Day 25: Small Town Ireland

It's getting harder and harder to keep up these daily posts, but I'm still feeling a bit sick and decided to stay in tonight so I should be able to write a decent amount tonight at least. Today we were covering a lot of ground in our van, and didn't have any major stops. Instead we stopped for 20-40 minute breaks and different places of interest, most of which were small villages or beaches along the coast.

Our first stop was at a graveyard that is the resting place of W.B. Yeats. Like many of the rural graveyards in Ireland it also had some old high crosses and the ruins of a round tower. Round towers were a way for monastaries and churches to protect their valuables from viking raids. When an attack was imminent they'd climb up a rope ladder to the only entrance high up in the tower and hide all the valuables up there until the attackers gave up or were beaten back.

We stopped for lunch in the seaside village of Strandhill near Slimo. It is apparently quite famous for surfing later in the season, but it's still quite chilly out now so the place was pretty quiet. I went for a walk along the coast but the wind off the water was quite cold, so eventually I just found a nice place sheltered from the wind in the tall grass and just relaxed and listened to music. Just lying there in the sun with the smell of the sea, the view of the mountains and The Decemberists - Sons & Daughters playing on my ipod is incredibly peacefully.

Next was a quick stop in Knock, Ireland. Knock is famous for and alleged holy vision of Mary by a group of townspeople in 1879. I personally didn't find too much of interest here. The shrine and church were interesting, but the entire thing is incredibly commercialized with shop after shop selling religious gifts.

Our final stop for the day is in another small town named Cong, which is known for its 5-star hotel Ashford Castle and for being the filming location of the 1952 John Wayne movie The Quiet Man. You'd think 60 years later it wouldn't be that important, but there's a museum for the movie in the very small town, as well as at least one hotel and one pub named after it. When the others headed off to the pub for drinks and later food I prefered to just wander the town since it is very quiet and picturesque, and we won't have any time to check it out tomorrow. It has the ruins of an old Abbey and in behind the ruins I found a series of nature trails through the woods. Ireland is just so incredibly green - with moss and ivy covering everything, that a walk in the woods is like entering a fairytale.

It also seemed like a bit of a hotspot for fishing, as I counted probably 10 people fishing along the water as I looked around. There is even some old stone ruins of a monk's fishing hut built over the water that dates back 600 years.

I'll end things with an anecdote regarding the movie. Back when they were filming the movie in the Cong country side there were three main cottages they were using. Two of the cottages were white, but one was blue. Since technicolor was just becoming a big thing, the crew really wanted the visuals to look their best, so they went to the owner of the blue cottage and told him: "We'd really appreciate it if you'd paint your cottage white to match the others. We'll pay you for all the expenses and give you some extra money for your troubles". "Oh, no problem, no problem. Just come back in a few days and it will be painted." So the crew leaves for a few days and comes back. The man's cottage is painted white, but now the other two cottages are painted blue. True story (I'm told).