We drove south through Connemara, heading to Galway. First stop area was around Croagh Patrick, though we didn’t have time to climb. Another year. Across the way is the National Famine Memorial, a very moving sculpture of a coffin ship with skeletons forming the rigging. Nearby, the ruins of the Murrisk Abbey. Then through the phenomenal Doolough Valley, where people collapsed and died of starvation while seeking relief during the potato famine in 1849. A very stark landscape. Considered buying a sheep. Decided against it. By the southern end of the valley, we were in pouring rain for the remainder of the afternoon.
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- Instructions for how to make the pilgramage work for you.
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- Croagh Patrick, about 2500 feet above sea level. Saint Patrick was atop it for a while about 440 AD.
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- View northward from Croagh Patrick.
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- National Famine Monument, installed in 1997. Artist was John Behan.
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- Ruins of Murrisk Abbey, founded originally about 1450 AD.
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- Modern cemetery too.
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- Entering the Doolough Valley.
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- Memorial to those who died crossing the 10 miles of the Doolough Valley, 1849..
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- it happened to be sheep selling day in the tiny town of Leenaun.
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- Moving a sheep from Point A to Point B.
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- You look mahvelous.
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- Smells like wet wool.
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- view of the Galway Bay from our apartment.
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- near our apartment in Galway.
diana maps 