Galway, Connemara, and Cong: Ireland’s West Coast
We arrived in Galway around midnight, after a whirlwind trip to Spain and a three-hour bus ride from Dublin. The sound of our suitcases rattling against the cobblestone streets sounded like gunshots in the quiet neighborhood where the bus station was, but as we passed into the main square towards our hotel, the noise from the bars began to drown out our little caravan.
We checked into our hotel, right off Eyre Square, and collapsed in bed almost instantly. Before I closed my eyes, I told Matt how funny it was that this morning, we’d been lounging on a beach in Barcelona, and now we were sleeping next to a rowdy Irish bar in the middle of sleepy, coastal Galway.
Matt is one of those Americans who can actually claim Irish heritage—his great-grandparents were born and lived in County Mayo, near Galway, before his great-grandmother immigrated to the United States in 1912 (one month after the Titanic, departing from Dublin, sank).
Our German friend once told me that Matt looks like the quintessential American boy, but I’ve always thought his freckles betrayed a bit of his Irish roots.
Galway is the sweetest of cities. For someone who lives in a state that takes nine hours to traverse by car, Ireland’s small size blew my mind. We landed in Dublin on the west coast, around 9:00pm, and arrived in Galway on the east coast around midnight. Three hours! That’s all it took to go from coast to coast!
Suffice it to say, everything about Ireland charmed me. On our first morning, we awoke to a homemade Irish breakfast at our hotel, and then rushed back to the bus station to catch a 9am tour of the surrounding area.
Matt lived in Dublin for three months in college, and had visited Galway during his stay in Ireland. The tour we were about to take, a “Connemara, Cong, & Kylemore Abbey” tour, was one that he’d already done twice, so I knew it had to be good if he was willing to do it a third time. We departed with Galway Tour Company. Our tour guide, unbelievably, was the same guide that Matt had when he visited Galway seven years ago!
We drove out of Galway and headed northeast, passing through Connemara (famous for its marble) and County Mayo. Our tour guide let us out of the bus frequently, to point out herds of sheep, beautiful hillsides, old ruins in the moors, and bright-blue bodies of water. He explained that the Irish government was making a keen effort to reinvigorate the use of the Gaelic language, which is why every sign was written first and most prominently in Gaelic, and next in smaller print, in English.
Passing through this terrain was like taking a step back in time. The remote, rugged landscape, crumbling stone walls, white Connemara ponies, the churches and graveyards, and the peat bogs are the essence of Ireland. Connemara’s protected peat bogs stretch almost to the Atlantic Ocean, looking gloomy and mystical even in the bright light of the sun. It’s easy to see why there are so many legends and myths surrounding this countryside.
Our first major stop on the tour was Kylemore Abbey in County Galway. The last time Matt explored Kylemore, the weather was glum, with thick clouds of fog resting heavily across the grounds. In Matt’s pictures, you can’t even tell that there’s a hillside behind the abbey. We were quite lucky to have perfect weather when we visited.
Kylemore Castle was built in the late 1800s by Mitchell Henry, a member of parliament. He built the estate out of love for his wife Margaret, who tragically passed away right after the castle was completed and is buried on the grounds. Today, the grounds are run by the Benedictine community, who have been in residence since 1920.
The grounds consist of a beautiful Victorian walled garden, the castle and residence, and a Gothic church.
We began our tour in the gardens, marveling at the bright, sunny day (it was hotter than Barcelona). We enjoyed tea as we strolled through the magnificent greenhouse and admired the gardener’s historic living quarters. The super-strong smell of smoking peat infiltrated our entire experience.
We then headed through a woodland pathway towards the castle, which sat at the base of a hillside overlooking a lake. Willow trees swayed in the breeze and goats and sheep crossed our path.
Though it now houses a school run by the Benedictines, the castle was still arranged to reflect the lives of its former inhabitants, the Mitchells. We admired the drawing room with its big windows overlooking the lake and hills and the dining room set up for a full dinner service.
Our final stop at Kylemore Abbey was the Gothic church where Margaret is buried. The church was silent when we entered. I spent much of the time admiring the different varieties and colors of marble, and we lit a candle for one of our friends.
Our next major stop on the tour was the most memorable of the day. We had just passed into a series of rolling hills overlooking a large lake where locals were swimming. Fuzzy white and black sheep, painted red and blue for herding purposes, dotted the hillsides.
Our bus driver stopped the bus at the peak of a dramatic hill where the views were sweeping. He told us that anyone who wanted to get out and take a walk down the hill was welcome to meet the bus at the bottom. We scrambled out of the bus and started walking down the hillside, marveling at the view.
Before long, I made a quick friendship in a girl who was studying abroad from Florida, and she and I grabbed hands and helped each other climb to the very top of the hillside, scattering sheep in our path and running as fast as possible across the grass without breaking our ankles. Together, our group extended what the bus driver intended to be a quick five-minute stop into a leisurely, pastoral half-hour stroll.
We made our next major stop at the Village of Cong, which is famous for being the site of the John Wayne movie The Quiet Man (and, as our guide told us, for having amazing 99s). Matt and I each grabbed a 99 (which is a vanilla ice cream cone with a chocolate wafer on top) and explored the village.
Matt led me to a tiny, ancient fishing hut, where we sat on the banks of the river and watched fish and swans swim past, before climbing on the ruins of an old church.
Our final stop of the day was Ross Errily Friary, a fourteenth-century monastery right outside Cong. The monastery was in ruins, so we had wide-open sky above our heads and grass and rocks beneath our feet as we explored.
The entrance and doorways within the monastery were so small that everyone but me—standing at a proud 5’2”—had to duck. Our guide told us that the doors were short not because everyone was so small in the 1300s, but because the monks believed that this forced people to bow and show reverence before entering a place of God.
When we returned to Galway, we strolled through the streets and marketplaces as the sun set, grabbing a Guinness at a bar, buying street art, lounging in Eyre Square, strolling along the coast with ice cream in hand, and having some great Irish craic (fun).
