28 Jun 2024, Friday

June 28, 2024

28 Jun 2024, Friday

Prioritized Daily Task

Drive Cannemarra circle-

Cong-Cong Abbey, Church of St Mary of the rosary

Westport-slf guided walk- bike the great western greenway E50-60 for ebike

Murrisk-Croagh Patrick (2,500’) trail-3 hours up 2 hours down-Coffin-ship sculpture, Clew Bay

Doo Lough Valley and a famine cross-between Louisburgh and Delphi

Killary Harbor and

Aasleagh Falls

Leenane-good break at Cozy Hamilton’s Bar and drop into Le4enana Sheep and Wool Centre-10-4:00, but not 1:00

Bog fun-8 km west of Leenane

Kykemore Abbey-just view from the lake

Connemara National Park-17 min film and nature walk along boardwalk

Clifden

12 (Peaks) Ben

Roundstone for a drink

Recess

Maam Cross

Oughterard

Debbie and I slept in, Debbie cooked breakfast while I got dressed, and after eating I washed the dishes while Debbie got dressed. We had prayer together and I signed and notarized the deed for the sale of Jalna Searle's home in Shelly. Debbie was not able to get it to go through. We left the apartment and drove to Cong and visited the abbey. It was a beautiful location on the river where the monks built a bridge across to the woods. They also built a small house over the river where they fished.

The people, up to 600 of them, made an exhausting walk in the freezing weather, from 'Louisburgh' via the 'Doolough Valley' to Delphi House to ask for food to stave off their starvation; a total of 400 perished due to weakness of hunger and cold that night.

The famine walk commemorates a tragedy that occurred during the height of the terrible Famine Years 1845-1849 in Ireland.

In early spring of 1847, almost 400 starving adults and children walked 10 miles from Louisburgh to Doolough in search of a Board of Guardians who were to meet in Delphi Lodge. They had been given this direction from the Relieving officer in Louisburgh as they sought food or a ticket to the workhouse.

The weather was terrible with wind and hail beating down upon them. When they arrived in Delphi the Guardians refused them food or their tickets to the workhouse.

Needless to say, many of them perished on the return journey as fatigue and exhaustion from hunger took hold. Some of those that had energy to start the journey back to Louisburgh were swept into the lake by the heavy squalls.

There is a National Famine Monument located in Murrisk. This magnificent piece of sculpture by John Behan was unveiled by President Mary Robinson in 1997. It depicts a Coffin Ship with skeleton bodies and commemorates the anniversary of the Famine.

Coffin ships carrying emigrants, crowded and disease-ridden, with poor access to food and water, resulted in the deaths of many people as they crossed the Atlantic, and led to the 1847 North American typhus epidemic at quarantine stations in Canada.

With the ratification of the Act for the Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1801, Ireland was effectively governed as a colony of Great Britain. Together, the combined nations were known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

We have seen some beautiful country and met some very nice people. We stopped at Aasleagh Falls and took pictures. There are bogs and rock wall fences, some old and some new. The island is rock, so many rocks, even to bogs are on rocks and the peat fields are on top and among rocks. We stopped at Kylemore Abbey, Nestled in the heart of Connemara, on the Wild Atlantic Way, Kylemore Abbey is a haven of history, beauty, and serenity. Home to a Benedictine order of Nuns for the past 100 years, Kylemore Abbey welcomes visitors from all over the world each year to embrace the magic of the magnificent 1,000-acre estate. Kylemore Abbey's foundation stone was laid on September 4, 1867, by Margaret Vaughan Henry, the wife of Mitchell Henry. The estate had been bought and planned as an elaborate love token for Margaret and as a 'nesting place' for the growing Henry family. When the nuns came to Kylemore, they went about transforming the castle into an Abbey and created an International Girls Boarding School. The principal reception rooms and bedrooms in the Abbey were converted into classrooms with other rooms being converted into dormitories and officially opened on September 11th, 1923. Since 2015, the Abbey has a partnership with the University of Notre Dame of the US. The abbey hosts academic programmes for Notre Dame students and the university renovated spaces in the abbey. We drove back to Galway and got back to the Cresent Silver Acres Apartment. We had dinner and prayer before going to bed.