Connacht
A tradition of traditions, with one of the strongest Catholic influences, and the largest Irish-speaking areas in Ireland.
Catholic shrines are found all over Ireland, often on roadsides or hills, or in this case, in the grounds of St. John's Church in The Neale.
Looks like we found Angie.
Castlebar welcomes us the only way it knows how.
The boarding school where I was fed the prejudice, doctrine and wilful ignorance of a religion that I have no intention of ever following, and denied a full education and social life. My time there was not something I appreciate, save for the one friend who did not prejudge me as an outsider or unwilling representitive of a former or current oppressor.
Once old enough to be allowed to think for myself, I rejected the doctrine I had been given. Like many religious cultures, I now look on it only with an amount of curiosity. It's fine if you want to follow it. Just don't impose it or its restrictive expectations on me.
Approaching Westport, a town dominated by the view of Croagh Patrick (764 metres). Aille River Cave and its deep Pollatoomary resurgence lie a few km behind the camera (probably passing right under the school in the last pictures).
Tiny petrol/fuel station - there are plenty of these in rural Ireland. You almost expect to see a 90 year old hobble out to serve you.
Westport has always been very touristy, with resulting traffic problems. It has a very high concentration of tourist shops and pubs on its 2.5 streets. Some even specialise in selling holy water fonts for your house; you may get the impression that they are not just catering to foreign tourists. Many of the pubs do traditional music and both jig and set dancing. Unfortunately, the prices in most places in Westport and Castlebar are ridiculously high, far more than any other part of Ireland we visited.
Statue of Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland. Notice a few references here?
The Croagh Patrick range.
Croagh Patrick, the destination of ridiculous numbers of tourists. While a few go just to enjoy the mountain (it is, after all, a really impressive mountain, rising directly out of the sea), the vast majority are pilgrims trying to copy Saint Patrick, who reportedly climbed it 1600 years ago. He stayed there for 40 days, however, while these visitors just visit for the day. Not sure how many times I have climbed this; it's either 3 or 4.
The first 500 metres of altitude is gained on a normal path. The last 250 is a scree slope with plenty of other people kicking stones around, all trying to get to the chapel on the summit. Some pilgrims feel the need to climb with bare feet, especially on the last sunday of July, when around 15000 pilgrims all climb on the same day.
The mountain rises out of Clew Bay, the site of a drumlin field containing 117 drumlins or other small islands. With their shallow slopes on the right and steep slopes on the left, this shows that the glacier was moving from right to left of this picture.
View over Clew Bay's drumlins to the Nephin Beg Range, where Nephin (the tall mountain near the right) is the tallest at 806 metres.
The National Famine Memorial, a monument to the victims of the potato famine of 1845-1852. Before then, the Irish had almost exclusively relied on potatoes as a foodsource, and for those years, potato blight ravaged their crops.
With their population already barely making enough to survive, the famine killed over a million people. Another million, starving and desperate, left by whatever means they could, typically using so-called coffin ships to sail to the Americas, Wales or other countries. Many left from here in Clew Bay. About 300'000 died on the coffin ships, and more died later after failing to recover. Ireland's population dropped by 25%.
The governing body (the British Empire at the time) failed to sufficiently help, and British landowners simply evicted those who failed to make enough money for their rent due to loss of income, leaving them with no way to grow food. The British even attempted to block extra supplies of food and successfully blocked donations, since more was offered than the British monarchy themselves had offered. You can imagine the resentment this caused, and it had almost certainly played a significant role in the Irish War of Independence. This little memorial hardly seems to cover it.
Just in case you forget ... you visit a B & B thinking it all looks agnostic, then you find the last supper perched on your wardrobe. With two of the little statues rolling over with laughter.
Trekking around Carraholly, on the peninsula in the middle of Clew Bay (this actually took place after the Killary trip, but it makes more sense here).
Starting out into the bay.
Shallows.
