The I woke up and looked out the window, dull, grey and worst of all drizzly. Rain I can deal with, that's what umbrella's are for. But drizzle... Just wet enough that you get soaked but at the same time, look completely ridiculous walking around with an umbrella, wonderful. Thankfully it did dry up, and for a brief moment on the walk into town the sun even threatened to shine. It got stage fright though and disappeared again quick smart! But that pretty much ruled out the beach, so plans had to be redrawn, ideas had to be reformulated and quickly. It was my turn to arrange the date and as this is still the new fun stage, I wanted a nice activity that didn't cost either of us too much. Walking past the Crawford Gallery, I spied a sign advertising gallery tours and hatched my plan!
I love the Crawford anyway, having studied Art in school and choosing Art History for one of my first year Arts subjects I've visited the place a good bit. I wasn't sure if He'd be as into it, but after an arm twisting coffee treat, turns out he was well up for it and in we went to be greeted by the lovely Julie who proceeded to make the following hour fly by. There were only four of us on the tour which was both a pity (as I think more people should avail of it) and a treat as it meant we had our own personal guide pretty much.
image from limerickblogs.com
I've been very unlucky in that every time I've visited the Crawford the Harry Clarke stained glass has been off display (this has to be done regularly to protect the glass from cracking under the heat of display lights) but today... It was there! Having the guide meant we could ask plenty questions and she was very knowledgeable. We both thoroughly enjoyed the tour and I would certainly recommend you spend an hour of your visit here with the guide. Currently they are at 1.15 and 3.15 on Saturdays, but the people here are lovely and would only be too happy to answer any queries about weekdays. Best of all... It's free!!
