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Published: August 30th 2007
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Developers have moved in!!!
Alan and Margaret reminiscing at Groomsport, they're holiday caravan site each summer when kids was just over Margaret's left shoulder. Sligo or Sleagch home to W.B. Yeats, where the Atlantic washes onto beautiful beaches, Hidden Castles teetering on sparkling Loughs, Great Seafood, interesting Seafaring history still being made today and much much more. We were so glad we took up Margaret and Dave’s invitation to join them on the West Coast of Ireland at Rosses Point. We managed to catch a bus over, it took about four hours as the bus detoured into a lot of little villages on the way. The driver was a bit of a cowboy, accelerating around hairy bends. Even though it was an express bus like a Greyhound, lots of locals were hopping off and on at little villages as it appeared their regular bus driver decided to take a day off and by the chat and banter it was a regular occurrence. So we were stopping at little country lanes to drop off the locals who had been down the road to the village for shopping. As we crossed the border into the South, it was fun listening to the chatter and the change in the accent from the folks in Nth Ireland. They speak so much faster in the South. But the locals are
Monastic Site
Out and about with Stan to visit this lovely Lough Sth East of Belfast. Old abbey on beautiful Stangford Lough. very friendly and welcoming.
Dave and Margaret picked us up at Sligo and it was back to their Caravan for a yummy prawn sandwich for lunch. Their caravan was parked on the edge of a grassy knoll that overlooks the sea at Rosses Point. The first day they took us north on a bit of a discovery tour to Yeats grave, the Nobel prize winning irish Poet, then onto the little boat harbour where the Queens cousin Lord Mountbatten, his grandchild and local boatman became victims of the troubles when the IRA blew up his boat as he motored out of the harbour. It was hard to imagine this violent act as we sat and enjoyed our Guinness and watched the activity in the harbour. Dave cooked up a Storm on the BBQ that night. The next day we headed down to the sailing club, as there were heaps of lovely little Mirror class sailing boats all with bright red sails heading out to compete in some national event. The locals at the yacht club let us join them for some morning tea, giant scones with jam and cream, (thanks Margaret for asking). We headed down the south side visiting
Nendrum Monastic Site
600ad life on the Strangford Lough must have been great seafood in Abundance with lots of bird life. The Vikings used to charge up here destroying the peace. Gill’s Lough and stopping to take in a tour of Parkes Castle. It used to be an old castle belonging to the O’Rourke Clan dating back hundreds of years but they foolishly helped out someone from the Spanish Armada so Queen Liz the 1st sent Cromwell over, the end result being the O’Rourke’s lost the lot and the land and castle were handed over to the Parkes for services rendered (a common enough story in Ireland). The old Castle was then destroyed a new one built around 1600 and it still stands today with the help of some restoration. It’s in good nick though and I have taken some photos of the carpentry for you Dad. We had many stops around the Lough where Dave set up picnics of chips and Alcoholic refreshments. We made our way back to the caravan park taking in different sights along the way. One sight that left it’s mark was a huge field that is a memorial to the Potato Famine apparently about a 1000 people were buried there in a mass grave. Both Dads’ family the Herlihy’s and Mum’s the Carey’s left Ireland around the time of the last Famine of 1849. We
visited a great pub with lots of seafaring history and memorabilia that’s been collected over the years. They also had great fish tanks with some unusual varieties of fish one tank was our table, a deep well with an old port hole on top which you could look through to see the fish in the bottom. As the locals were so friendly and raved about the Indian Chef we returned to the Yacht Club for Tea. I’ve put a photo on the blogg of the sailing boats for Trish and Jim. We are now back at Stan’s for a few days finishing off some odd jobs before we take off. Spoke to Michelle and Iz last night and they are really enjoying Europe and their tour. They’ve managed to get some more blogs posted. Hope all’s well in Oz, thanks for emails, take care all Love Francie.
Ps. Well done Francie, couldn't do it any better(from the editor Alan)
PPs We got the rugby tickets, here we go, here we go, here we go.
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Michelle
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Nice Photos
Great pics mum...don't have any time to write much...off to a Flamenco evening with tapas and salsa. Having a ball (still). You will love Europe. Hope Laura and Marsh arrived ok. Talk to you soon, maybe from Madrid! xoxoxoxox