3/22: kinda a travel day. I went down through Leitrim to Sligo and stopped at Drumcliffe, where Yeats is buried. He isn't my favorite poet but I stopped to see anyway. Apparently he was extremely fond of western Ireland and who could blame him. I bypassed Sligo town in favor of Carrowmere which was closed and then decided not to climb to Queen Mebh's cairn. I stopped at a darling pottery place, Breeogue Pottery, run by a husband and wife couple. She does stoneware, with delicate and pretty decoration and he is mostly into raku. Hers tends more to functional and his to sculptural. Loved them both. His touch with raku is quite lovely and the incised decorations beautiful. The western coastline of Sligo was beautiful. Definitely a place to consider for a summer holiday with lovely beaches and cute towns.
I followed the road west into Mayo, stopping to walk on the beach at Inishcrone. I passed through Ballina which was very pretty if you don't count the terrible traffic (they truly need a bypass so as to make downtown less choked up with one way streets and cars) and stopped Rosserk Abbey on my way to Ballycastle. Loved Rosserk! Right on the water, it is very well preserved. 1400s. It was for 3rd order Franciscans--married people who wanted to be Franciscan. I didn't know such a thing existed. You could climb the steps to the upper outdoor area.
3/23 Mayo all day. I followed the North Mayo Sculpture trail as best I could. Which wasn't so great as signage and directions were spotty at best. I did see four, maybe five, of the sculptures and a lot of lovely scenery on the way. Also went to Rathfran Abbey, circa 1250, which was a nice ruin but not as nice as Rosserk in spite of billing. What was interesting as that it was no only hard to find but once you did the path was interesting. You went thru two gates and then around the edge of the land right along where you could see the water was at high tide sometimes. The path is only sorta there. Then you come around a corner and there are two more gates to go through to the ruin which is not in as good a shape as Rosserk. I went down the Mullet peninsula and found another sculpture at the end of the trail which was a take off on the stone circle--a spiral called St Dervla's twist. St Dervla is associated very closely with the area as she plucked out her eyes there to convince someone he didn't want to marry her, which turned into a well and when she washed her face her eyes came back, and also founded a church. God does amazing things in this part of the world.
I stayed the night in Westport, a very lovely and European little city.
I followed a sign for a long time and finally ended up in a gorgeous beach called Silver Strand. It was very deep and the tide seemed very far out. There was a farmer right by the beach when I came out who was chasing sheep around. I'm not clear how he selected which sheep he wanted by but he and a dog herded three out and into a trailer. Then they went back and brought the whole bunch down and chased them into a corner. He then selected one more and pulled it out by running as fast as he could at the herd which scattered, baa-ing, and grabbing the one he wanted by the horns and straddling it. He then lifted it over the fence which could not have been easy and it ran off up the road. He was quite friendly and we chatted a bit--broad Mayo accent. Born and raised on the peninsula, had sheep all his life. They get sheared in July. His sheep hadn't had lambs yet because of the cold off the Atlantic. The colors are for identification as they mix with other farmers. He wanted to know why I was traveling alone, where I was from, if I was lost/why I was in this lonely spot, and how I liked Ireland.
The Doo Lough Valley came next--probably the wildest place I've been so far. Stark mountains with their toes in the Lough. Gorgeous. Definitely want to come back here.
I then went around the Connemara peninsula much too fast. It required at least another day and I had to skip things like the park to make it to the southern part in order to catch a ferry for Inish Oirr, one of the Aran Islands. I did stop at several beaches and take some smaller roads though which in turn made me later than I wanted to be but still in plenty of time. In fact it was probably better as there was nothing to and nowhere to be near the port.
The ferry to Inish Oirr also stops at Inish Meain. My spellings might be off and there are missing accents. It's not a huge boat like ferrys in Washington. Maybe the size of a large yacht? Most of it is covered and has seating inside. It's a businesslike piece of work and I'm guessing a lot of the people on it are locals since they are mostly carrying large bags that are more grocery than suitcase like. I hear Irish being spoken. It sounds very liquid and yet also a bit like Hebrew.
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