Tuesday, August 8 - Travel to Westport

 Ashford Castle in County Connemara is historic, amassing stone palace which is now a hotel, at 6000 EU/noc is located out.side the village Cong. We walked around the castle after visiting stained glass religious images in the appearance of the local Roman Catholic church. Figures are larger than those in older stained glass windows, and designs are also included.

A walk through the park around the castle lead to the falconry training center. There our guide introduced us to Puddle the owl, telling us about the training and behaviors and daily activities of the raptors. He was wearing a long leather glove, and showed leather straps tied to the raptors legs. He returned the owl to her cage and brought out a hawk; she appeared gentle as she stood on his glove,, and she had a bell tied to one leg.  We each took a turn wearing the glove, watching her land on the glove to eat a small bit of food which he had placed into the glove. It was thrilling seeing beautiful feathers.

We enjoyed walking through the gorgeous like park, returning to our coach, and sharing experiences with the beautiful raptor. We continued north to the village of Leenane wherea simple lunch of tomato basil soup and sandwiches and chips. The surroundings are beautiful; lakes with human-made islands, high hills, and one particular one which is climbed by thousands on the last Sunday of July to celebrate communion at the peak to honor St. Patrick. It is believed he fasted on its peak 40 days.

Enroute to Westport we stopped twice to view memorials to those who died or left Ireland during the potato famine 1845-50. The country lost 3 million people either from starvation or emigration; many died on ships. One memorial focused on the latter. In the coach Lynn told us more of the lower classes who were locked off the farms for not paying rent and who walked the road on which were riding to seek help. None was forthcoming. This stretch of road has never since been resettled. The story of the famine has appeared several times in our travels. It was a major trauma brought from the Eutopean continent in the form of a particular insect.  And, as this climate favored potato growing it was the main or only crop.  Thus was indeed a trauma to the country. 

In Westport we learned about Irish whiskey and one how to make Irish coffee, and then we each made our own Irish coffee which was actually tastey, and I don't like whiskey.  

Supper in the hotel and conversations are now more personal, ten days into the tour, and that is very good. After supper we went to a well-known pub to hear music and discovered it very crowded. We decided not to wait until 9 PM, but others in our group were going to wait, so we will learn tomorrow of their pub music experiences.