Connemara and Galway – October 2022

You can read all about how we got up to Galway in Part 1 here.

After collecting Emmet from his place in town we headed west along Galway Bay, past the village of Spiddal. It was quite a windy day. Our destination was Kylemore Abbey and would take us through the back and beyonds of Connemara along the way.

Connemara is not just a place but a state of mind.

It contains much of what is considered to be the Gaeltacht – the traditional Irish speaking regions of Ireland. The last bastions of Ireland yesteryear. Geographically its a collection of rolling hillsides, mountains, peninsulas, small lakes and sheep, lots of sheep roaming around, including quite a few on the road.

Quite an Asset to the Abbey

In the shadows of the southern slopes of the Garraun mountain, and on the banks of Pollacapall Lough is Kylemore Abbey. Founded by Benedictine Nuns in 1920, who had previously fled Ypres in Belgium during World War 1, it still operates today as a monastery but has expanded to be a visitor attraction and has a working partnership with the University of Notre Dame in the United States that sees almost 100 students spend some of their studies at Kylemore.

The main attraction is the Castle, designed by James Franklin Fuller (who also designed Farmleigh House in Dublin) it was completed in 1871 after taking four years to build. It has over seventy rooms and a striking facade made from granite from Dalkey and limestone from Ballinasloe. It was built and oiginally owned by a wealthy London doctor – Mitchell Henry, who was also the MP for Galway (1871-1885). An enthusiastic angler and Connemara aficionado he spent a large sum of his money reclaiming the estate from the marshland and bog that stood before. It was later sold to the Duke and Duchess of Manchester in 1903, who owned it before being converted into the Abbey it is today.

Walking past the front of the castle you follow a woodland path to another building. This small gothic church and family mausoleum was built as a memorial to Margaret Henry, the wife of Dr Henry, who contracted a fever in Egypt and died in 1874. Inside the church are coloured marble from each of the four provinces of Ireland.

There are some fabulous Victorian Walled Gardens to the east of the castle and luckily there was a bus to take us up the hill. Completely restored it’s a self sufficient estate in terms of vegetables and ingredients. The UK based cooking show Two Fat Ladies featured the Abbey in one of their episodes and it has featured in RTE’s Nationwide TV programme.

We had a great lunch in the old school canteen dining room before heading back down the road to Galway.

On the way back, John demanded the car to be stopped at some random stone bridge just outside Maam Cross, the ‘Quiet Man’ Bridge that John Wayne made famous.

You can read more about this and the rich tapestry of movies and television shows that were shot in our dedicated post – Ireland in Film : Into the West

More Spanish than Irish

The next morning we swapped the motor for the buggy and hit the cobblestone streets. It’s a fantastic walk into the city from Salthill, walking along the coastal trail past Claddagh Quay and crossing the river Corrib via the Wolfe Tone bridge.

Our first stop was the Spanish Arch

Galway was the principal port for trade between Ireland and continental Europe in the Middle Ages. Trade routes to Spain, Portugal and France were established. The Spanish Arch is the last two arches on the ‘Ceann an bhalla’ the head of the Front Wall, part of the fortifications of the earlier walled city that extended to the quays.

The ruling class in Dublin would say that “Galway was more Spanish than Irish” due to the amount of Spaniards who took up residence there. Spanish Galleons were a common site on the quay alongside the arch so the name took hold and stuck over time. Many Galway families made pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela in return. Christopher Columbus visited on a voyage to Iceland or the Faroe Islands. Columbus prayed at the nearby St Nicholas church and there is a curious tale surrounding a man that he met in that church. This is the tale of Guillermo Herries, or William Harris and I leave it to others to tell his story.

Galway has deserved mention in Columbus’s Imago Mundi, describing an encounter with the bodies of Inuit that were swept eastward by the North Atlantic Current.

Men of Cathay have come from the west. [Of this] we have seen many signs. And especially in Galway in Ireland, a man and a woman, of extraordinary appearance, have come to land on two tree trunks [or timbers? or a boat made of such?]

A monument to this moment in history was erected in 1992 to mark the Columbus Quincentenary to mark his visit to Galway in 1477. Next to the arch in an old stone quay building is the quirky cafe called Ard Bia. We went here for breakfast.

We walked from here to Quay Street and the heart of the Latin Quarter. The street is thronged with gift shops, many selling the ‘Claddagh Rings’, pubs, restaurants and landmarks – including the statue of the ‘Galway Girl’.

Do you remember those merchant families that used to run the city? Well some of their townhouses around here – for example Lynch’s Castle on Shop Street. Built in 1320 it allowed the Lynch Clan to project power and influence over the city, with 84 members holding the title Mayor of Galway at one point or another.

We continued up to Eyre Square before doing a bit circle around by Galway Cathedral (there is a playground next to this btw!) and Nuns Island before returning to Salthill and saying goodbye to Emmet as we started our journey south back to Cork.

First stop back would be the Burren!