Drumlin field. Did I mention how difficult it is to operate an SLR camera at the same time as holding the reins? At least the camera harness works nicely, though it would make falling off a more costly mistake.
Seaweed and drumlins.
Tidal inlet.
Westport Bay (part of Clew Bay).
Entering the Erriff River valley. Fans of Watership Down should say that name out loud, and think of the prince.
Waterfalls feeding the river from Maumtrasna (682 metres), tallest of the Partry Mountains.
Ben Gorm (700 metres).
The beginnings of Killary Harbour, with Ben Gorm behind it.
The village of Leanaun (Leenane), at the head of The Killary, with the Maumturk Mountains on the left and Ben Gorm on the right. The peak on the left is 666 metres tall. The Killary is supposedly Ireland's only fjord, 16 km long. It's quite a poor example of a fjord, being very shallow (normally just 20 metres or less), and having only gently sloping sides. In fact, even Clew Bay looks more glacial than this.
You don't need that tyre, right? This is the N59. You know, an important road.
An early part of the fjord, where the cruises start.
Ridges of Mweelrea. The near slopes here were used during the famine for growing crops, fertilised with seaweed.
Cruise catamaran.
Oops. It's Ireland, isn't it.
The Killary, at its largest point. It's about 700 metres wide, and Mweelrea on the right is the tallest point above the fjord, at 817 metres high (well known for almost always having its top hidden). The ridge on the left is only a little over 300 metres high.
Gannet.
Gannet diving for fish.- View animation.
The end, and deepest part of the fjord, somewhere between 45 and 42 metres deep (depending on tide). Quite pathetic, given that Norwegian fjords can be in excess of 1000 metres deep. During World War II, when Ireland was supposedly neutral (it actually secretly took the Allied side a little), British and German submarines/U-boats hid from a storm here, unable to attack each other as neither were supposed to be there in neutral territory. The Irish also intentionally turned a blind eye to avoid an incident.
Mussel beds.
Salmon fam pens.
The other claim to fame here is that the 1990 film The Field was filmed here, with (I think) this house on the shore of the fjord being the one used in the film. The story (adapted from a true story that took place in Kerry) revolved around a man struggling against the brutality of his landlord to secure a field for his son to farm ... except his son wanted to marry an Irish Traveller instead.
Gaynor's Pub, where much of the filming took place.
The back room at the bar, featured in the film.
Richard Harris, who played a main role in the film, carved his name on the wall in the bar. You may know him better as Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films, or Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator. Since he is, unfortunately, dead now, this is about as close as you can get to meeting him in person.
N59 in Westport.
Newport viaduct.
The edge of Nephin Beg.
Croagh Patrick, seen over the drumlins of Clew Bay.
And beaches. It really dominates the view here.
Exposed boulder clay (glacial till) on the drumlins.
Owenduff Hill (452 metres) on the Corraun Peninsula.
Corraun Hill (541 metres).
Claggan Mountain (380 metres). The pointed mountain to its left is Nephin Beg (627 metres).
Exposed boulder clay, showing that this area is also made from glacial till, like the drumlins.
The back of Corraun Hill.
The start of Achill Island, Ireland's largest island (excluding Ireland itself, of course), seen over Achill Sound. The pointed mountain in the distance is Knockmore (462 metres) on Clare Island.
In most of Ireland, the peat bog is harvested, dried out in the sun like this, and used as a fuel source called turf. An 8000 year old fossil fuel. This example is on Knockmore (337 metres). Many establishments own their own bog field for this purpose.
Menawn (466 metres).
Slievemore (671), the second highest point on the island, and normally a beautiful pointed mountain. Today it is a boring lump covered in cloud.
