The Irish are a bit different from Americans. A five mile walk is really just a short stretch of the legs. In their hotels-follow this-you can actually open a window. The early dinner special means you are seated before 7:30 as they eat around 8:30 or so but stay out till 2-3 AM. They seem to smoke more than we do. A lot of their shopping areas do not allow for vehicular traffic. They seem to dress neater.
Our day began with another Irish breakfast only this time with proper potatoes. Then a drive to Knock where in 1869 fifteen people witnessed a Marian apparition. It was a brief stay; long enough to explore a bit and spend 15-20 minutes in Mass if you wanted to.
Traveling to and from Knock was slow as there was much more car and pedestrian traffic as townspeople went to Mass. This had the effect of making already narrow roads even narrower and I gained new respect for Mick, our driver.
We traveled SW to Kylemore Abby which is the first time we were going back to a place we visited in 2004. This time we went into the Abby, visited the mausoleum where the Henry's are interred, and the Gothic chapel which Mr. Henry built for his wife-he built the Abby for her as well. We did not do that before.
We continued to travel through Connemara, Joyce country, and SE to a marble factory on Moycullen. Here we were treated to information about Connemara marble and it's use all over the world; like in the Pennsylvania State House and the windows in the Yale University rare book library. I sure didn't know that marble had UV filtering capabilities. What Ambrose Joyce doesn't know about marble probably isn't worth knowing. From there it was about 20km to Galway.
We took some free time for ourselves and walked to city center and the shopping area which, again, seemed to resemble Diagonon Alley.
Galway is a bit of a young city having needed to be rebuilt after being leveled by Cromwell. It has a university so lots of young people walking around doing young people stuff. We ate dinner in a pub where everyone was watching a football match involving an Irish team and Manchester United and Ireland wasn't doing well. The crowd seemed generally disappointed and our server advised me not to say anything about Manchester as they are liked about as well as Cromwell. OK, better than Cromwell but don't say anything anyway.
I finally got to have some lamb and it was very good. Joan had fish and chips.
Back at the hotel we luxuriated in a hot tub where we were joined by a cole who lived in Ireland and when they found out we were from KC they brought us up to date re: the problems those living along the Mississippi were experiencing and how terrible they were. It was humbling as they were more informed about our country than we were about theirs. Pretty typical probably but they, the Irish, sure seem to be grateful for the attention they do receive from Americans who seem to be doing their level best to help revive the travel business in Ireland. I assured them that we sure were trying to do our part to help their economy. We parted on friendly terms.
Shaun and Joan McMahon
Location:Galway
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment