On the Road to Galway

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We are back in Corbally for our last night before we leave for Dingle tomorrow morning. We had a lovely weekend in Galway with the Nolan family. I don’t have time right now to write about the whole weekend, but I will try to provide a rundown of Friday, when we drove to and arrived in Galway.

Friday, July 3-Trip to Galway

After Dean did his pool routine, we were on our way to Galway. We stopped in Ennis to see 13th century Franciscan friary. Quite a few of the walls were still almost intact, and they had done some restoration. Until the 1970s, it had been an open site, so the locals actually used it as a quarry. Many Ennis homes no doubt have a piece of the friary in their walls or rock garden.
We ate lunch at a pub named Brogan’s. We then visited the Clare museum, which outlined the history of Clare, much having to do with the O’Brien family. So much history…. It is amazing how OLD everything is here.
After leaving the museum, we had a few hours before we were to meet our hosts in Moycullen. It was too long of a drive to go to Connemara National Park, so we drove north of Galway to the Ashford Castle and Cong Abbey. The castle is now a resort and golf club, but we were allowed to drive in and view the building from a distance. For a fee, you can walk the grounds, but to see the interior, you must be a guest. We didn’t ask what the room rates were! We knew it was the sort of place where if one had to ask, one could not afford it!
Cong Abbey was the most beautiful place, the path through the woods leads down to a lake where the monks used to fish, a stone bridge spans the river, and a small “fish house” sits out in the lake. The monks would drop a net through a hole in the floor to catch their meal. The ruins of the Abbey itself are partially intact, and many headstones and graves are enclosed within its walls.
We could have spent hours there, but the time was getting late. Fortunately, many of the roads around Galway are wider and resemble minor highway, so the driving was much easier than it had been on the Burren. The only problem was that we kept losing our GPS signal; so coming in to Moycullen from a different direction than we had originally planned made life interesting.
Liz and Joe Nolan and their family were ready to greet us, and Joe had prepared a traditional Irish gluten-free meal- vegetarian and beef curry! Both were delicious, and they promised to give me the recipe so we can have it back home. After dinner, we went to Regan’s pub to see Joe and his friend play in a session. Joe was playing his tenor guitar. It has four strings only, and a really great sound. It added so much to the music. His other friends joined in on fiddle, banjo, flute, and accordion. It was quite lively, and the pub was packed.
We met a friend of Liz who had brought a guest from New Zealand who was volunteering with the nuns at the Kylemore Abbey, a beautiful building on a lake near Connemara, that we hoped to see the next day. After several sets, the musicians were still going strong, but we were fading. We went home with Liz and headed to bed. Three of the Nolan children- Michael, Marcus, and Jessie, had been good enough to loan us their rooms. They were bunking either at a friend's or in Liz's studio building out in back. After such a busy day, we had a grand night's sleep. Saturday and Sunday were very full, so more later.

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Comments

[Barbara erp]

You certainly are having a wonderful trip. I hope you are taking lots of pictures. I hope you're having better weather than the folks from Dublin had. I also hope they weren't bent on spending most of their time on the beach. If so, they were dissapointed. I imagine they found something they could do indoors. I felt bad for them. We had good weather Sat. and Sun. It was Harry's birthday and all the kids came down for a cookout. It really was a perfect day for that. Well, stay safe, and have more fun. Love Barbara