An Irish Journey - Part The Second

On Thursday we drove up to The Burren again with a special purpose in mind. My friend had brought her husband's ashes with her from America to fulfil his wish that they be scattered in Ireland. After a special commemorative lunch in Ballyvaughan we drove to Poulnabrone, an ancient portal tomb dating from about 2500BC. When the site was excavated in 1985 they found sixteen burials here both adults and children - the name Poulnabrone means 'hole of sorrows'. It stands in a field beside the road from Ballyvaughan to Corrofin and it had seemed the perfect place until we got there and discovered that what had once had been a quiet and peaceful place was now thronged with people! It was decided that we needed a Plan B!

We drove on, still with the occasional stop to admire the scenery, I love this stone wall with a squeeze style leading into the field.

Finally we found a beautiful place for H to rest, O'Heyne's Church which is part of the monastery of Kilmacduagh founded in the 7th century by St Colman Mac Duagh. This building dates back to the early 1200s and is really lovely inside though there are no photos of this for obvious reasons. We held a short ceremony and after C had scattered H's ashes I read an ancient Irish Blessing very appropriate for both the place and the moment.

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and the rain fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

We looked around the rest of the site before going down to O'Heyne's Church,above is the ruin of the Oratory of St John which dates back to the 10th century.

The round tower is also 10th century and it isn't my photograph that isn't quite straight - the tower actually leans two feet from the vertical! It served as a belfry, a treasure house, a watch tower and a place of refuge for the monks from Viking and other raiders.

Here we have the ruin of Kilmacduagh Cathedral with the round tower beside it. Notice where the doorway of the tower is, it stands 26 feet above ground level. In times of trouble the monks scrambled up a wooden ladder and then drew it up after them leaving the would be raiders with something of a problem:)
I think there must be a good deal of archaeology under the grass and the gravestones as there is no sign above ground of the refectory and dormitory buildings nor of any cloisters.

When I was reading about Kilmacduagh later I discovered that St Colman is actually buried there and a certain amount of investigation leads me to believe that I took a rather poor photograph of his grave without realising what it was! I'm not absolutely certain so am open to correction if anyone knows better.

On Friday morning we headed for Connemara stopping on the way at the 16th century tower house of Aughnamure in Co Galway. It stands six storeys high and would originally have been surrounded by an inner and an outer wall though most of the inner one is gone now. Apparently this area was the territory of the O'Flaherty clan - one of my aunts was a Flaherty, I wonder whether there's a connection:)

The interior was less than riveting I'm afraid, this is the huge fireplace in the third floor room where the family members would have spent their days.

On the outer wall of the castle is the ruin of what was once a thatched banqueting hall where guests would retire to drink sweet spiced wine and eat sweetmeats after the main meal.There are two remaining windows with lovely stone carvings on the arches.

The rest of the day we drove round Connemara stopping twice to take photos, this is somewhere in Connemara.......

.....and this is somewhere else in Connemara. Where exactly we were I have no idea! As you can see the weather wasn't that great but the scenery was beautiful.

Back in Galway we finally stopped at Kylemore Abbey which apparently has a wonderful walled garden and a very good pottery. Unfortunately we arrived too late to see either and anyway it was pouring with rain!

Final day of the trip and an early start - we're off to do the Ring of Kerry.C and I at a view point along the way - it may be Caherdaniel or it may not. It really bothers me that the whole of this trip I spent most of the time not knowing quite where I was or what I was looking at! It isn't the way I usually travel.

This is Valentia Island where we finally stopped for a late lunch, if I'd known how long it was going to be before I got my next meal I'd have had something more substantial than soup and a roll!! This is the western most point in Ireland - next stop America.(Edited to add that apparently it isn't the western most point! A Heron's View lives in Ireland and tells me that this is actually on the Dingle Peninsula - must check facts more carefully!!) The first ever transatlantic cable was installed here in 1857 connecting Valentia Island to Newfoundland and the first telegram was sent by Queen Victoria to US President James Buchanan in August 1858. There's a Heritage Centre called The Skellig Experience on the island but sadly we weren't there long enough to visit it.

There's a nice little harbour and a car ferry runs across to Portmagee on the mainland although we used the road bridge.

The village of Portmagee, I love all the pretty coloured houses, it would have been nice to have a little wander round there. However we were off again to do the Ring of Skellig which is a superb drive along steep narrow, winding roads that follow the coast.

We stopped once at Bolus Head from where you can see the two Skelligs on the far right of the photo. The view was really stunning and on a clear day must be even better.

The islands are 9 miles off the coast and the smaller one is an important seabird sanctuary. The larger one is Skellig Michael which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Right on the summit of the island is a 7th century monastery which was occupied for over 600 years. Living there in winter in little stone beehive huts must have been quite an experience! Those who are both good sailors and fit enough to climb about 750 feet up the steep steps to the Monastery can visit the island - I fear that I wouldn't qualify on either count especially the good sailor bit:) This is a very poor photo as my zoom wasn't really sufficient for the distance.

The final photo is one of the Lakes of Killarney and no, I don't know which one! We arrived in Killarney itself around 7.30pm and had a very nice (and very welcome!) meal in an Italian restaurant. As the American party were leaving Caher House around 4.30am for an early morning flight and my flight wasn't until 7.15pm on Sunday evening my luggage had accompanied us round Kerry and I was dropped off at the Bunratty Castle Hotel on the way back to Caher.
This whole post is very grey and lacking in vibrant colour but since both the weather and most of the buildings were this colour for most of the time there isn't a great deal I can do about it I'm afraid:) It was lovely to be in Ireland again though and there are many places I'd love to go back to and explore properly someday.