The Connemara

Not long after our return from France, we travelled to the Connemara area in western Ireland. We took the coastal route from Galway, and on the way, we passed through the delightful town of An Spideal, which is supposedly where all the Currans are from. We were disappointed that there was no bunting out to welcome the antipodean Currans, and there was no sign of a cup of tea and scone from the local mayor, but anyway, we pushed on and had lunch at a local pub. In any case, the town is in the Gaeltacht area where only gaelic is spoken, so we would have understood very little in any case, although the girls would  have been able to translate some of it. In Spiddal we also visited a very rare thing in Ireland - a decent souvenir/gift shop. Ireland would have to specialise in probably the world's worst souvenir shops. Every one of them appears to be the same, drenched in superficial shamrockery. The inevitable leprechaun dolls, sheeps with scarfs on and so on. You get the picture. In Spiddal however there was a little community of artists who had a collection of shops in the same area, just outside the town, so we brought away some nice memories of our visit. 

Some of the scenery around Spiddal:

 

The Connemara has to be one of the most ruggedly beautiful parts of Ireland. Here you get the iconic scenery of huge mountains dwarfing white-washed stone cottages and poor lonely sheep perched on rocky outcrops. It was perhaps this scenery which inspired Patrick Pearse, one of the heroes of the 1916 Easter Uprising rebellion against the British, to have his summer cottage here. We visited it and it certainly is very small and isolated, but has fantastic views. Pearse had chosen this place of isolation to write some of his most powerful rhetoric about Irish nationalism. A teacher by trade, he had been one of the most prominent leaders of the Gaelic revival in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Ireland, a movement which above all else promoted the teaching of Gaelic in schools as well as the learning of Irish myths and legends.He was a cultural nationalist. Originally opposed to violence, he became radicalised by the failure in the early twentieth century to achieve Irish independence. Pearse was one of the first executed in Kilmainham Gaol following the failure of 1916.  The cottage is modest and there is a debate in the Irish press at the moment about why the government is not doing more to promote its significance. Many are apparently uncomfortable with Pearse's swing to violence at the time of the rising. Others want to preserve the very simplicity of the site, which does, I have to say, have a power all its own. One of his poems was on the wall of his bedroom (where it is also believed he wrote one of the most famous funeral orations in Irish history - to O'Donnovan Rossa) and is worth reading:

The Wayfarer, by Patrick Pearse

The beauty of the world hath made me sad,
This beauty that will pass;
Sometimes my heart hath shaken with great joy
To see a squirrel in a tree
Or a red ladybird upon a stalk
Or little rabbits in a field at evening,
Lit by a slanting sun,
Or some green hill where mountainy man has sown
And soon would reap; near to the gate of Heaven;
Or children with bare feet upon the sands
Of some ebbed sea, or playing on the streets
Of some towns in Connacht,
Things young and happy.
And then my heart hath told me:
These will pass,
Will pass and change, and die and be no more,
Things bright and green, things young and happy;
And I have gone upon my way
Sorrowful,

The view from Pearse's cottage

 

 

Our next destination was Cashel, where we stayed in a hotel called Cashel House. The place owes its fame primarily to the fact that former French president Charles de Gaulle, and his wife Yvonne, stayed here for 2 weeks as part of their Irish holiday in May 1969. This was after De Gaulle had left the presidency. Readers of the blog will recall an earlier post about the monument to De Gaulle in Sneem, on the ring of Kerry, where he also stayed (he had Irish in the bloodlines apparently) and whilst in France James also visited De Gaulle's home, La Boisserie, in Colombey Les Deux Eglises, in the Haute-Marne region of France. Cashel house has a plaque to commemorate the De Gaulle visit and a shrine to De Gaulle in the hallway, replete with a photocopy of the signed bill for his 2 weeks stay. The owner of the hotel, who spoke to us at dinner, remembers the visit and told us some great stories about De Gaulle and his behaviour at the time. Perhaps the most impressive part of this degaulliana however was the seat where he used to sit. This was located up on a small hill and had a gorgeous view over Cashel bay. The hotel was one of somewhat faded elegance and probably remains resting a little on the De Gaulle laurels, but it was a very comfortable stay, and a real treat.

The view from our room at Cashel House

Below, James does his best De Gaulle impersonation on the De Gaulle seat....

 

  

The girls loved the hotel too because it has its own 'secret garden' in its grounds, with all the flowers in bloom and a number of exotic plants - it really was an adventure each time we walked in there. In another part of the hotel grounds there were fruit trees and a superb looking vegetable patch. 

The entrance to the secret garden

Getting lost in the garden:

 

 

From Cashel we also visited the town of Roundstone and also Clifden, where we had dinner at one of the local pubs. 

 

Some shots of the coastal drive between Roundstone and Clifden: At a few points along this road we came across groups of cows just relaxing on a little stretch of beach, enjoying the view!

 

 

 

Coming into Clifden

 The next day, we travelled the inland route on the way back to Dublin, enjoying some more beautiful, but quite different, scenery.

 

 

Once past Galway, we stopped for lunch in Athenry, from where the famous Irish song 'the Fields of Athenry' is taken - now sung widely at Irish rugby matches!