Day 9&10 - Wild County Galway and Mayo

Day 9 - off to rural Ireland on the west coast

New windshield wipers installed on the rented Ford and ready to strike out for Cong.  That's right Pilgrim ... we're heading into John Wayne and Maureen O'Sullivan territory where the John Ford movie, "The Quiet Man" was filmed.  First stop - Ashford Castle currently a Michelin 5-star world hotel, but formerly home to the Guinness Family.  Couldn't exactly afford to stay here, but the grounds were awesome overlooking the best salmon fishing in all of Ireland.  Diane spotted the helicopter landing pad for the castle - fairly near to the drawbridge.  55,000 acres with a 10' stone wall around the entire place.  Diane sat at the desk to sign the guest registry and was so nervous about who had preceded her that she wrote in the comment section, "Swanky / goregous"  Her spelling, not mine - no spellcheck in a castle registry book and didn't want to scratch out her mistake.  Her comment, "What if I was famous and someone reads that?  How embarrassing."  Picture in the lobby of some pretty important US-types ... Presidents G. Ford, Reagan, Carter, Bush, Sr., and Nixon.

Stopped second at Cong Abbey to check out what's still standing from the early 1100AD - actually, quite a bit!  Then off to Pat Cohen's pub immortalized in the movie and still serving a great pint and lots of talk.  Half of what the guy next to me said, I couldn't understand on the first attempt, but eventually got it.  Igot! (me, not him)

Then it's into the car and off for the wilds of Co. Mayo - rural Ireland at it's best.  Third stop, Croagh Patrick, the mountain home of St. Patrick for 40 days/40 nights where he decided to run off the snakes from Ireland.  Folks climb the thing ... three hours to the top, two hours down.  Some come down from the top on stretchers.  (I figured I've already seen enough of Irish health care to try it again).  Then directly across the street to see the beautiful and haunting National Famine Memorial.  A bronze, land-locked depiction of one of the horrible "Coffin Ships" that took starving immigrants off the island of Ireland.  Barely seaworthy, many on board either died on the 6-8 week sailing trip, or shortly after landing due to illness.  Around the masts, skeletons swirl, dip, and rotate...very moving.  And especially when the artist asks why today's rich nations continue to allow starvation elsewhere in our current world.  

Off to find a B&B in Westport for the night!

Day 10- Departing Westport, Co. 

And we're off again.  Rain, mountains, rain, sun, rain, cows, bikers, sheep, rain, sun, lambs, rain, HUGE tour buses (mom...Mom...MOM!).  What fun!  Dropped down into the gorgeous Doo Lough (Black Lake) pass with a dozen mountain-fed waterfalls and streams on both sides.  Photo op with cute baby lambs ("Ah Diane, that mother sheep is looking really pissed - I'd leave that lamb alone.")  Diane realized that horns means she could be "butting" practice for the sheep dad...she backed off.  The views are spectacular - but two point of view:  First, the recent filming of "Leap Year" with a scene where her suitcase is stolen while she walks down a road to a beautiful lake.  Second point of view:  That lake is Doo Lough which has a small cross memorial by the side of the road quoting Guandi.  It it there to mark the sad walk of 600 starving Irish from Louisburg to Delphi to obtain food from their landlord during the potato famine.  They were turned away.  200 of them died on the way back on that very road.  Do ghosts talk?  Was that an appropriate place for a US film crew?  It's up to the viewer to decide.

Driving through the Connemara National Park, Diane got to see peat bogs and recently cut blocks drying scattered near the roadside.  We decided not to "slog in a bog" as it was already wet enough for our taste.    A quick view of Kylemore Abbey which is now an exclusive girls boarding school, and into Clifden for lunch.  The remainder of the day will be in the Connemara - wild Ireland - looking at lakes, peat fields, and spray-painted sheep:  blue, green, red - to tell who owns them.  They have black faces and legs, and white wool coats with spray paint.  Diane wanted to know if it stained them, and she then commented that her "brand" spray would be a green shamrock instead of a blob of spray paint.  Ever the fashionesta.