Farewell, Our Lovely Island!

Thursday, the last day of our tour, we started off by visiting the grave site of William Butler Yeats.

Next was a cruise down the River Shannon. We boarded our ship and yummy sandwiches were already waiting for us on the table. An entertainer told jokes and played Irish music for us as we traveled leisurely along the banks, catching sight of wild life and some wonderful landscape. 

Goats

These swans reminded me of the Irish legend of the Children of Lir. Lir was a king and he had four children who were beautiful and talented and their stepmother was jealous and turned them into swans which broke their father's heart.

Our coach.

I thought our entertainer had a lovely voice!

After our cruise we headed to Dublin. The coach dropped us off near Trinity College for a couple of hours and we went to see the Book of Kells and the library, built in the 18th century. This is still a working college so there were students everywhere and you did feel like you were walking across a college campus instead of in the heart of Dublin. The Book of Kells is a ninth century highly illustrated book of the gospels discovered in a, you guessed it, peat bog. (How it wasn't lost to the world is truly a miracle. The picture below is from the library's Long Room. George Lucas wanted to copy its design to use as the Jedi library, but they refused to let him take pictures so he simply recreated it from memory. Over 200,000 old books are housed here.

I forgot to add these photos, and I'm not sure what day it was on, but we crossed over the Shannon from County Kerry to County Clare. We drove our bus onto a ferry at Tarbert and took a twenty minute journey to the other side. It was very blustery, so no one got out to view the crossing on the upper deck. Looking out my window I could see a little snack shop built into the ferry, and little more. I took the photos as the ferry was coming in to dock.

Here's one I forgot to add from The Brooks Hotel in Dublin

Then we walked to see the National Art Gallery, but they had very little to see as they were undergoing renovations. So, what else had we to do than spend the rest of our time in a pub. We entered one and found Cheryl and Woody there, and soon our guide Steven joined us. We enjoyed our time until it was time to head back to our last castle for the night, The Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel.

These were roomier than twins, so we just used one.

I love that their pub was called the Dungeon!

The whole crew with Max, the dog.

We had a Farewell Dinner (I had Sticky Caramel Pudding, which was awesome!) with wine and a toast to our tour guide. In the morning our bus took us to the airport. Customs was easy, I slept most of the flight home. We retrieved our car from hotel parking and had a fairly eventless ride home. A spectacular sunset welcomed us. It was a wonderful trip, but always good to arrive our your own doorstep! 

Thank any of you that have stayed with me through the whole journey! It was nice sharing our memories with you! I hope you'll come back again soon. Happy Halloween!

And Today's Castle Is...

Tuesday ~ We drove to Clifden for a bit of shopping, then on to Kylemore Abbey. Although some of the online reviews said, "Just take a picture from the road. Don't bother to pay the admission and go in," we loved it here and wished we'd had more time. But we like history, and might be somewhat unusual in that way. We started by eating lunch and browsing the gift shop for souvenirs. After finishing, we headed up to the abbey.

Kylemore Abbey

The soups in Ireland are largely pureed. Very flavorful, but I didn't like the consistency.

At night, when the Henry's would host a party, the castle would be lit up in the water's reflection. It must have been absolutely spectacular!

Margaret and Henry Mitchell honeymooned in Connemara and fell in love with the region. When Henry inherited a sizable amount of money from his cotton merchant father he left his career in medicine. He and Margaret built Kylemore Castle between 1867-1871, along with the gardens. It took one hundred men four years to complete and has 33 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 4 sitting rooms, a ballroom, billard room, library, study, school room, smoking room, gun room and various other offices and domestic staff residences for the butler, cook, housekeeper and other servants. It was a sort of experiment, to reclaim bogland and to encourage others to do the same, during the time when locals were recovering from the Great Potato Famine. He provided work, shelter, and later a school for his workers' children. He represented Galway in the House of Commons for 14 years.

Tragically, Margaret died in 1875, at the age of 50, after contracting a fever on a visit to Egypt. Henry was heartbroken and built a church to memorialize her. 

Margaret's church

Don refuses to build a church for me upon my demise. What a cad!

Isn't this angel's face, well, angelic?

In 1903 he sold the castle to the Duke and Duchess of Manchester. They only stayed at Kylemore Castle a few years, but in that time they made extensive changes, including changing the magnificent ballroom into the kitchen. Their lavish lifestyle was financed by the Duchess' father, American businessman Eugene Zimmerman. 


 The property was heavily mortgaged due to gambling debts that were incurred and on the death of Zimmernan in 1914 the property was taken over by a London banker. It lay dormant until 1920 when Benedictine sisters who had been forced to flee Ypes, Belgium in World War I, purchased the estate. Here are some more shots from in and around the Castle/Abbey.

These are GIANT azalea bushes!

Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time for Don and I to see the Victorian walled garden. I would have loved to see it as, you know, I loved THE SECRET GARDEN, and I've never seen a garden of that type. But...I did see this bird in the parking lot. Isn't he cute? 

I shall call him...Charlie!

After this we left for Ballynahinch, our own castle for the night. Here are some more pictures of it.

I have to blow this up really big so you can fully appreciate the way the sun made the ivy leaf glow!

When we arrived at Ballynahinch the coach

driver had to take the bus through this opening. He slowed a little bit, but there was literally an inch on either side. If he had even wavered a little...  One thing about Irishmen, in my experience, is they drive like madmen. Martin, our black taxi tour driver in Belfast went up over a curb at one point, and when we came back that direction he stopped, got out of the car, and returned with the hub cap that had fallen off when we hit the curb. Gotta love it!

On that note...will we survive another harrowing journey tomorrow (I guess you know, since I'm writing this, but shh...) Tune in tomorrow for more adventures on the Emerald Isle!