Westport via Connemara

Thursday, 29 August 2019

I slept better than I thought I would in this OK room.  We all woke, got ready, packed, and were out of the room by 8:30 AM.  We took our bags to the car and went looking for breakfast.  We found a coffee shop and Tim and I had a full Irish breakfast (mine vegetarian) and Barbra had scrambled eggs and a scone.  For a chain looking coffee shop it was actually pretty good.

We returned to the car and started our drive north towards Westport.  The first town we stopped in was Cong whose claim to fame is that the John Wayne movie The Quiet Man was filmed.  There is even a statue commemorating the event: 

Also in Cong was the ruins of the Long Abbey built in the 1300's.  The grounds were very nice.

It is interesting that the monks built a stone house over the river.  The story is that they used it to fish through the floor, but I don't know if I buy that.  I think maybe they just liked to have the sound of the river under their feet when they were inside.

Further behind the abbey is this lush green forest...beautiful.

Back in the car and we continue towards the town of Leenane.  The guide book says to turn left for 8 kilometers to a bog.  The book says to get out and jump around on it.  We tried, but it was so wet from all the rain the past few days that it wasn't working.  We / I tried though.

Trying to jump in the bog

We then had to double back.  OK...maybe it wasn't worth driving 16 kilometers out of the way, but it was a beautiful drive.

We returned to Leenane and continued the drive.  We now drove along Killary Harbor.  Wow.

After the harbor we entered the Doo Lough Valley.  This is an area that saw a large percentage of the people die during the Great Famine.  There was a Famine Cross erected on the roadside to remember the victims.  Archbiship Desmond Tutu visited this site in 1991 just before ultimately ending apartheid in South Africa.

This is the view near the Famine Cross...beautiful!

We were getting hungry and caught ourselves eating cookies at the Famine Cross site...not too PC, so we got into the car and drove to the next town of Louisburg.  We decided to grab something quick and save the time and money for dinner tonight, so we popped into the next gas station and was able to put together a pretty good lunch.  The station even had a sitting area in the rear for eating.

Our last town today is the town of Murrisk.  This is where the trailhead for climbing Croagh Patrick is located.  I wish we had time to climb the mountain, but the guidebook says it would take 5 hours round trip and we just don't have the time, so a view from across the road has to do.  This is the mountain that St. Patrick supposedly rang his bell and drove all the snakes from Ireland.

Croagh Patrick

Also in town is this cool sculpture of a coffin ship.  The details are pretty spooky.

The road was too narrow to turn around, so I continued down it looking for a good spot for a u-turn and there was ruins of a church.

After walking the ruins, we continued on to our B&B in Westport.  We arrived just after 4 PM, so we relaxed a bit and watched TV before going into town around 6:30 PM.  Unlike many cities in Ireland, Westport was not built during the Middle Ages, it was planned and built in the 1700s.

One of this towns tourist draws is the pub Matt Molloy's.  Matt is a member of the band The Chieftains who have won many Grammy awards.

We tried to go in here after dinner (Wood-fired pizza), but it was too busy so we went across the street to a Gin and Whiskey bar.  Barb and I had a gin and tonic while Tim had a whiskey. We then walked back to our B&B.  Tomorrow we have a long drive to Londonderry (Northern Ireland), so we plan on getting an early start.  I better get to bed now since it is almost midnight.  Until tomorrow...

Oh...one more thing...Tim wanted me to post his flower photos he took today, so here they are: