A destination wedding is never just the wedding. When Tara Fay Events brought Mary and Taylor's celebration to Adare Manor in July, I built a few days on either side of it to see more of Ireland's west coast. These are the pictures from the edges of that week: the drive in, the wedding weekend's grand backdrop, and the morning after, spent on the Atlantic.
The Clare coast
Before the wedding I drove up to the cliffs above Doolin in County Clare, where Doonagore Castle, a round tower house from the sixteenth century, stands alone in the fields above the sea. On a soft, milky afternoon you can see across the water toward the Aran Islands, with stone walls running in every direction.
Adare Manor
Then came the reason for the trip. Adare Manor in County Limerick is a Gothic Revival house with formal gardens on the River Maigue, and over the wedding weekend it was the backdrop for everything from afternoon tea in the library to a ballroom reception with Irish dancers. The full wedding is its own story.
Through County Kerry
The morning after the wedding we headed southwest into Kerry, crossing old stone bridges over wide rivers, passing through small towns strung with county flags, and climbing into green mountain passes where an old railway viaduct crosses the valley.
Out to the Skelligs
From the harbour we took a small boat out into the Atlantic. The Skelligs lie about twelve kilometres off the Iveragh Peninsula, and the crossing was everything people warn you about: big swells, spray over the bow and the islands appearing and disappearing in the mist.
Little Skellig
Little Skellig comes first. From a distance its ridges look dusted with snow, but up close you realise the white is birds. It is home to one of the largest gannet colonies in the world, tens of thousands of them, wheeling overhead and lining every ledge of the cliffs.
Skellig Michael
Beyond it rises Skellig Michael, a steep green pyramid of rock where monks built a monastery more than a thousand years ago and climbed hundreds of stone steps to reach it. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and, for a new generation, the island at the end of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Circling it by boat, with the old lighthouse road cut into the cliff and the cloud sitting on the summit, it is easy to see why anyone would come here looking for solitude.
Then back across the swell to the mainland, soaked and very happy. Weddings like Mary and Taylor's take me to extraordinary places, and I always try to leave room to see them properly.
