Another trip to the Emerald Isle

Our trip to Galway, began with a 4p return fare circling the Knock airport for a number of times before the pilot decided to try landing (bump, bump, lurch, lurch) in wet slushy conditions – yes the 20 or so passengers arrived in snow!! Once through customs and out in the open, I enjoyed kicking the little piles of snow that had been swept along the paths but soon realised that 1 degree was a tad cold and stopped playing those childish games and followed the galloping Harry to the hire car. On the plane I had jokingly asked Harry if he had bought our Gaelic phrase book – by the end of the first day it was no longer a joke. This is Gaelic country, well in the rural areas anyway– all the street signs and road signs are in this ancient Celtic language, not even bilingual signs like in Wales. We did recognise Heineken, Guinness and B&B and did work out that ‘Go Mall’ means Slow or was that STOP? Thankfully, Galway residents spoke English as their first language so we managed to navigate to our hotel without too much trouble. Anyway by the end of the trip we had described the West of Ireland in three colours green, grey and brown.
Green – the hills to the north west of Galway around Newport, Westport (a little town with the same uniqueness as the one on the South Island) and around Cong. In this green haven was situated Ashford Castle (rather a mix of architectural designs from Gothic to modern) but essentially a very upmarket hotel, with nice grounds, golf course, lake where little robins looked for food and cats played happily. We also visited Aasleagh water falls, quite a small waterfall, as they go but picturesque under snow covered hills with very deep black water. Around this area we saw some jigsaw puzzle reflections in the still lakes, went to the bottom of St Patricks Clough half heartedly wishing we had come prepared for the 8k tramp up to the top following in the footsteps of St Patrick in about 400 AD.

Grey – the bleakness of the far west and on Aran Island. This is the first area of Ireland I can honestly say is nothing like New Zealand. Aran Island is described as ‘9 miles long and about 2 miles wide, and is mostly made of barren limestone rock and small fields which are surrounded by stone walls’. Pretty accurate description we say. I couldn’t help but sympathise with the early potato farmers transforming stoney land into little fertile strips surrounded by the stone walls made from removed stones. The paddocks are so small they have gaps to allow the few sheep, cows, goats and horses to meander between the paddocks. The island wasn’t affected by the potato famine as the fungi didn’t get to the island, but from tuberculosis which killed many of the people. There are 3 islands and we only visited the largest Inishmore. We sailed on a Catamaran – very busy for this time of year – and watched a ‘sea rescue’ practice as the Irish Sea Rescue helicopter lowered a man onto the boat, a stretcher and then both back up to the copter. We toured the island in a minivan with a group of international students from Dublin’s Trinity College (mainly American and French) and made stops to view derelict abbeys, churches (the smallest being 8 by 10 feet)and seals bathing in the sea. The most spectacular part of the trip was a visit to Oun Donghasa – a circular celtic stone fort high above the cliff tops – imagine stone huts with grass roofs being protected by a stone wall on one side but no protection against the prevailing winds from the Atlantic Ocean and about 100 metres above sea level. Spectacular scenery – unspoilt by any fences to stop us going to the edge of the cliff – but we weren't game enough. One young American rang his Mum and said 'Hi Mum, Guess where I am?', after a pause he says 'Oh what time is it' so we could imagine the response. Aran Island is also known as the birthplace of the Aran Sweater and there were a few shops selling these jerseys in intricate aran patterns. I hadn’t realised that it was on this island generations of woman invented these patterns and all had their meanings and each family had their own individual jersey with their own pattern on it – similar to a tartan I guess. The cable represents the fisherman’s rope, while the diamond represents success and wealth, the honeycomb – hard work, and the plaited cable the interweaving of family life. The double zigzag represents marriage and the ups and downs of life and so on. I spent years knitting these (not any more) but never knew they were anything but a pattern. On the way down from the fort we went into one shop and they had a hat that fitted Caramello perfectly – the shop owner (busily knitting another jersey, scarf or hat) – really enjoyed the thought that her hat was going to a little furry friend. However, remote these islands are the electronic age is helping to keep them alive – internet dating is bringing new blood to the islands and apparently keeping locals from being tempted to the bigger city lights of Galway and Dublin. South of Galway (The Burren) is also very grey with a rough and high coastline (Cliffs of Moher – where we watched a sudden squall accompanied by a fierce wind take Harry’s hat for a flight – there would have been a photo but I was laughing too much), Aillwee Caves (limestone caves – spectacular in that it was home to hibernating beers 1000 years ago). Brown - On two of the days we cheated and followed the map of a bus tour advertising day trips around Galway – we did catch up with the bus more than once and had the impression that there was at least one more car load of tourists doing the same thing as us. One of these days was the brown day – miles and miles of road just like the Desert Road – Scottish heather no longer in flower, mosses and snowy mountains in the background. We drove up through the Connemara National Park, enjoying the scenery and the wild sea below the cliffs. It is home to many of the scenes in the Quiet Man (a John Wayne movie which I had never heard of) and to Killary Fjord (Ireland’s only Fjord – and home to salmon and mussel farming – one night we went to an Italian restaurant and for starters Harry ordered mussels – he got 15 on his plate – and after seeing the sea farms we could see why he got so many at a reasonable price). There was an adventure ground near the fjord and one of the activities must have been wading through mud – there was a paddock with a rather large number of lost shoes). Kylemore Abbey had lovely grounds and gardens but some of it was closed due to winter so we didn’t venture into what is not a girls boarding school. At dusk as we were returning we passed a few more abandoned buildings (stone walls, but no roof – traditional Irish roofing is dried hay tied down – not a patch on thatched roofs and doesn’t last nearly as long) and Lough’s (lakes). It rains a lot in Ireland – puddles, puddles everywhere and rivers in flood but we were lucky with the weather. We had a managerie of weather all seasons in our long weekend (not really summer as I assume summer can get above 7 degrees) but we managed to stay dry with the rain arriving while we were in the car winding our way along the narrow, windy and teeth rattling roads. Surprisingly, it is quite a multi cultural region as we ate meals cooked by Italians, Malaysians, Indians and Thai and most of them had mastered Gaelic, English and their native language). It lacks the fish and chip shops and local corner pubs - but we didn't miss them.