Galway, Coole Park, and an abandoned Abbey

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

We had a very full day today, after a solid night’s sleep last night.  First a note about the weather: you never can tell.  The temperatures are very mild, in the 60’s, with intermittent breezes.  But the clouds and rain are totally unpredictable.  It’s mostly cloudy.  It often rains extremely lightly as a falling mist for five or ten minutes and then stops.  Rarely it really rains for two minutes and then stops.  Many people don’t pay any attention and just continue going where they’re going, no hat, no raincoat, with the simple knowledge that they won’t get very wet and it will soon stop.  And it does.

We drove to Galway after breakfast, and spent most of the day there.  With 80,000 people, Galway is Ireland’s fourth largest city, but it is small and easily walkable. 

  

It is a tourist town and there are characters walking around:

  

This is the home of the Claddach ring, a piece of jewelry which has deep roots and much meaning depending on how it’s worn.  It is commonly passed down from mother to daughter or granddaughter.

  

There are many buildings which date back to medieval days, and above some entry doors are “marriage stones” with symbols of the families being joined:

  

The King’s Head pub is located where Charles I lost his head in 1649.  A long story.

 We were told a number of stories and legends, some of which may have been true.  One of the very prominent families here was named Lynch, and their coat of arms (originally perhaps placed for trade purposes) is on one of the buildings:

 We were told the story of how one Lynch father hanged his son from a window of their home (with a long prelude) resulting in the use of the family name to signify an unlawful hanging.  We were shown the home and the window.  We were then told that it’s a story for the tourists.  Maybe.  The Irish are great story-tellers and have wonderful legends regarding fairies and other supernatural creatures.  We’ll keep a healthy amount of skepticism.

There’s another wonderful story here of King Henry VII, a monkey and a baby, memorialized by the King’s coat of arms and a monkey and baby statue.  Too long to relate here.

 The wonderful St. Nicholas church dates from 1320, and is beautiful.  Here’s one of the entrances:

 This remarkable baptismal font dates to the 1600s:

 Here’s one of the apses and the beautiful stained glass window in it:

 We shopped for a sweater for Gil and had a problem!  He’s too big for the larges children’s sizes and too small for the smallest adult ones.  We’ll keep trying.  We had lunch in Galway, and then went to Coole Park, the remains of the estate of the remarkable Lady Gregory.  Another long story, but in brief, during the time of the British Penal Laws, from about 1850 until Irish independence, Irish culture was suppressed.  Lady Gregory hosted and had relationships with the likes of W. B. Yeats, Sean O’Casey,  George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce and many other luminaries.  Her estate is now a nature preserve; the home has been torn down.  The grounds are lovely; here’s walkway we saw in the introductory film where Yeats and Lady Gregory were photographed. 

 We had one of Yeats’ poems read to us, “The Wild Swans of Coole” (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43288/the-wild-swans-at-coole).  We learned about the enormous turlough here which recently, as the lake rose rapidly, destroyed a very large tree from underneath:

 There are great trees for climbing here:

  

We left Coole Park and traveled to the Kilmacduagh Abbey which is a ruin.  Dating from the 7^th century C.E., it is quite beautiful with a cemetery which is still maintained and a tower which has begun to lean:

  

A note about the stone walls which are everywhere, alongside roads and through fields.  Many of them, built without any mortar, were erected during the famine as the government sought ways to employ men who had no other means of support.  They are truly works of art:

  

We arrived back at the hotel with a few minutes to wash up before another very good, enormous three-course dinner.  I don’t know about anyone else, but I need to watch out—the food has been abundant and very good.  After dinner, we were treated to an evening of Irish music, performed by a 12-year old banjo player, a 13-year old violinist and harpist, and a 14-year old flutist.  They were wonderful! 

 We had jigs (in 6/8 time) and reels (in 4/4/ time).  Here’s a short clip of a reel (click on the arrow):

 The three players had all started on pennywhistles, and each of the five children in our group were given their own and they had a lesson:

 This is as good as it got:

  

Finally, to bed after a wonderful long day.  Tomorrow the whole day to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher.