Today, we thought it would be nice to travel to Galway, one of the biggest tourist cities within Ireland. The main reason to go there was the desire to experience a true Irish pub, with authentic Irish music.
We noticed a fair amount of interesting historical sites towards Galway (in a round about sort of way), so the plan was to head West-ish, going from site to site, and then head into Galway.
The first place we stopped at was Kilmacduagh, or more precisely, the Monastic ruins. The site is comprised of a few churches, housing for the monks, and a rather tall tower, dating back to the 7th century. The churches now are mostly there, with one of the church’s cemeteries still in use. The house had been re-roofed, so to show how it would have looked back when the monks used it (nothing in it of course, other than an old looking wood alter). The tower was probably the most interesting part of the site. On initial inspection, apart from it doing a bit of a leaning Tower of Pisa thing, we found that there was no entry at ground level. The only windows were about 2-3 stories up or higher. It turns out that this tower, while being used for storage, was also used as a escape for the monks whenever they came under attack (which must have been reasonably regularly). They would probably use the tower as a lookout, and when the hordes came a-pillaging, they would hoick themselves up there via a ladder, and hide out. According to the records, the site had been plundered many times over the centuries), but the monks continued doing their monk-y business (oh, how my side hurt), in fact, it was a seat for a bishop up until the 16th century.
We had a good wander around the site, did our appreciating, and then moved on.
The Wooden Alter
The Monk house
The Tower
The church and cemetery
As we were driving, we came across a small castle that looked like it had been quite well maintained. Upon closer inspection, it turns out to be the Ballyportry Castle (technically a tower house), and it was getting conservation work done. According to the front sign, you could actually let the 500 year old castle. Imagine that, living in your own castle (or tower house)! We haven’t had a chance to look into it yet, but I like the idea of being able to say I am the King of my Castle (I’ll be here all week, try the chicken).
Ballyportry Castle
Next, we hit the Burren. The Burren is a large tract of land in the west of Ireland, comprised of a light grey rock. It was almost surreal driving though it. There are great grooves in the rock, running for miles, all parallel, which I discovered was the result of the Glacier plains of the past ice age receding, dragging huge boulders over the terrain, and eventually leaving behind where the melted ice could no longer hold them. You can find these boulders everywhere, and they sort of stand out, a massive rock in the middle of a large flat land.
If it wasn’t for the grey stone building and town along the road, you would think you were in a deserted wasteland, uninhabitable by any man. The lands of Mordor spring to mind. We were almost expecting to see Orcs running across the plains.
Anyway, thousands of years ago, mans trek brought them here, and they learned to live off this land, relying on the grass that had grown in the cracks of the rock to feed their herds. We found that if it wasn’t for the sheep and goats, the grass would actually totally cover this rock, and it would look like almost everywhere else. I guess another things that makes this place more habitable, is that there’s no shortage of building material. If you want to construct another house or wall, just wander out to the backyard and collect the stone.
The Burren
The contrast of the Burren to the grasslands
In this alien landscape, there were a number of sites we were interested in seeing, the first being the Caherconnell Stone fort. The fort, basically a stone wall circle with a diameter of about 50 metres, which was probably occupied by the most important people of the tribe, as well as their cattle. The rest of the tribe would live around the fort, where their crops would grow.
The walls of the fort are not as impressive as they probably once were, but to think this was in use over a 1000 years ago, holds quite a bit of significance in our books.
The site, by the look of things, is looked after by a local family, who has made quite a business out of it, including cafe, tourist store, and a small theatre showing a film about the site. We didn’t bother with that, but bought some touristy stuff.
Also, we weren’t able to take any decent photos of the site, so we’ve opted to use web pictures to give a more accurate representation.
Part of the wall, from the walkway into the fort
The wall from the outside
The next place we stopped at was the Poulnabrone Dolmen. A Dolmen, from what we could understand, was an ancient tomb, used by the local tribe to bury important peoples. The Dolmen itself dates back thousands of years, almost a thousand years before Stonehenge. What I found interesting also, is that it was in use as a burial site for around a thousand years, meaning it held its significance to the ancient locals for a very long time. Since pictures speak a thousand words (and I’m sure you would appreciate pictures to my words), so here’s some.
The Dolmen
From the side
That big, flat rock in front is a cap stone, for entry to the tomb
From there we headed out of the Burren, and wound our way along the coast towards-ish Galway, until we came to an art university, housed in large stone tower. Nowadays, they’ve expanded a bit, so there are more modern buildings on the site, but the tower is quite well maintained due to its use.
Also along the way, we stopped at one of the many seaside stone jetties. At this particular one, we found it quite amusing to discover the locals (being of the artistic nature) had found a excellent use for the various plastic rubbish that had washed up on their shore. 
We also stopped at a few places along the coast, with various towers in various states of disrepair. Not much else to say about them, hopefully the pictures speak more.
The Art Uni tower
The tower up close
Very arty
A seaside tower
Another tower
It was starting to get later in the afternoon by then, around 5pm, so we thought it would be a good idea to head into Galway so we could find a nice place to eat, and then find a nice pub to enjoy Guinness and music.
After a good hour of driving around the heavy traffic of the city (oh, how joyful that was), getting trapped at one point down a one way back alley (so joyful), we found a nice restaurant which still served mussels and oysters (food is very seasonal here), and enjoyed a lovely dinner.
After dinner we went to a pub across the road which we found had live traditional music every night. It proved to be a great choice as the musicians played right down in the crowd, and after an hour or so, a couple girls got up and did some Irish dancing as well. Very entertaining. We enjoyed the atmosphere (I should add the Irish have had a non-smoking policy within businesses for the last year, which made this a hell of a lot more enjoyable), and once it got to about 9pm, we started our 3 hour trip back to the guesthouse.
The wonderful musicians who made our night.
That’s it for this day. Tune in next time for Celtic stones, more ruins, and seafood to die for.
Love you all,
Kathleen and Keith