I had originally intended only to get a picture of the rows of drying turf piles, but these two (who were not going to be in the original shot) started frantically pointing and gesturing at nothing, and shouted something in an accent so thick that we could not make out any words - it's possible they were speaking Irish, since this is the edge of a Gaeltacht area. After several attempts, the following words appeared in a more normal Mayo accent; "Clear out. No pictures!". How dare I take a picture of their bog?! I stole its soul, and it shall remain forever imprisoned in my digital pixels. So in response to the first anti-tourism attitude we encountered, I chose to turn my camera and include them (anonymised, since that's only right) in a picture after all, to demonstrate that yes, there are a few unwelcomes. Of course, it's also possible they were stealing turf, and didn't want any evidence... Achill was, in fact, the least friendly place we visited. Not that anyone was particularly rude, but even in a B & B, the staff seemed not to treat anyone as welcome guests, beyond the required formalities.
The impressive Menawn Cliffs, as much as 300 metres high.
The road to Moyteoge Head, perched above a cliff about 180 metres high, with only the odd sheep between the car and the cliff.
Gully by the car park at the end of the road. When we were here 16 years ago, our cat managed to disengage the handbreak on the 2 ton VW campervan. With me hanging upside down half out of the roof bunk, my young sister in the back, and my dad diving into the front under the hammock, with feet flailing out of the door, it was the largest of these boulders here that barely stopped us before we went head first into the gully. The boulder rolled to the limit of its support before we stopped - if it had been one of the smaller ones, there would be the wreck of a camper in that gully.
Keem Bay, at the end of Achill.
Seal.
The road running along the cliff. For scale, there is a silver car on the road.
Cloud barely clearing Achill Head. A pity, because in good weather, it is well worth a short walk there to see the far side of Croaghaun.
Croaghaun (664 metres), also with its pointed top cut off. The far side is the tallest cliff in Ireland, and third tallest sea cliff in Europe at 668 metres high. How can it be 4 metres higher than the mountain? I guess that has something to do with the tide. In any case, it is not vertical, and the slope is quite significant. However, it is definitely taller than Slieve League's 595-601 metres, which are normally incorrectly claimed as the tallest.
Four-horned sheep at the Eagles Flying centre for rescued birds of prey in Sligo. It's a bird, mkay?
Harris's Hawk.
Merlin.
Kestrel.
Juvenile Heron.
Buzzard that is certainly not happy being tied up here.
European Eagle Owl.
European Eagle Owl.
Peregrine Falcoln.
Saker Falcoln.
Harris's Hawk.
Turkey Vulture.
European Eagle Owl.
Tawny Eagle.
White-tailed Sea-eagle.
White-tailed Sea-eagle.
Bald Eagle.
Start of the Ox Mountains, where the tallest peak is Knockalongy at 544 metres.
Gortnadrass.
Ox Mountains.
End of the Ox Mountains.
Slieve Daeane (275 metres).
Knocknarea (327 metres), with a Neolithic tomb on the top.
Waterwheel in Sligo.
Building of the Yeats society. Yeats is a poet from Sligo, who is standard reading for all school children, kindof like the Shakespeare of Ireland.
Guinness lorry; Irish icon, delivered fresh from Dublin.
Sligo Abbey. Sans roof.
Side view of Ben Bulben, by far the most impressive-looking mountain in the area, which dominates the skyline all along the coast. On the left is Ben Bulben's awesome scarp (526 metres), with the crags of Kings Mountain (462 metres) in the middle, and Crockauns (463 metres) / Keelogyboy Mountain (438 metres) on the right.
Ben Bulben's scarp.
Ben Bulben's face. On the left is the end of the horseshoe, which goes via Kings Mountain.
Great scarp on the side of Kings Mountain, with Truskmore (647 metres) in the background.
Tall waterfall on the scarp.
Crockauns scarp.
Glencar Waterfall, around 15 metres tall.
Glencar Cascade.
Glencar Lough.
Leean Mountain (417 metres).
Dough mountain. I am sure there are some jokes to make of that.
Hanging Rock over Lower Lough Macnean. This view signifies that we have now entered Northern Ireland.
