Like any good adventure to the great unknown, our travel plans led us westward from Dublin toward Galway. Normally, the trip would take about two hours with Ireland's new highway, but our journey was of the meandering sort, so we took a detour to Clonmacnoise, an old monastic settlement at the heart of Ireland. The settlement is situated at the intersection of a ridge and the Shannon River, a prime location for attracting a lot of visitors. This also means it attracted a lot of not-so friendly invaders, from the Vikings to the English. The site itself has a kind of haunting beauty, with ruins of churches and towers amid fields of Celtic stone crosses. Our tour guide seemed rushed in getting us through the site, but it was cool to wander around. Archaelogists have actually removed some of the stone crosses and put them inside a shelter to help preserve them against the elements; it's amazing how much detail they were able to save by providing shelter and cleaning the moss off. The ruins were also pretty interesting. The ones I remember the most were the burial sites of the last high kings of Ireland and the scriptorium, where the Tain Bo Cuailnge was written (an Irish text about a cattle raid involving several mythic heroes).
We then headed to Galway, where we'll be living for the next four weeks. The town is great--excellent energy but not as touristy as Dublin. We settled into our homestays as well. My host family owns a bed and breakfast, and Liz and I are staying in a sort of apartment-type guest house in the backyard. It's awesome.
We then headed to Galway, where we'll be living for the next four weeks. The town is great--excellent energy but not as touristy as Dublin. We settled into our homestays as well. My host family owns a bed and breakfast, and Liz and I are staying in a sort of apartment-type guest house in the backyard. It's awesome.
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