Jacques and Rollande: October 21 - Day 5 - Galway - Connemara

Today was better than yesterday. We started the day by heading out to Connemara national park stopping on the way at Celtic Crystal company. It is a small family owned company. We had a demonstration on how they cut the glass.

Glass cutter explaining the process.

Takes a lot of concentration.

Demo piece before polishing and a similar piece after polishing.

Various pieces on display.

This one took 26 weeks to complete.

I was tempted. A golf hat with a built-in bottle opener.

One of pope John Paul's chalice was made here. They showed us a replica. Each Crystal cutter is only allowed to make one piece with dark glass a year and 4 or 5 of the red or blue Crystal because of the eye strain.

After the demonstration we continued on to view a bog in the park. There were lots of black faced sheep everywhere including on the road. There are over 7 million sheep on the island. The bog was very spongy and for years until the mid 40ties, this peat was their main fuel for heating. Now they are not allowed to cut the part unless it is a patch that was already started because of the pollution that burning the peat creates.

Peat bog and peat pieces left to dry.

The scenery in the park was beautiful with rolling hills or small mountains all around 2000 ft high. They are called the 12 bends, so I presume there are 12 mountains unless she was talking about the bends in the road. This area is twined with Signal Hill in Newfoundland. It was on the other side of these hills that Marconi's first transatlantic message from Signal Hill was received.

Stone walls everywhere.

After the bog, we went to Kylemore Abbey. We started with the Victorian walled garden that were ok to see but not as great as I'm sure it is in the summer. Many of the plants in the beds were in fact swiss chard and beets, possibly to give a color contrast in the beds. We then visited the parts of the Abbey that was open to visitors as well as the gothic church.

Kylemore Abbey

Connemara Ponies.

Children's Forest

Would no doubt look better in the summer.

Somehow, this book caught Jacques' eye.

This type of chair would be great now for kids who communicate by text.

Dining Room.

Gothic Church

Interesting moss covered tree.

The rest of the day was spent in Galway, making a quick stop there to visit the Galway Cathedral which is the last stone cathedral to be built in Ireland. It was built between 1958 and 1965.

We had a couple of hours free time in Galway before meeting our guide in front of Lynching Castle a 7:30. We arrived back at the hotel at 9. We are now caught up on the lost morning yesterday. Tomorrow should be a shorter day.