Connemara

Haven't had any internet connectivity at either of our last two places...in both Connemara and Donegal. The cottages we rented were just too remote, so I'm way behind on this thing and will try to catch up by just letting the photos do the talking for us. First - from the little village of Clifden in Connemara...about 30 miles west of Galway:

Our house was situated on a perch just above Sky Road, an unbelievably scenic drive around one of the local peninsulas. Had a couple of real stormy days while we were here and it was mesmerizing watching the wind and rain blow up the bay .. with a warming peat fire blazing away in the fireplace.

The view wasn't bad on sunny days either.

We were only a few miles from Connemara National Park, which featured some terrific hikes thru some gorgeous scenery.

An old abbey nearby - built by an English lord in the early 1800's and now a girl's boarding school.

The village of Cong was the set of an old John Wayne movie from the 50's called "The Quiet Man". The town and surrounding area still look like a movie set.

This old fish house allowed the monks from the adjacent abbey to snag salmon from the river without having to brave the elements.

This Guinness beer truck was actually longer than the pub that he was resupplying...talk about having your priorities straight. Note too that he just parked in the middle of the road to make his delivery - something we've found is pretty typical while driving around Ireland.

Another pleasant side trip one day was up to Doolough. Although the setting is beautiful - evoking a scene from the Scottish Highlands, it was the setting for a particularly sad episode from the Great Famine: in 1849 about 2,000 local people trekked through this pass for about 10 miles to the home of a local lord, where several English relief commissioners were staying while touring the district. The people were hoping to get some food for their starving families. Story is that the commissioners refused to meet with them the evening they arrived, forcing them to remain overnight, in a freezing rain, in the surrounding fields, only to sent them away empty handed the next morning. The disappointed people started the return trip home...400 of them dropping dead along the trail from hunger and exposure. 

On one particularly sunny day we caught the local passenger ferry out to Inishbofin (island of the white cow). The ruins across the way are all that remain of a Cromwellian barracks, built around 1650 to house a garrison of English troops whose job it was to guard all of the Catholic priests who had been captured and were brought here after his invasion.

There were some great walks around the island, including this one along an old Green Road. The grazing sheep had trimmed the grass better than a mower could have done...it was like walking on a golf course fairway all the way around - easy on the legs as well as being pleasing to the eye.

A stop along the way to enjoy the view. Just below me are the remains of some old "lazy beds" - the characteristic layout of an old potato field. Hard to tell how old this one was but it looked ancient to us.

A little further along the trail.

Even passed an expanse of peat bog still being harvested for the turf that everyone uses to heat their cottages. Some of the bogs are 10 or 20 feet deep and are composed exclusively of organic matter that's been decomposing for thousands of years. Every now and then they'll turn up an old cache of valuables, and have even found mummified human remains...perfectly preserved in a anaerobic conditions of the bog. 

The end point of the hike was this 1500 year old church. Actually the real end point was a pub near the pier waiting for the return ferry, but I thought it best to end the posting here.