Ashford Castle - Connemara - Clonmacnoise

I had to save this for a separate blog. Ashford Castle…..Jim always says I think I’m a princess, but I surely am during this stay at the Castle. Not only is the castle beautiful, and are the grounds gorgeous, with hidden gardens everywhere and a lake that has swans swimming along the banks, but the castle is outside the town of Cong (the place where the “Quiet Man” with John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara) was shot. Every “Boomer” should see this place. We checked in and had drinks in the drawing room next to a stone fireplace decked with the coat of arms of the Castle. Our room looked out over the lake which was beautiful. Unfortunately they had turned off the air conditioner for the season, much to Jim’s dismay and unhappiness. We met another American group of 2 couples and compared plans and recommendations for the next day. (In general, we ran into LOTS of Americans on this trip) The next morning, we visited the “Quiet Man” museum to see the props and sets from the movie. The concierge at the hotel had recommended that we drive the Connemarra area out to the coast and back. So we drove the ring route to Clifden on the coast, through the Connemarra district loaded with lakes and rolling hills. On the way we stopped at Kilemore Abbey. Beautiful, but we recommend you look at the outside only, because it was way too expensive for what they allow you to see on the inside. It is an active Abbey, so you can only see a very few public rooms. Not very interesting. Fortunately, while the weather was drizzly , it finally broke into blue skies and patches of low clouds after noon. We stopped at E.J. Kings in Clifden as suggested by our concierge and enjoyed the old pub atmosphere and excellent smoked salmon sandwiches. On the way back, we stopped at Burkes in Clonbur where we had a lovely chat with the Scots bartender about Egypt and living in the country. It was a really great small town Irish Pub. Jim is getting quite good at driving on the left. No major problems. We love the round-abouts. They are actually easier to navigate than American intersections. Finally we arrived back at the hotel where we had a very upscale (coats and ties only for men) dinner in the George V restaurant. Very nice, but a little on the expensive side. On that note, I must mention that I’m still miffed that in a hotel (Ashford Castle) where we were paying top dollar for a suite on the lake view, the internet was a mess. After several visits from the staff, they finally got us up and running. As it turns out, we had the ONLY suite in the castle that had only one internet line and it was broken, so they had to use the one for the TV in the sitting room. Go figure……. Even with the minor grievances though, we had a great time. Our last day at the castle, we walked to Cong to visit the the Cong Abbey. The ruins were stunning as usual. We really got a kick out of looking at the props from the movie and visiting the Pat Cohan bar up the street where all the pub scenes for the movie were shot. It was never really a pub until 2008. It is a little too new looking for my taste, but the proprietors are friendly and it was still fun. Shopping in Cong was fun also since the stores are small and the owners local, so we had many chats about the economy and life in general. On our way back to the castle, as if it need to perform one more joke, “Garmen” our GPS decided to take us on one of the narrowest roads so far. Even though the roads may be two way, many of Irelands roads are wide enough for only one car. Jim sweated it out one more time to get us safely back to the hotel. I just laugh because the odds of a second car on some of these roads seem really remote to me (and I’m not driving!). After dinner in the castle “dungeon”, we had one more look out the lounge windows at the sun setting on the castle grounds and headed up to bed. The next morning we were heading back to Dublin.

The next morning, we headed out to Dublin taking major roads (the “M” and “N” motorways) for once and making some really good time. We only made one stop, but it was really beautiful. Clonmacoise monastic settlement. Begun by St. Cieran, it was the burial place of many of the high kings of Ireland. Said to be the burial place of Rory O’Connor, the last high king of Ireland. We were really interested to see that the preservationists were at work on the small chapel that contained the burial place of St. Cieran. Finally we arrived at the airport to turn in our car with not too many problems other than I lost my cell phone which was really annoying and will be expensive when I have to pay for it. Lesson to be learned….get insurance on your rental phone if possible. One more day in Dublin tomorrow. The plan is to visit the National Museum (the branch with the Celtic relics) to see the many items recovered at the sites we have seen over the last two weeks.

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