Mostly Beaches

The day after visiting Ashford Castle and Cong Abbey, we drove out to Achill Island for a couple of days.  We stayed at an adorable B&B called Murrayville, owned by Brendan and Eileen Murray, which faced Achill Sound.  Our first day there we went to Keel Beach, which may be the most beautiful place I have ever seen.  My photos don't really do it justice, and the weather was changing pretty drastically by the minute, but it's really phenomenal.  We chatted with two guys from Dublin who have a place on Achill and come out to wind surf.  After some time on the beach, it was too foggy to drive much farther, so we headed back to Achill Sound, and went to the local pub and the local restaurant for dinner.

Our second day on Achill Island, we drove to Dooagh Beach, and then to Keem Bay, both of which are also exceptionally beautiful beaches (see photos!).  After the beaches, we went to a deserted village on the island, which is near the current village of Dugort.  The village was abandoned during the famine, around 1845, and the houses were all built with unmortared stone, but there are still visible remnants of at least 80 homes.  It is pretty eerie to walk through, though slightly less so because the area is still used for sheep grazing, and there were several sheep around as we walked through.

After seeing all that, we drove all the way back to Mount Bellew for the night.

Mostly Photos

Okay, now that we're back, I've got some time to put a few words down here.  Picking up where the last post left off, after our second day in Cork city, we hopped on a bus back up to Galway to meet back up with Sandy.  She picked us up, and we drove out to Ashford Castle, which is right on the border of County Galway and County Mayo.  It's been restored into a five-star hotel, and we were able to take a nice long stroll around the grounds, which includes a FALCONRY SCHOOL.  After checking out Ashford Castle, we went to the nearby village of Cong, stopped into a nice little restaurant (Pat Cohan's) for dinner, and then got to see Cong Abbey, which was originally built in the 7th century.  There's a neat history here.  After Ashford Castle and Cong Abbey, we went back to Mount Bellew for the night.

Mostly Sheep

To follow up where the last post left off...

On our second day on Valentia Island, we braved the weather (lots of wind, lots of...mist?) and took a little hike to the south-western edge of the island to see Bray Tower.  The walk was mostly a mystery of green and fog with some sheep spattered around us, but the whole time we were walking along a high cliff above the ocean.  Bray Tower kind of snuck up on us, because we couldn't see much more than 30 feet in front of us, but it's beautiful and incredibly lonely out there on the edge of the island all by itself.  See the photos below!  Along with the hike we managed to grab lunch at the only hotel on the island in the village of Knights Town, and take a little stroll around another nearby village of Portmagee.  Portmagee is where the Skellig excursions are based, so there is a whole bunch of Star Wars hoopla now that people know part of the most recent movie was filmed on Skellig.  By a whole bunch I mean there are a few t-shirts for sale, and a couple of photos of Mark Hamill.

On Thursday morning we drove from Valentia to Cork city, and stopped by Blarney on our way.  The castle is really beautiful, but our walk around the grounds was just as enjoyable.  There are nine giant standing stones from the druids, and a full poison garden!

In Cork we stayed in an honest-to-god treehouse.  It's wired and plumbed, wedged between three big trees on top of a hill, and has an incredible view of the entire city below.  The owner even sent up a basket of warm croissants in the morning on the pulley!  Highly recommend.

Our second day in Cork was mostly spent walking around the main part of the city, drinking coffee, and people watching.  We managed to grab a pint at the oldest pub in Cork (Mutton Lane), some great fish and chips (at The Fish Wife), and found a neat record store called The Bunker.

Enjoy the photos below!

Mostly Stone

The past couple of days have been incredibly relaxing.  On Monday, Sandy took Eddie and I on a little lunch-time boat cruise around Galway.  It was all calm water, horses, castles, and a pretty amazing narration played out over the sound system.  It was as if an Irish Bob Ross were narrating an episode of Downton Abbey.  We had a delicious dinner at Nimmo's, whose address is actually:
Spanish Arch
Long Walk
Galway
Postal codes are for suckers.

We spent Monday night in an Air BnB called "The Zen Den," which is exactly as cheesy as it sounds, but had a great view of Galway city.  Tuesday morning, we hopped in a car, and I managed to drive us all the way from Galway to Valentia Island (about a four hour drive) without killing us or running anything over.  This success was also largely due to Eddie's A+ navigating.  Our cottage on Valentia Island is, appropriately remote and surrounded by fields of sheep.  Fun fact: many of them have been painted with splotches of pink or blue.  Who knows why, but I like to think it's a secret code.  Thanks to the extra long day, we spent last night venturing out to a lighthouse on the far side of the island, where we caught a beautiful sunset, and, well, a lot of the Atlantic Ocean.

Below are some photos from the past couple of days.  Starting on Sandy's road in Mount Bellew (including one shot of Castle French, which is a ten minute walk down the road from her), a few from the boat cruise, and ending at the Valentia Island Lighthouse.

Mostly Green

Welp, we made it to Ireland!  Sandy was nice enough to pick us up at the airport and drive us all the way across the country (feels weird to say that...) to Galway to see some friends of hers play at a fundraising event.  We had a great time watching them, eating ice cream, and laughing at small children eating ice cream.  Afterward we had a nice stroll through Galway city, ate some great dumplings for dinner, and ended the night at Sandy's adorable farm house in Mount Bellew.  We also got to meet her lil dog Molly, who is very nervous but really likes barking at the wind.  Excellent protector.  Today we went to the movies, and then went to the oldest bar in all of Europe.  That bar happens to be right across the street from a millenia-old castle, both of which are right in the middle of town.  Totally normal, nothing to see here.  I've taken a boat load of photos already, but there's some highlights below.