Killary Lodge Leenane

... and saw a man and woman walking to their car from the end of a steep and narrow trail. John asked them if it was worth the walk, and they said it was if “you’re really into megalithic tombs.” We decided that we really weren’t into them that much. The couple asked where we were from, and when we told them, they said we had to go to Lavelle’s bar to see the sign that said, “Cleveland, 3300 miles”. We learned that Cleveland is ...

... up. All along the way we'd see Irish parents practically dunking their children in the stream and blessing them, much to the dismay of most of the kids but it kept us entertained for sure. Just being up on the mountain looking out over Ireland with sheep grazing all around felt right. I connected a little with the homeland when I was up there which was very cool. However we had things to do and see so we had to climb down, but I want to go ...

This morning we had a wonderful breakfast of Susan Daly’s French toast and chatted with the others in our breakfast room. We met people from Connecticut, Arizona, and California and had fun sharing our travel stories. Then it was time to get into our car and drive into the Burren.

The Burren is a very rocky area--some places have an almost moon-like quality. There is beauty to be found in it, though. Our first ...

2nd on our list was Turlough Park,

This was a place where we got to see how landlords lived in the 19th century while taxing their people into poverty. This one was a bit different than most English landlords because this house belonged to the Fitzgerald family who were Irish. They were removed by the english from their home in wexford Ireland where they held 70,000 acres of great land and moved to ...

... priests of this church have never stopped preaching. They would tell the king that they had shut it down, but every day they still held mass. When The church was in too poor shape to use they held mass in the fields. The priests even had to dress like women at times to go out and bless graves and such in public...now thats perseverance! It was a good first stop on our weekend journey

click on the pictures to view captions about them!

... credit cards for a quick lunch.
We continued on to our castle adventure.
When we finally arrived at Ashford Castle we were amazed at the beautiful setting the approach is a long drive through a forest, you cross a bridge and there it is, the castle. The service is definitely 5 star. The entire staff was there to make us comfortable and make sure our experience was beyond our expectations. And it was beyond our ...

My bag has been packed. And re-packed. And unpacked. And squished.
I've informed the hotel of my late arrival.
I've got (some) foreign cash.
My electrical batteries are charged.
My print outs are in a waterproof folder in a waterproof bag.


Agh!

... sight of the majestic landscape, we were glad to have made the trip here. Connemara consists of green, striking mountains, sheep that like to graze roadside (and sometimes chill in the road), very few people, and Ireland's only fjord (talk about a fun word to say...we've been using it as much as possible). Our hostel is situated on the fjord, literally in the middle of nowhere. It is humongous, although we have only ...

This past weekend I went on a hike with the mountaineering club to the Maanturk Mountains. The day started off with fog but once we arrived at the base of the 800 meter mountain it cleared. This place is one of my favorite places in Ireland. We started the hike through some ...

... of the hills on our right to the waterline on our left. There was next to no greenery in sight, no way for the barren and windswept terrain to be used to grow crops or for grazing livestock. That people were desperate enough to even try to farm here was real proof to me of the reality of the struggles and desperation to survive on the land during the potato famine.

We stopped for the night in Westport, the ...