Catholic shrines are found all over Ireland, often on roadsides or hills, or in this case, in the grounds of St. John's Church in The Neale.
Looks like we found Angie.
Castlebar welcomes us the only way it knows how.
The boarding school where I was fed the prejudice, doctrine and wilful ignorance of a religion that I have no intention of ever following, and denied a full education and social life. My time there was not something I appreciate, save for the one friend who did not prejudge me as an outsider or unwilling representitive of a former or current oppressor.
Once old enough to be allowed to think for myself, I rejected the doctrine I had been given. Like many religious cultures, I now look on it only with an amount of curiosity. It's fine if you want to follow it. Just don't impose it or its restrictive expectations on me.
Approaching Westport, a town dominated by the view of Croagh Patrick (764 metres). Aille River Cave and its deep Pollatoomary resurgence lie a few km behind the camera (probably passing right under the school in the last pictures).
Tiny petrol/fuel station - there are plenty of these in rural Ireland. You almost expect to see a 90 year old hobble out to serve you.
Westport has always been very touristy, with resulting traffic problems. It has a very high concentration of tourist shops and pubs on its 2.5 streets. Some even specialise in selling holy water fonts for your house; you may get the impression that they are not just catering to foreign tourists. Many of the pubs do traditional music and both jig and set dancing. Unfortunately, the prices in most places in Westport and Castlebar are ridiculously high, far more than any other part of Ireland we visited.
Statue of Saint Patrick, patron saint of Ireland. Notice a few references here?
The Croagh Patrick range.
Croagh Patrick, the destination of ridiculous numbers of tourists. While a few go just to enjoy the mountain (it is, after all, a really impressive mountain, rising directly out of the sea), the vast majority are pilgrims trying to copy Saint Patrick, who reportedly climbed it 1600 years ago. He stayed there for 40 days, however, while these visitors just visit for the day. Not sure how many times I have climbed this; it's either 3 or 4.
The first 500 metres of altitude is gained on a normal path. The last 250 is a scree slope with plenty of other people kicking stones around, all trying to get to the chapel on the summit. Some pilgrims feel the need to climb with bare feet, especially on the last sunday of July, when around 15000 pilgrims all climb on the same day.
The mountain rises out of Clew Bay, the site of a drumlin field containing 117 drumlins or other small islands. With their shallow slopes on the right and steep slopes on the left, this shows that the glacier was moving from right to left of this picture.
View over Clew Bay's drumlins to the Nephin Beg Range, where Nephin (the tall mountain near the right) is the tallest at 806 metres.
The National Famine Memorial, a monument to the victims of the potato famine of 1845-1852. Before then, the Irish had almost exclusively relied on potatoes as a foodsource, and for those years, potato blight ravaged their crops.
With their population already barely making enough to survive, the famine killed over a million people. Another million, starving and desperate, left by whatever means they could, typically using so-called coffin ships to sail to the Americas, Wales or other countries. Many left from here in Clew Bay. About 300'000 died on the coffin ships, and more died later after failing to recover. Ireland's population dropped by 25%.
The governing body (the British Empire at the time) failed to sufficiently help, and British landowners simply evicted those who failed to make enough money for their rent due to loss of income, leaving them with no way to grow food. The British even attempted to block extra supplies of food and successfully blocked donations, since more was offered than the British monarchy themselves had offered. You can imagine the resentment this caused, and it had almost certainly played a significant role in the Irish War of Independence. This little memorial hardly seems to cover it.
Just in case you forget ... you visit a B & B thinking it all looks agnostic, then you find the last supper perched on your wardrobe. With two of the little statues rolling over with laughter.
Trekking around Carraholly, on the peninsula in the middle of Clew Bay (this actually took place after the Killary trip, but it makes more sense here).
Starting out into the bay.
Shallows.
