Connemara

Saturday I went on a tour of Connemara, one of the must-dos on my Ireland bucket list. I met up with the tour group at 10am and our bus set off for the country! Since the only parts of Ireland I've really seen have been just Galway and the bus rides from Shannon and Dublin airports, it was nice to see more of the country. Our group had 6 people (including the tour guide/bus driver), while the Cliffs of Moher tour had about 50! I really liked our little group though. The other people were all from Lithuania but studying in Cork for the semester. Our guide, Martin, was a 60ish year old Irish man, full of facts on everything you'd ever want to know about Ireland. He played traditional Irish music the whole time and told us "If ye don't like it, ye can walk!" (jokingly... I think)- Good thing I loved it!

Here's some fun facts I learned from good ol' Martin:
- Eyre Square, a main area in Galway, is also known as the JFK Memorial Park because he had come to visit right before he was assassinated.
- River Corrib is freshwater and a huge place for fishing for salmon.
- It is 20% more expensive to live in a traditional cottage (you know, the ones with the thatched roof) because the insurance premium is so high. I guess it's easier to have a fire when your roof is made of straw!
- A large part of Ireland is made up of peat bog.
- Sheep in Ireland are marked so that you can tell who owns them. We saw lots of sheep with pink, blue, and green spots on them. Weird..colorful...but weird!
- Craic (pronounced "crack") is a Gaelic word for fun. Explains why people keep saying things like, "Let's have some craic!"
- The place with the longest name in Ireland is Muckanaghederdauhaulia, in County Galway. Try saying that 5 times fast!


We stopped in a tiny town called Leenane for a quick tea and coffee break. I haven't seen either movie yet, but I did get to see the bridge from "The Quiet Man" and where a lot of "The Field" was filmed. *mental note to watch those* When in the little pub we went to, these two old Irish men made me sit between them so they could ask me all about my life. They had a pretty heavy brogue so I only understood about half of what they were saying. But they were the typical small town Irish folk and I loved chatting with them! From Leenane we got back on the bus and drove some more until we got to Killary Fjord, Ireland's only fjord. It was BEAUTIFUL! I didn't want to leave but we had to continue on to Kylemore Abbey. All of Kylemore was gorgeous- the gardens, the castle, the church, the lake. We spent a few hours there and I have tonssss of pictures to add. On the way back we stopped a few more places. The Fairy Tree was one of my favorites. Apparently there's an legend that if you tie personal belongings to this old tree and make a wish it will come true. Well the people who owned the property didn't like their tree being covered with random things, so a barbed wire fence was put up with a city sign saying not to. Now people are just tying their things to this fence! There is all kinds of stuff on there- ribbons, handkerchiefs, bras, underwear, diapers, and my bobby pin =) We all decided to break the law for a bit of Irish luck. If I get caught I blame Martin! We also stopped off at a spillway, The 12 Pins Mountain Range, Inagh Lake, and to see wild Connemara ponies! The drive home took us past the coast so we were able to see the Burren and the Aran Islands in the distance.

It was a great day and I fell in love with Ireland for about the millionth time!