Ramada Manor House Ballina

<br><br>We watched the clouds gradually lift off Lough Swilly (I just love saying that name!) before we went down to breakfast. We dined alone this morning--I guess the young couple&#8217;s hike did them in.<br><br>After saying good-bye to Marie, we headed north. We stopped just outside the town of Carndonagh to see the Carndonagh Cross. It and its accompanying pillars are all that remain from a monastery founded by St. Patrick in the seventh century. The markings ...

3rd stop Croagh Patrick,<br><br>The mountain of Croagh Patrick is supposed to be where St. Patrick climbed and fasted for 40 days and 40 nights like Jesus. There is a church on the summit and hundreds of people a day climb to its peak. It has become a pilgramige to the people of Ireland and it is an especially big ordeal to the people in Mayo. Every year on one day in July about 30,000 people climb to its summit! Many of these people do it in ...

... and given 7,000 acres. Still a lot, but not nearly as much or as good of land as they had. The Inside was furnished as it would have been in the 1900's (we werent allowed to take pictures inside) and got to see how the landlord would conduct business with his tenants...by hiding behind a secret bookcase and having an agent do everything! The grounds were absolutely beautiful too. There is a large lake ...

... 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<br> <br> click on the pictures to view captions about them!

... mistress of the house threw the menu down to the staff from a balcony above so that she did not have to step foot into the kitchen....wow...now i know how im going to remodel the kitchen,,,,all for now please read and tell your friends about this great travel blog so we can get some advertisers to sponsor for clothes for our poor shoeless father.....love you all....Sister Carolyn.<br><br>Nothing from Sister Leigh tonight - he's in bed in his really dirty clothes.

... 200.00 a person and that is for the cheap rooms without views. We didn't go inside but the grounds were beautiful. It has lots of gardens, a river and a lake surrounding it. If you are coming to Ireland for a special occasion consider staying at this sweet castle.<br><br>In Westport we checked into our great B&amp;B. It's no castle but it is right downtown and there was even a music festival going on about half a block ...

... scaled the fence and went down by the lake.<br><br>We backtracked a bit to the Gleniff Horseshoe and were glad we did. The scenery is spectacular. About halfway round there is a car park and mill, although the mill seems to be just foundation. But there are paths all through the woods and a lovely little stream with miniature waterfalls. And there was one ...

... two dozen photos as it was an incredible sight, however the few I've put into this blog do not do it justice and you need to see this place for yourself to feel and breathe the history that surrounds you. Reluctantly after an hour we get on our way as we still have a long way to go, and we have been told that the climb up and down Croagh Patrick can take 4-5 hours depending on conditions and our fitness. We next pass through the town of Shrule which is a quaint ...

... attempt to find a park to eat our lunch, this time in Galway, we continued on northwards through the Connemarra Mountains. Of all the Irish landscapes we had taken in on this road-trip, the coastline of County Mayo was to me at once the most dramatic and pathetic. In parts the countryside solely comprised of fields of grey rocks, each one fenced by dry walls built from same kind of rock, running right down from the ...

... was officially over. Yet she was very helpful and talkative. She told us about the local history, the centre and the cultural sites with a pained look of anxiety, as if the government was to soon flatten it all to make way for a giant retirement village catering for elderly Dutch folk. Mayo suffered badly in the famine of 1845-51. Massive forced emigration which continues today ...