Our Visit with Ellen - the West Coast

In the middle of our visit with Ellen Bonnell in Ireland, we headed off to the west coast for a couple of days in a rental car. This was a gut-wrenching adventure for all three of us because we had never driven on the left side before. Going in, you think the problem will be moving into the right lane and risking a head-on. When you actually get behind the wheel, that isn't the problem; instead you can't get used to your position at the right side of the lane, and you tend to drift left. But with two vocal passengers helping, we all got the hang of it. In any case, we never hit anything, and rolled into Galway for lunch.

After lunch, we headed for the scenic Cliffs of Moher, and promptly got very lost on a little country lane with rain coming down. After some incredibly good directions from two ladies standing under umbrellas, we finally got to the Cliffs. The rain let up a bit as we walked to the first observation point and we got to see the Cliffs. But before we could get the cameras out, fog rolled in. I found this picture online which pretty much looks like what we saw for a few minutes.

(from http://www.skibbereeneagle.ie)

That night in Galway we did a pub crawl for dinner and music. You can always find live music in Ireland. The next morning we headed for the Connemara district, known as where old Ireland lives on: cottages with thatched roofs, small plots of land divided by stone walls, and everyone is a redhead. It wasn't quite that way, especially on the drive west along the coast, where the road was lined with modern homes with roofs other than thatch. Turning inland, our objective was Kylemore Abbey, but (can you guess?) we got very lost.  We ended up at a small park with little pockets of beaches on a windswept coast.

We made friends with the locals...

...and small plots with stone walls were quite in evidence.

After our journey, we identified this locale as Bothar Gear. A small plaque in the park identified it as the location used for a movie we had never heard of, but whose claim to fame was it was the first film done entirely in the Irish language. Which may be the reason none of us had heard of it. 

We always say that life is a journey, not a destination, and we were glad we made a wrong turn and got to experience this wild, blustery little corner of Ireland. But eventually it was time to move on to Kylemore Abbey.

Originally built as a family estate by a wealthy Englishman in the Victorian Age, it was acquired by the Irish Benedictine Nuns in 1920. The Nuns ran a boarding school for girls until 2010. It is now open to tourists with the proceeds maintaining its historical heritage. After touring the castle itself, we walked along the lake to the chapel.

The other big attraction at Kylemore Abbey is the Victorian walled garden.

Our plans were to return to Dublin that evening, but after our wrong turn to unexpected delights and giving Kylemore Abbey its proper amount of time, it was getting late. We decided to see if we could find lodgings in any of the small towns on the Connemara road. We rolled into Oughterard, which we had never heard of before (and certainly could not pronounce), which was so quaint and cute that we just had to stay. There were rooms available at the Connemara Lake Hotel, and we prepared ourselves for sticker shock on the room prices. When quoted prices, we all kept our poker faces but exchanged quick glances that expressed our amazement at how inexpensive they were. Best of all, it was less than 50 meters to the local pub--one with a thatched roof!

At the risk of repeating ourselves ad nauseam, every night in Ireland we were in a pub with live music. Pub night in Oughterard was particularly unique: the music happened if the locals decided to bring their instruments and play--which they were welcome to do, and which they did the night we were there. Then, other patrons got up and sang. It was open-mike night, but live without the karaoke machine and without the mike. Bert, you would have loved it!