Ireland- Day 3

Sunday, Jan. 24th


We attended the Limerick branch sacrament meeting at 11am. Then we took our sack lunches and headed up north to Cong and Galway. We intended to use most of the day as a "Sunday drive".

Our first stop was Ashford Castle in Cong, County Mayo. This was the largest castle we stopped at. It was built in 1228, but was turned into a hotel in 1939. Only those staying at the hotel can go inside, but the grounds were vast and so beautiful. This was pretty high on my favorites list.


This is a shot from behind the castle. It doesn't do it justice.




This is a view of the castle through the trees. There was a path through the heavily wooded grounds that you could walk around. It was perfect for a nice Sunday walk. I think the temperature was perfect as long as you were wearing a coat and gloves. Ben was freezing though and got bored pretty quick. Mnisa and I were perfectly content to casually stroll and just look at all of the fauna around us.


This was looking back through a cute arbor that we walked through. I can just imagine how awesome it would look in the summer when it is all green and probably flowering. I just loved this shot though.



This is Eric standing in front of Squire Danaghers Home from "The Quiet Man", a John Wayne movie filmed in Ireland. This home was actually only half of the full building and we walked past it on our walk.

This was a guard tower you walked through to get onto the grounds. You could go up through on side of it and look out over the river that goes under the bridge, just past the gate.


Here are: a stranger( that kindly smiled for our photo), Mnisa, Jayme and Ben from the top of the guard tower.




Next we went to Cong Abbey. It was really neat.


It was just ruins, but had many graves around and inside of it. There was even a headstone as recent as the 1970s. I wondered who you had to be to be able to be buried in such a place. There was some beautiful stone carving that could still be seen in places. (I will add the pictures later).

















This also had a little path to walk around and there was "The Monk's Fishing Hut" that we saw too. Mnisa got much better pictures than I did, which I will put on here when she shares them :) I am a horrible photographer, in that I never remember to take pictures of my favorite things, because I am to captivated by them.

This hut was right on the river and diverted the water directly under it, so that fishing could be done through the floor. There is a fireplace there to the left of Ben (peeking through a window from a narrow ledge outside the hut).







Here Ben and Mnisa are coming back from walking the ledge outside the hut. Ben is standing on the part the diverted the water under the hut.

Dinner that night was at a Lohan's in Salthill on the coast, near Galway. Galway was rather disappointing. It was too "urban". I had crab claws, Ben had prawns, Eric had bangers and mash and Mnisa had chicken strips. We all liked it except Mnisa. I guess that's what she gets for ordering chicken strips in Ireland! (Just teasing Mnisa) Ben also had a non-alcoholic beer. I don't think he will ever do that again.