We had a quick look around Northern Ireland, mostly the coast and then headed south. Donegal was picture postcard country and we stopped at a few places (including Donegal) on our way to Sligo to break up the trip.
We saw castles and ruins aplenty and also stopped at WB Yates' grave along the way.
Certainly lucked out when we got to our accommodation, the Castle Dargan Hotel( picture beside).......quite flash!
It is actually part of a very large golf course and if we win the lottery, I'm coming back to do a golfing tour of Scotland and Ireland.
After a very swank stay, we headed south towards Kinnegad but not before heading into Sligo for a bit of shopping. In one of the shops the owner, well dressed and well spoken, asked why we were visiting and where we were going?
When I told him we were heading for Kinnegad he said,
"God help you, why would you be going there then? Do you have family?"
When I told him that they had been transported almost two hundred years ago he said
"Ah, they did them a favour then!" It was very funny.
The Irish have been so friendy and always up for a chat. People in shops, museums, parks and even the cemetery.... .very keen to have a chat and, actually, listening to their lilting accent is quite easy. I've adopted one of their phrases
" ....of course you can" with an upward inflexion of the voice.
Got to Kinnegad about lunch time....and we found out where the term "bog Irish" came from.....the middle of the island is all marshy and full of peat bogs. There were tractors towing trailer loads of the stuff to who knows where.
Kinnegad is about what we expected, not much. The picture above is the main street.I guess in those days it was a good place to get away from. We did visit a very old grave yard where we wondered if we would fall into a collapsed grave....no Bests though. Nick knows how we like to visit cemeteries!
Also visited the RC church but couldn't find the priest. It was interesting seeing the place and getting a feel for it. Very rural and quite aromatic!
But we had quite a surprise when we reached Birr, about an hour away and right in the middle of the country. Birr is where Wendy's Keary side of the family came from in the mid 19thC. It is quIte a large and once prosperous town and our digs are in the old revamped stables, right next to a huge beautiful walled castle that is still owned and lived in by a family today.
Seems to give some credence to her claims of royal ancestry.....compared to my bog Irish!
We wandered around the beautiful grounds for some time enjoying the warmth and quiet of the gardens. They have done a wonderful job maintaing such a historical site with huge walls, a gatehouse and moat with draw bridge and even a huge telescope which for some time was the largest in the world.
Seems that (and it was often the case that wealthy people were science buffs) the Earl of Rosse was a science pioneer and he had this huge reflecting telescope built in the 1840s
For seventy years it was the largest in the world.
We arrived in Kenmare late in the afternoon after an interesting drive through County Kerry. The closer to the coast the more interesting the scenery and wasn't there some scenery to see.
After Kilarney we wound through some mossy, dank forrests around lakes and inlets and then climbed over a high pass to Kenmare. We both agreed we didn't know what we were expecting but it was so much like the highlands of Scotland it was uncanny.
Finally found our digs, a typical Irish pub called O'Donnabhaine's right in the middle of town. Nice!
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