Drumlin field. Did I mention how difficult it is to operate an SLR camera at the same time as holding the reins? At least the camera harness works nicely, though it would make falling off a more costly mistake.
Seaweed and drumlins.
Tidal inlet.
Westport Bay (part of Clew Bay).
Entering the Erriff River valley. Fans of Watership Down should say that name out loud, and think of the prince.
Waterfalls feeding the river from Maumtrasna (682 metres), tallest of the Partry Mountains.
Ben Gorm (700 metres).
The beginnings of Killary Harbour, with Ben Gorm behind it.
The village of Leanaun (Leenane), at the head of The Killary, with the Maumturk Mountains on the left and Ben Gorm on the right. The peak on the left is 666 metres tall. The Killary is supposedly Ireland's only fjord, 16 km long. It's quite a poor example of a fjord, being very shallow (normally just 20 metres or less), and having only gently sloping sides. In fact, even Clew Bay looks more glacial than this.
You don't need that tyre, right? This is the N59. You know, an important road.
An early part of the fjord, where the cruises start.
Ridges of Mweelrea. The near slopes here were used during the famine for growing crops, fertilised with seaweed.
Cruise catamaran.
Oops. It's Ireland, isn't it.
The Killary, at its largest point. It's about 700 metres wide, and Mweelrea on the right is the tallest point above the fjord, at 817 metres high (well known for almost always having its top hidden). The ridge on the left is only a little over 300 metres high.
Gannet.
Gannet diving for fish.
The end, and deepest part of the fjord, somewhere between 45 and 42 metres deep (depending on tide). Quite pathetic, given that Norwegian fjords can be in excess of 1000 metres deep. During World War II, when Ireland was supposedly neutral (it actually secretly took the Allied side a little), British and German submarines/U-boats hid from a storm here, unable to attack each other as neither were supposed to be there in neutral territory. The Irish also intentionally turned a blind eye to avoid an incident.
Mussel beds.
Salmon fam pens.
The other claim to fame here is that the 1990 film The Field was filmed here, with (I think) this house on the shore of the fjord being the one used in the film. The story (adapted from a true story that took place in Kerry) revolved around a man struggling against the brutality of his landlord to secure a field for his son to farm ... except his son wanted to marry an Irish Traveller instead.
Gaynor's Pub, where much of the filming took place.
The back room at the bar, featured in the film.
Richard Harris, who played a main role in the film, carved his name on the wall in the bar. You may know him better as Dumbledore in the first two Harry Potter films, or Emperor Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator. Since he is, unfortunately, dead now, this is about as close as you can get to meeting him in person.
N59 in Westport.
Newport viaduct.
The edge of Nephin Beg.
Croagh Patrick, seen over the drumlins of Clew Bay.
And beaches. It really dominates the view here.
Exposed boulder clay (glacial till) on the drumlins.
Owenduff Hill (452 metres) on the Corraun Peninsula.
Corraun Hill (541 metres).
Claggan Mountain (380 metres). The pointed mountain to its left is Nephin Beg (627 metres).
Exposed boulder clay, showing that this area is also made from glacial till, like the drumlins.
The back of Corraun Hill.
The start of Achill Island, Ireland's largest island (excluding Ireland itself, of course), seen over Achill Sound. The pointed mountain in the distance is Knockmore (462 metres) on Clare Island.
In most of Ireland, the peat bog is harvested, dried out in the sun like this, and used as a fuel source called turf. An 8000 year old fossil fuel. This example is on Knockmore (337 metres). Many establishments own their own bog field for this purpose.
Menawn (466 metres).
Slievemore (671), the second highest point on the island, and normally a beautiful pointed mountain. Today it is a boring lump covered in cloud.
