Adventures in Ireland: Connemara and Cong: Part 1

This weekend, for the first time, I was able to travel around to see more of Ireland! I chose to take a bus tour around Connemara and Cong. Here is where I was this weekend:

View Larger Map

I do have to point out that for the last week and a half it did not stop raining, but for the last few days it was beautiful! Perfect for traveling!

After a few brief moments of rain, I looked out of the bus window and witnessed my first Irish rainbow! Unfortunately, due to the fact that I was sitting in a bus, I could not follow the rainbow to find the leprechauns (although I am sure they do exist). You have to look hard; it was hard to capture through the bus window.

This is a typical sight in Ireland: green grass and sheep. In fact, there are about 3 million people living in Ireland, and 8 million sheep!

Our first stop of the tour was the Ross Errilly Friary. This was a place that men went to become monks and to be educated in Catholicism, first and foremost, and also numerous other subjects. Friaries were the universities of the medieval times. This particular friary was founded in 1351 and is one of the best-preserved monasteries in Ireland.

All monasteries were shaped as a cross (you would see that if I happened to have an aerial view). This was a further demonstration of their Catholic denomination, and a gesture to God.

This is the first room that you walk into upon entering the Ross Errilly Friary. This would have been the chapel room where all of the masses took place. The arched opening with a fence is actually an old fireplace which would have been on the second floor. The floors of the building obviously do not exist anymore.

If you were to look to the right in the main chapel, you would see these two things. The square is the pulpit from where the priest would give his sermon, and the smaller, rounded stone is a baptismal basin where the holy water was held. The flat stones on the ground are graves of the monks who used to live there. There are also some more modern grave sites within the monastery with gravestones more like the ones you would see today.

This is in the kitchen of the monastery. It functioned as a fish tank when the friary was up and running. The monks used to keep the fish they caught (from a lake adjacent to the building) in this fish tank in order to keep them fresh until dinner time.

These are my friends, but the more important part is that they're standing in an ancient oven. This was also in the kitchen and was where all of the food was cooked. It's huge!

Here I am standing on the non-existent second floor!

Here's another pretty picture of the monastery. The lake in the background is where they would have caught their fish.

Well I'm sure you've seen enough of the old monastery. Next, we went to Ashford Castle, which is located in Cong. This castle is actually currently a hotel. This hotel is not cheap though! It is not uncommon for people to fly in by helicoptor to stay there. The cheapest rooms are 500 euro or $640 per night!!! The portion of grass that you see in the picture is a golf course that belongs to the hotel.

The castle is located on Lough Corrib, which is the largest lake in Ireland. In fact, it has 365 islands (they say there's one for every day of the year)!

Here are a couple more pictures of the castle and of the gardens surrounding the castle (which must be gorgeous during the spring and summer). But first, some fun facts! The castle was built in 1228. Just as any castle of the time, it was fought over and changed hands several time. At one point, the Guinness family owned and lived in it! And finally, in 1939, Ashford Castle was converted into a hotel and remains a hotel still.