Conga (not the dance... the town)

Do you want to go into the museum? R asked as we walked by “The Quiet Man” movie museum in the village of Cong (Conga in Gaelic)  on our last day abroad. 

I’m not so much into a movie that glorifies spousal abuse in the form of humor, so I skipped that particular treat… but I could not resist the bronze statue the town has erected in honor of John Wayne and Mara O”Hara. (everyone knows Mara is the , and apparently correct, way to say Maureen, right?)

The Village of Cong has made quiet a business out of that movie connection, but R and I spent our time at the Cong Abbey ruins and indulging some eleventh hour shopping. It was a relatively low key day that ended with the requisite cleaning and packing of goods. All so that we could awake at 5 am and get on the road for the final drive to Dublin and flights home. 

Rocky Endings

I actually forgot it was my birthday on Wednesday. I mean… I knew my birthday was coming.. but hadn’t worked out which day it was on. Whatever. 49th Birthday spent at Castlekirk Cottage in Ireland. Gale-like storm outside, resting and reading inside.  It worked out well actually. 

Thursday we did a drive around the coast of two peninsulas that are south of Clifden… going through Roundstone and Ballyconneelly. They were both quite barren and forlorn seeming places. For the first time I was not charmed by the rocks, because instead of seeming beautiful these seemed more like a war zone. In places I could have sworn I was seeing rubble from WWII. It was depressing and a bit overwhelming. We tried several times to find a spot we could stop and take pictures that would express just a little of this rocky rocky mess… but they just don’t seem to get the feeing across. 

Needless to say, we finished these peninsulas a quick time since we found not a lot of things to stop and see and wander about. Ended up in Recess, a town with a nice pub with free wifi. R had some veggie soup while I posted and emailed. Then "home" to Castlekirk Cottage to figure out our last day. 

(Miste, we got your request for a golf course on our last day... the pitch and putt sign was the best we could do. That was from a "private course" that was closed for the season. Sorry!)

Kylmore/ Sky Drive

“That was a horrible night.” 

“For you too?  If I’d known I would have gotten up and we could have fixed it.” 

Not one, but TWO smoke detectors were randomly blaring their low battery bleats throughout the night and neither of us slept much at all. BUT… it is the last day of good weather (according to the forecast) and Sky Road Drive was high on both our lists so we decided to wend our way there via Kylemore Abbey.  Glad we went via Kylemore as in the end the Sky Road was a bit of a disappointment compared to other spectacular drives we have experienced.  

Kylemore is a 19th century Gothic Revival “home” that was converted into an Abbey in the 1920s. Formal Gardens, a church and a couple of rooms on the first floor are open to the public. It was hands down the most “touristed” site we have been to on our entire trip. Crawling with people. The wind was whipping and cold so we both had all our available layers on. Between my ridiculous 5 layers of shirts, coats and a scarf and R’s year round open sandal shoe penchant, we managed to garner quite a few stares. Happy to provide visual interest. 

After Kylemore we did make it to the famous “Sky Road” Drive. It was a grey and cold day with heavy winds, so the views were not so spectacular. (again I’m willing to own I may be jaded) My favorite find of the day is the road narrowing sign someone had converted to a chic dress for a thicker woman. In fact, that might be my favorite sign I’ve ever collected!

Afterwards a stop at Aldi’s for” accoutrements” and some amazing white chocolate, then home early. We needed an early night. 

All smoke detectors disarmed. 

Friary, Friary ,Friary

We need groceries.. .and a usable frying pan… which both seem a bit ridiculous given that we fly back to the states in 5 days.. but there it is. Even though the forecast shows only two good days before rain begins… we plan one of them around finding a decent grocery store. (I am not going into the saga about how Brige  (rymes with siege) the landlady, said we would find everything we need at the “supermarket” in Maum.  I will say that a shoebox sized store that has gas out front, farm supplies at one end and a smattering of unpriced vegetables wedged between the hardware at the other end is something all right… just not what most Americans would call a supermarket. 

So after buying 20eu worth of stuff at the Maum “supermarket” with little to show, we planned a day of monastic sites (and a test run of sorts to the route we will need early Sat. for Dublin) all based around the location of two possible real supermarkets. All day I thought we were seeing an Abbey a Friary and a Priory…  but in reality we simply went to three different Friaries.. one of which was not planned. 

Kilconnell, Claregalway, and Ross Errilly Friaries were all established in the 1350’s and although we spent a full day traveling too, walking through, peeing around, stumbling over and photographing them.. . they are so similar as to be quite confusing.  I’ll just say that I was particularly happy to find little animals and people hidden in the stonework in two of them, and as always was thrilled to find stonework variations on arches and doorways. Highlight: Ross Errilly even had a miniature square archade… don’t even get me started on that! Love it. 

A brand new grocery store, “Joyce’s” (and worthy of being called a supermarket) revealed itself to us in Headford on the way to the last Friary. Armed with fresh rotisserie chicken, a selection of gluten free products not available in the states, and vegetables enough to finish out our final week abroad we began our return to Castlekirk Cottage.

The kicker though, fancy new Joyce’s didn’t have a frying pan and it was too late for the Headford hardware store where we were told we should find pans…it was closed. We then hoped we might have luck for a pan at the Spar store in the next “sizeable” town, Cong. (where they filmed the wife beating movie “The Quiet Man”) 

Lots of ducks….No pan. 

Other than pub traffic, small town Ireland was closing down… but I knew where there were 2 frying pans available at this hour. I’d seen them. That’s right…the Maum “supermarket”. Wedged between the electrical supplies and cracker “aisles”…frying pans. 

Need any dewormer with that?

Oh yeah… ANOTHER killer sunset!