Blogs from Sligo, County Sligo, Ireland, Europe

Ireland the North 2. Day 7. Sligo Another day of forgetfulness but not me today. One of our guys left his mini rucksack in the cafe in Ballysadare. This was not discovered until we got to Sligo and fortunately Bill was with his car and he slipped back to collect it. Another lady had a sore knee joint and rode in the car most of the way. Bravo Bill. The weather has been kind again today with a few showers, most of which we missed, and with sunny skies for a large part of the day. Following the coast to Easky we noticed a great number of houses and buildings abandoned and the replacements were very expensive looking. Ireland has some lovely thatched cottages, a number of which we saw today, along with some very colourful ... read more

Ireland Thursday June 2 Breakfast at 7.30 for an early start again as rain is forecast all day, but with a slight benefit of a tail wind for most of the day. Today we are heading for the Riverside Hotel in Sligo. Luckily the forecast changed a little with rain just in the afternoon so we had a morning with a tail wind and the occasional glimpse of sun. The coast road was undulating and quite pleasant looking out to sea with little islands just offshore in the Moy estuary. There were murals of sheep at a smallholding at the roadside. I stopped to take a photo and an old lady (actually younger than me) came out and offered us a cup of tea. Lovely people. We later had a very good coffee and piece of ... read more

Time for a piece on the West of Ireland. It seems to be a a general rule that people often take what they have for granted, in this case the culture and beautiful parts of their own country for granted. I remember one instance where I was in Medellin in Colombia and a German guy from my hostel remarked the Cliffs of Moher was one his favourite places in the world. It kind of startled me a little as Cliffs of Moher is only 2.5 hours from where I live in Ireland and yet I'd never been. Therefore myself and Mags decided in 2015 we would be heading Whest to explore the Wild Atlantic Way! SLIGO Sligo kind of accidentally ended up on the itinerary. We had intended to go to Mayo but when we heard ... read more

Hello! Today was a travel day. We left Galway this morning and headed to Sligo. We made one stop and that was at Kylemore Abbey. We got to see the Abbey, the Gothic church, and the garden. It was pretty cool. The Benedictine Nuns purchased the Abbey after Mr. Kylemore passed away and no one else wanted to maintain the grounds. They turned it into a boarding school. The school remained open until 2010 when they had to shut down due to structural reasons. In 1994 they began restoring the garden. They finished restoring it in 1999. It is gorgeous! After the garden we went to the Gothic church. There was suppose to be a choir but they did not show up. We waited for a little bit, then we went to the gift shop and ... read more

Dublin to Sligo We left Dublin, driving towards Boyle Abbey – a monastery founded in the 12th century by the local ruling family ‘The MacDermotts’. Although currently in ruins, it is being restored using interesting engineering techniques such as stone numbering to ensure each particular stone that comprises the Abbey is returned to its original position. The lush green Irish countryside rolled on and on, and we came across Tobernalt Holy Well where legend has it that Saint Patrick used this sacred area to bring the Christian God to a pagan people. We drove along the coastline near Mullaghmore Castle and stopped at Sligo for the evening. As we were planning to cross the border into Northern Ireland, we made sure we had pounds handy rather than Euro’s which is the currency of Southern Ireland. ... read more