It was raining and quite windy when we woke this morning. Despite this, we had a pleasant view of the sea from Anna's dining room window. Anna cooked us a delicious breakfast of gluten-free pancakes.
First stop today was Connemara National Park, Islands smallest apparently at 2,957 hectares of scenic mountains, expanses of bogs, heaths, grasslands and woodlands. Some of the Park’s mountains, namely Benbaun, Bencullagh, Benbrack and Muckanaght, are part of the famous Twelve
Bens or Beanna Beola range. Connemara National Park was established and opened to the public in 1980. Much of the present Park lands formed part of the Kylemore Abbey Estate and the Letterfrack Industrial School, the remainder having been owned by private individuals. The Parklands are now wholly owned by the State and managed solely for National Park. It was still raining so any decent walk was out of the question. However, we did do a small woodlands walk through a forested area near the information centre. The information centre itself had a very interesting display on how the area had changed over time and particularly on the peat soils, or turf as it is referred to here.
From Connemara, we headed to Kylemore Abbey. A magnificent building but as there were 12 busses there it was ridiculously crowded and not helped by the fact that it was still raining. The Castle was built in 1868 as a private home for the family of Mitchell Henry, a wealthy doctor from London whose family was involved in textile manufacturing in Manchester, England. He moved to Ireland when he and his wife Margaret purchased the land around the Abbey, after having travelled there on their honeymoon in the mid-1840s. He became a politician, becoming an MP for County Galway from 1871 to 1885. The castle was designed by James Franklin Fuller, aided by Ussher Roberts. The construction of the castle began in 1867 and took the total of one hundred men and four years to complete. The castle covered approximately 3,700 m2 and had over seventy rooms with a principal wall that was up to a metre think. The facade measures 43 m in width and is made of granite brought from Dalkey by sea to Letterfrack and from limestone brought from Ballinasloe. There were 33 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, 4 sitting rooms, a ballroom, billiard room, library, study, school room, smoking room, gun room and various offices and domestic staff residences for the butler, cook, housekeeper and other servants. Other buildings include a Gothic cathedral and family mausoleum containing the bodies of Margaret Henry, Mitchell Henry and a great grand-nephew.
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| Kylemore Abbey on a fine day (not how we saw it) |
The Abbey remained in Henry's estate after he returned to England. The castle was sold to the Duke and Duchess of Manchester in 1909, who resided there for several years before being forced to sell the house and grounds because of gambling debts. In 1920, the Irish Benedictine Nuns purchased the Abbey castle and lands after they were forced to flee Ypres, Belgium during World War I. The nuns, who had been based in Ypres for several hundred years, had been bombed out of their Abbey during World War I. The nuns continued to offer education to Catholic girls, opening an international boarding school and establishing a day school for girls from the locality. The school acted as the main educator for most girls from Renvyle, Letterfrack and further afield for almost a century but it was forced to close in June 2010. The nuns have since been developing new education and retreat activities.
We drove around the edge of Ireland's only fjord, Killary. The fjord is 16 kilometres long, and in the centre over 42-45 metres deep. Anna had told us there was now a problem with starfish as a result of mussel and other crustacean farming the fjord. Apparently, they like what the others are being fed and have bred up to plague proportions. We stopped a couple of times but couldn't see any.
Between the fiord and Westport, we drove passed the holy mountain, another of Anna's stories. It was here that St Patrick banished the snakes from Ireland. It was still raining and we didn't see any signs so couldn't work out which mountain was the one in question.
Lunch was at the quay in Westport at a very nice café called The Kreel. We then had a walk along the waterfront before driving into town. Like most Irish town centres it was pretty busy but we did eventually find a car park and did a blocky to the Information Centre where we picked up some maps for the next leg.
From Westport we headed to Achill Island where we have booked a B&B for the night. We drove onto the island and checked out where our B&B was before heading on to Keel the main village and then on to Keem over a very steep and very narrow road along the cliff face. Jill was a bit twitchy as she was on the 'sea side' and there were no railings.
Back to our B&B for a bit of a rest before heading down the road to Valley House for dinner. We then came back via Dugort completing a circuit of the island.
