Irish History – Part One of ?

(Ed.note: The title of this post is specifically designed to give me free rein with whatever the next few days/weeks will transpire.)

We are into the third week of our Irish experience and it has been fantastic. So fantastic that I have not been able to keep up with regular posts. That has now been rectified as we have left Lynne, Martin, Ann, Mal, Mary, Des, Valerie, Evelyn, Dermot, Annette, Noel, The Gladstone, The Snug and Joe May’s well behind us and have ventured out on our own! No more pints, pints and more pints. Just Terry, Geoff, one pint, one glass, dinner and a quiet night ahead of us to reflect and ponder the ways of the world.

Anyway, when last we wrote we were in Westport and had just recovered 200 Euros. In addition to that experience, we also learned the following day that Lynne, after spending some quality time in the Porter House, had injured her tailbone she the taxi she was trying to get into moved. Just can’t trust those taxis. Sadly she was unable to accompany Terry, Martin and Geoff on their travels around the Connamara Loop – an absolutely fantastic road trip.

The day before we had visited the memorial of the “Ghost Ship”. It was a memorial to the thousands of people who had lost their lives as a result of the Great Famine of the 1840s. The memorial  (poorly photographed I know) is of skeletons lost at sea. It is truly an amazing piece of sculpture and very, very moving. If you look very very closely, you can make out the figures.

The photo above is of Croagh Patrick – which is dubbed “Ireland’s Holy Mountain”. On the last Sunday in July, thousands of pilgrims climb Croagh Patrick in honour of Saint Patrick who, according to tradition, fasted and prayed on the summit for forty days in the year 441. It has approximately the same vertical feet as the climb to Kilimanjaro’s base camp. It is a weird looking mountain, insofar as thee slate grey looks quite eerie to me. We wanted to climb it but the weather did not want to cooperate.

From there it was on to the Doolough Valley. It really was an spooky place.

What people can do to other people continues to amaze us.

On our three hour trip, we were never alone.

On the road we can across Aasleagh Falls – a more Bucolic, pristine, make me a jigsaw puzzle spot I never seen!

On our sojourn we can across this spectacular abbey – the Kylemore Abbey. This held a shake your head kind of thing. Just before we left home, a friend from Vancouver (Ed. note: You shall remain nameless, J.H.) told us that her sister had decided to become a nun – at the age of 64 – and had decided that she would join the Benedictine nuns at – wait for it – Kylemore. What a coincidence! Sadly, she couldn’t fulfill this dream because they wouldn’t let her dog live on the grounds. Who knew, you could could keep your worldly possessions as long as they didn’t include a dog and become a servant of God.

Upon our return to “civilization”, we entered the Super Valu parking lot in order to acquire wine for the evening meal (Ed. note: Thank you so much to Linn and Andrew for the hospitality and Andrew for the incredible seafood pasta dinner – it was spectacular!) and watched a woman park her car.

And here is the rest of the bag’s car.

Then we went in and

Okay off to bed – no shoe blog but way more to come folks now that “Lynne, Martin, Ann, Mal, Mary, Des, Valerie, Evelyn, Dermot, Annette, Noel, The Gladstone, The Snug and Joe May’s are well behind us and have ventured out on our own!”