I had originally intended only to get a picture of the rows of drying turf piles, but these two (who were not going to be in the original shot) started frantically pointing and gesturing at nothing, and shouted something in an accent so thick that we could not make out any words - it's possible they were speaking Irish, since this is the edge of a Gaeltacht area. After several attempts, the following words appeared in a more normal Mayo accent; "Clear out. No pictures!". How dare I take a picture of their bog?! I stole its soul, and it shall remain forever imprisoned in my digital pixels. So in response to the first anti-tourism attitude we encountered, I chose to turn my camera and include them (anonymised, since that's only right) in a picture after all, to demonstrate that yes, there are a few unwelcomes. Of course, it's also possible they were stealing turf, and didn't want any evidence... Achill was, in fact, the least friendly place we visited. Not that anyone was particularly rude, but even in a B & B, the staff seemed not to treat anyone as welcome guests, beyond the required formalities.
The impressive Menawn Cliffs, as much as 300 metres high.
The road to Moyteoge Head, perched above a cliff about 180 metres high, with only the odd sheep between the car and the cliff.
Gully by the car park at the end of the road. When we were here 16 years ago, our cat managed to disengage the handbreak on the 2 ton VW campervan. With me hanging upside down half out of the roof bunk, my young sister in the back, and my dad diving into the front under the hammock, with feet flailing out of the door, it was the largest of these boulders here that barely stopped us before we went head first into the gully. The boulder rolled to the limit of its support before we stopped - if it had been one of the smaller ones, there would be the wreck of a camper in that gully.
Keem Bay, at the end of Achill.
Seal.
The road running along the cliff. For scale, there is a silver car on the road.
Cloud barely clearing Achill Head. A pity, because in good weather, it is well worth a short walk there to see the far side of Croaghaun.
Croaghaun (664 metres), also with its pointed top cut off. The far side is the tallest cliff in Ireland, and third tallest sea cliff in Europe at 668 metres high. How can it be 4 metres higher than the mountain? I guess that has something to do with the tide. In any case, it is not vertical, and the slope is quite significant. However, it is definitely taller than Slieve League's 595-601 metres, which are normally incorrectly claimed as the tallest.
Four-horned sheep at the Eagles Flying centre for rescued birds of prey in Sligo. It's a bird, mkay?
Harris's Hawk.
Merlin.
Kestrel.
Juvenile Heron.
Buzzard that is certainly not happy being tied up here.
European Eagle Owl.
European Eagle Owl.
Peregrine Falcoln.
Saker Falcoln.
Harris's Hawk.
Turkey Vulture.
European Eagle Owl.
Tawny Eagle.
White-tailed Sea-eagle.
White-tailed Sea-eagle.
Bald Eagle.
Start of the Ox Mountains, where the tallest peak is Knockalongy at 544 metres.
Gortnadrass.
Ox Mountains.
End of the Ox Mountains.
Slieve Daeane (275 metres).
Knocknarea (327 metres), with a Neolithic tomb on the top.
Waterwheel in Sligo.
Building of the Yeats society. Yeats is a poet from Sligo, who is standard reading for all school children, kindof like the Shakespeare of Ireland.
Guinness lorry; Irish icon, delivered fresh from Dublin.
Sligo Abbey. Sans roof.
Side view of Ben Bulben, by far the most impressive-looking mountain in the area, which dominates the skyline all along the coast. On the left is Ben Bulben's awesome scarp (526 metres), with the crags of Kings Mountain (462 metres) in the middle, and Crockauns (463 metres) / Keelogyboy Mountain (438 metres) on the right.
Ben Bulben's scarp.
Ben Bulben's face. On the left is the end of the horseshoe, which goes via Kings Mountain.
Great scarp on the side of Kings Mountain, with Truskmore (647 metres) in the background.
Tall waterfall on the scarp.
Crockauns scarp.
Glencar Waterfall, around 15 metres tall.
Glencar Cascade.
Glencar Lough.
Leean Mountain (417 metres).
Dough mountain. I am sure there are some jokes to make of that.
Hanging Rock over Lower Lough Macnean. This view signifies that we have now entered Northern Ireland.