No Patty-Fingers if You Please!

It was our study week so my friend Alysha and I decided to check out some more of Ireland.  We booked a day-trip with Paddywagon Tours and headed over to the west coast early in the morning.  Our tour guide was Darren and he explained some of the history as we went.  There were only five of us on the small bus so we were able to spread out and get comfortable.






Our first stop was the one I was most excited about: Cong!  We got to walk through the village where parts of The Quiet Man were filmed!  We found Pat Cohan's pub right away, but we decided to see more of the town before we went in.  We headed down the road past Squire Danaher's Bar and came across the ruins of Cong Abbey, an old Augustinian abbey.  Nearby, they also had a replica of The Quite Man cottage that was home to a little museum.  After looping through the town again we went back to Pat Cohan's because I just couldn't visit Cong without having a pint there.  As I walked in, I was greeted by Fiona, who owns the pub with her husband, and The Quiet Man playing on a tv in the corner (I took it as a good omen that I walked in at the part where John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara are in the cemetery).  As she poured me a Guinness, Fiona chatted with Alysha and me about how Cohan's used to be a grocery and souvenir store until she and her husband renovated the inside to match the Hollywood set seen in the movie.  She also talked about how fun it was to pour Maureen O'Hara and John Wayne's daughter a pint at The Quiet Man festival.  Fiona even put Alysha and me behind the replica bar and, after slapping a hat on my head, took a few photos.  Unfortunately, we didn't get to see Ashford Castle because there was a wall built around the grounds to keep the castle private for guests and keep out tourists like us.

After Cong, we headed over to Kylemore Abbey where we grabbed lunch and then walked down the path to explore the abbey.  The abbey was first built as a castle for the private residence of Mitchell and Margaret Henry.  They lived there for many years with their nine children.  Eventually it was sold to another couple who could not afford to keep it so it was bought by Benedictine nuns and converted into an abbey.  We also popped into the Gothic church just down the path from the abbey.  Henry built this in memory of his wife after she died.  It was beautiful with it's pillars made of different-colored marbles,
                                                                                                               carved walls, and stained glass windows.

Lough Corrib

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving through the Inagh Valley with its beautiful mountains and lakes.  We also made a brief stop at the breathtaking Lough Corrib, the second largest lake in Ireland.  As we drove, our guide told us that part of Connemara is a Gaeltacht or Gaelic speaking area.

Before driving back to Dublin, we stopped in Galway and wandered down Shop Street peeking at the windows and enjoying the mild weather.  Darren became our hero on the way home because he dropped us off right in Maynooth instead of taking us all the way into Dublin, so we didn't have to spend an hour getting back home.  It was a truly fantastic day!