfortunately, no sightings of a desperate Graham Norton waiting to be rescued from the dark passageways).
It was now mid afternoon and we made our way back to Kilfenora to Vaughan's Pub for lunch. This pub was location for Father Ted's 'multicultural' episode. In the episode Ted hears there are some Chinese now living on the island and he constantly fails in his attempts to appear culturally sensitive. He goes into Vaughan's Pub only to find shoulder to shoulder Chinese - even traditional Chinese Irish musicians!! The lady running Vaughan's tells us the 'Sheep Competition' was also filmed there in a marquee out the back.