Most of rural Ireland does not have hi-speed internet.  In fact the parts of Ireland where our family is visiting does not even have fiber optic internet cabling. What this means is that I am having trouble getting images to load. Frequently as I start to insert data or images on a page the internet comes to a  complete halt and I loose everything I had just posted. So when we return home I will post some of the hundreds of pictures the family has taken on our trip and some of the fascinating experiences we have enjoyed.

We left Westport Boffin Lodge about 10;30 a.m. and spent two hours souvenir shopping before we left the town itself.  Westport is my favorite town in Ireland, but it has changed since our last visit seven years ago. More cars, more homes, wider roads but the same warm friendly people. Karen and all the kids loved Westport. As we were leaving Westport headed to Tullycross, the village Shawn and her Aquinas classmates lived in for four months, it began to mist and the roads and vehicles became wet.  However in Ireland a mist is “A great day if it is not raining hard”.

One of my fondest memories from out first visit to Ireland was the day Shawn, Karen, and I were on our way to Westport for our first visit.  The three of us stopped for some pub grub at “The Field” pub in Leenane. Maybe you have heard me tell the story of that visit. Karen and Shawn had gone into the pub to order lunch while I went down the block to park the car. Now Leenane was at the time quite a small village consisting of the pub, a post office, and a general store. Today it is slightly larger as it has added a sheep wool museum (remember… sheep are EVERYWHERE  in Ireland and lamb is one of their favorite meats. So it stands to reason they would have a sheep wool museum illustrating the different kinds of sheep and the different kinds of wool each sheep produces, as a visitor attraction. Much of the rest of the village remains the same.  Back to the story… I was just walking into The Field when I saw a flock of 70-90 sheep being herded down the middle of the road by a shepherd and two Irish sheep dogs. As the shepherd approached the pub, he said to the two dogs: “take the sheep to the field at the end of the buildings and hold them there”. And then he walked into the pub. I couldn’t my eyes as those two dogs herded the sheep to the designated field, herded them into a tight circle, and then laid down on the ground and menacingly eyed the sheep daring them to move. It was one of the most incredible sights I have seen.  So I was anxious to show the kids the pub are retell the same story that they have heard plenty of times before. The difference this time was I had the visual impact of the actual pub and fiield.

The McCloskey girls have never met a souvenir shop they didn’t like and so 1 1/2 hours of stopping in Leenane we continued on our way to Kylemore Abbey just a few miles from Tullycross. After a lunch and another hour in the Kylemore Abbey gift shop, we took pictures of the amazing Abbey and headed the short distance to Tullycross.

We decided to take a detour and visit the remains of the castle of the Irish female pirate legend, Grace O’Malley. We spent another hour walking the beach, looking for heart-shaped stones deposited ashore by the North Atlantic, and absorbing the beautiful view while Shawn showed Corey the ins and outs of the castle.

Finally we left for the village, the people, and the culture that had provided Shawn with a life-changing experience during her four month stay in the Connemara West of Ireland. I was anxious to see Shawn’s reaction to the village after a 17 year absence. We checked-in at the Maol Reidh Hotel located directly across the street from Shawn’s thatched rood cottage #1. The Maol Reidh was built two years after Shawn and her classmates left Tullycross.

After dinner we all followed Shawn as she showed us where she and her classmates had planted a tree in thanksgiving to the people of Tullycross for the warmth, the kindness, and the lifetime of memories they had provided to all of the Aquinas students. Then we wandered into Salmon’s pub, now know as the Angler’s Rest,  where the Aquinas students spent every free minute studying by the turf fire in the big fieldstone fireplace to escape the damp, rainy weather that seemed to chill them daily. And much to Shawn’s pleasant surprise, only the name had been changed on the pub. Inside, the pub looked exactly like she remembered it, including the phone booth used to call and receive calls from home. They were never long calls though because on any given night, the phone was being used constantly to call home.

We all bellied up to the bar and ordered our favorite libation and video taped a toast to Aunt Diane who had sent us money to buy us a round at the pub. So Diane, thank you for the round of drinks and we hope by now you have received the video message of our toast.

It was good to be home… and so the night quietly slipped away in many fond memories.