The rugged and lovely Connemara was the beginning of our journey along the Wild Atlantic Way. Derek managed to avoid the large sheep and sleek cows that grazed along the impossibly green hillsides, with rivers, and oceans far below the narrow, room for one car only roads. Ireland is in the middle of a drought. En-route to our hostel accommodation, we sat in the car (the rain being too heavy to venture out) listening to Enya’s A Day Without Rain, eating our lunch of delicious celery with mint and beetroot dip. We then stopped at the impressive Kylemore Abbey which has a comparatively recent past and is more significant for its beauty and incredible surroundings than for its history (built in the late 1800s by a wealthy politician and owned by the Benedictine community since 1920.)
The following day we headed into the National Park for a walk. Despite the exhilarating view as we walked up one of the higher Connemara slopes, the walk is most memorable because I don’t think I’ve ever felt closer to being blown off a cliff.
Many Catholic Irish landholders had their land redistributed to the English in the 1600s, and people moved further to the West of Ireland. Famine also pushed the Irish west. This region is more Celtic and Irish (otherwise known as Gaelic) is spoken as much as English. The Irish people are very proactive in preserving their culture and the once nearly dead language is a large part of this effort. All Irish children learn Gaelic at school and many schools teach English as a second language.