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Galway Cathedral
The Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St. Nicholas was our meeting point for the tour.We had reserved space on a full-day tour of Connemara. Turned out to be three of us in a minivan with tour guide Tony! We met him at the Cathedral, which was built in 1965 (just looks old).
First stop was Aughnanure Castle, built by the Fearsome O'Flahertys in the 16th century. Close to the shores of Lough Corrib, which was a bit closer at the time, it fell in and out of O'Flaherty hands until transferred to the Office of Public Works. We had a great guide show us around and explain what we were seeing. There was the tower house, surrounded by a wall and a moat and dry dock. A banquet hall was added later, off to the side, and there was another wall farther out, between the house and the lake. Another scary spiral staircase and sets of windows that were added later than the original building also. Aghnanure means 'field of the yews' and there was a very large one behind the house.
The John Wayne/Maureen O'Hara movie, The Quiet Man, was filmed in Connemara, in the town of Cong and surrounding area. We stopped at 'the bridge' and took pics. There's "John Wayne"
did xyz signs all over the place, apparently. Still quite popular. We had watched the movie again before heading over so had a bit of familiarity with what we were to see. The director, John Ford, was the son of John Augustine Feeney from nearby Spiddel.
The area is quite rugged and we drove around, seeing the Twelve Pins (mountains), lakes, and a fjord. Lots of sheep, including the black-faced Connemara sheep, a species of its own now. It was originally introduced because it could feed in the upper hills; it's coat is more wiry than wooly and is mainly used for blankets and rugs.
Kylemore Abbey was built in 1868 as a private residence by Mitchell Henry, a Manchester industrialist who proudly proclaimed that he was Irish. He and his wife bought the land and moved to Ireland after having visited during their honeymoon.His wife, Margaret, was of the Vaughan family, County Down. Unfortunately, Margaret was struck ill when travelling in Egypt and died there, at 45. Her youngest daughter was only two years old. She rests in a mausoleum on the grounds, along with her husband. In 1903, Mitchell sold the Castle to the Duke and
The moat
of sorts; the water was about 10 feet higher in the 1500s. Duchess (originally a Cincinatti-born heiress) of Manchester. They made renovations but the Duke gambled his way into 'insufficient funds to maintain the Kylemore estate'. In 1920, the estate was purchased by Benedictine nuns who had lost their convent in Ypres during WWI; they've been there ever since and are building a new convent near the Visitor Center. They ran a girls' school for years but now the main business is tourism.
We spent our time in the gardens. The Victorian Walled Gardens were developed as the castle was being built and includes a formal flower garden, greenhouses, the head gardener's house in the eastern part. Separated by hedges and herbaceous border, including a lovely stream, is the western part of the garden--vegetables, fruit trees, and herb garden. The hedges/border were included specifically to save guests from viewing the mundane edibles. It's a Heritage Garden, displaying only varieties from the Victorian era. The gardens had fallen into disrepair and were restored in the 1990s. What a job that would have been! The vegetables were just being set out when we visited but we could see the lay of the land.
Killary Harbor is Ireland's only fjord. It extends 10
miles in from the Atlantic and as we drove along, we saw tour boats and mussel farms as well as more gorgeous scenery.
Clifden, 'the capital of Connemara' because it's the biggest town in the region. It was founded in the 19th century by John D'Arcy who had inherited the estate when it was mostly fishermen and farmers. He wanted to establish a town on the coast and he did, although it took a while and was interrupted by the famine. By the time he died (1839), the town was pretty much established. Marconi built his first high power transatlantic long wave wireless telegraphy station four miles south of the town. Many things in town are now named after Marconi. In 1919, the first non-stop transatlantic flight by Alcock and Brown crash landed near Marconi's wireless station. Alcock apparently thought the bog was a meadow where he could land. There's a statue in the town center of the two and the landing site has a monument. There had been a railroad line directly out from Galway which Tony said was quite popular but it was closed and torn up in 1935. It's a tourist destination.
Generally, Connemera is
known as Joyce Land (not because of James Joyce) because there are a lot of Joyces in the area. At one bend in the road, there was a souvenir shop that was having trouble getting people to stop (Joyce's Craft Shop). So, they commissioned a statue of a giant and had a sign installed directing people to The Connemara Giant, Late 20th c. antiquity. The plaque states that is was placed there 'for no apparent reason'. people park, look at the statue and (hopefully often enough) go in to the Craft Shop.
Tony very nicely asked where we'd like to be let off. The third of our group, a 74-year old honeymooner whose husband was unwell that morning was staying in the Latin Quarter and we needed dinner so we were dropped at the Spanish Arch and walked up Quay Street. We stopped at Feeney's Bar for a beer and chatted with a young man who recommended a few good places nearby. We ended up at Kings Head for a great dinner and then walked on home, exhausted but ready to go to Inismore tomorrow.
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