Kwilting with Kats: England and Ireland---Day 15


Plots of land in Connemara

Optional excursion to the Connemara area today, wow, I had no idea. We passed miles and miles of stone walls the enclosed an acre or two. This was all the land that a tenant farmer would have to raise food for his family; potatoes. This was after the Irish were removed by Oliver Cromwell and forced to the west, many, many to Connemara. This was fine, or at least not awful, until the Great Famine that started in 1845 due to potato blight. More than a million people died, and a million more emigrated. What is unconscionable to today's ethos is that Ireland at that time was exporting shiploads of food including wheat, oats, barley, meat, butter and salmon to England. I don't know how the English could hold their heads up‽‽ Seeing those miles of grey stone was like looking at a concentration camp scene.

Bog cotton
aka Leprechauns beard

Irish---beer, wine and tobacco

Marian directing traffic

We then headed north toward the Twelve Bens of Connemara. This is a range of basalt mountains (highest about 2300ft) that form the center of Connemara. They are steep and barren, and the water runs down into peaty valleys. Cool today with some wind, overcast, and with the steep sides of the hills this looked and felt more like the Ireland I was expecting, although this reminded me a lot of Scotland, not green, flat (not) Ireland. There are bogs everywhere, with peat being cut and stacked to dry, and sheep everywhere, even on the road.

Connamara Giant

We stopped in a small village named Recess for tea. Interesting statue erected in 1999 to commemorate the fact that nothing much happened here in 1999 : -) Called a late 20th century antiquity. Owner of the coffee shop obviously has a sense of humor and lots of people stop to take photos and then have tea at the shop.

Kylemore Abbey

Next stop was Kylemore Abbey, a Scottish style palace built in the 1800's. It is a beautiful place, on a lake, with a romantic story that ends in tragedy, then Benedictine nuns use the building as an abbey and school. No longer a school, it is a great international tourist attraction, with lots of German and French speakers in addition of us Americans. In addition to the Abbey there is a seven acre walled garden which is absolutely beautiful. Check out http://www.kylemoreabbey.com/

Mr Joyce at the marble factory

Heading back toward Galway we stopped at the Connemara Marble Factory. Connemara marble is absolutely beautiful, coming in colors all the way from white to black, with greens, and red in between. Once used for flooring and other construction uses, today it is becoming harder to find, and is used mostly for jewelry, The greens are beautiful and jade-like, while the red is rarer and no longer mined.

Did not feel like going out tonight, as we would have had to sit down more in a taxi. We had dinner in the hotel bar, where we had what is called bar food...looked like a full menu to me, but we all had excellent fish and chips with mushy peas.