Thursday, April 28, 2016

British Isles Friday Ireland 1991 Part 3


I've been doing some memory lane posts of trips before digital and before blogging.

I first traveled to England with my Mom in 1960
My parents took us back as a family in 1970.
John and I first went together in 1986 to London.
Continuing 1986 with Oxford and Stratford.
Ireland 1991 Part 1 Dublin
Ireland 1991 Part 2 Around Ireland 
Ireland 1991 Part 3 Around Ireland


May 1991 - Ireland Part 3

Last week I gave you part 1 of our Irish trip and will continue that trip today.

We'll start with our drive into Galway. Bright fields of rapeseed.




A stop for a photo of Dunguaire Castle this also has a link to Yeats who was mentioned in my last post.


In 1924 Dunguaire was bought and repaired by Oliver St. John Gogarty, the famous surgeon and literary figure. This was the time of the great Celtic revival in Irish literature exemplified by the works of writers such as Synge, Yeats Shaw and O'Casey. It became the venue for meetings of the literary revivalists such as W.B. Yeats, his patron Lady Gregory, George Bernard Shaw, Edward Martin and J.M. Synge. Yeats in particular believed strongly in the Celtic Bardic Tradition and set about reviving the ancient oral customs incorporating them into his plays and poetry.

In 1954 the castle was acquired by Christobel Lady Amptill who completed the restoration started by Oliver St. John Gogarty. Subsequently the castle became the property of Shannon Development. Today the restored castle gives an insight into the lifestyle of the people who lived from 1520 to modern times.

1991



In 2005 we attended their medieval banquet, which is lovely, small and intimate.

Taken in 2005.


Galway City


In 1991 we stayed at the Imperial Hotel. I googled it and it still exists looking much the same.






Galway City Cathedral. Revisited in 2015.



2015








Spanish Arch 1991


2015





2015


St. Nicholas in 1991. Click here to visit it in 2015.




University of Galway in 1991.


2015


 Moving on


 County Mayo



Croagh Patrick (pronounced Croke Patrick) stands at 764m (2,507ft) and is the third highest peak in Mayo. Best known for its association with Saint Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint, who is said to have fasted for 40 days at the summit in 441AD, Croagh Patrick has been a pilgrimage destination since pre-Christian times.


We stayed overnight in Westport.

Still in business, The Olde Railway Hotel is a classic coaching inn, on a tree-lined mall overlooking the Carrowbeg River in the town centre. It was built in 1780 as a coaching inn for the guests of Lord Sligo.






 Looking across at the Railway Hotel.





Yikes no wonder my niece always says she remembers my big earrings and how about that long dark hair????






Around County Sligo



Tobernalt Holy Well predates the advent of Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century.


More Yeats. Yeats, born in Dublin 151 years ago this year, spent his childhood summers with Sligo relatives and he carried the force of it within him all his life.



A portrait of WB Yeats in 1920 (Getty Images)


Guess I carried huge purses even back then.



He wrote The Lake Isle of Innisfree (“I will arise and go now”) in grey-pavemented 1888 London to express a homesick yearning for somewhere that he heard “in the deep heart’s core”.


Driving on.


In Letterkenny we stayed in Gallagher's.It appears to still exist but looks very grand on their website.
In 2007 we rented an apartment from a doctor who worked in Letterkenny.


Before getting to County Donegal we had to cut through County Fermanagh at Enniskillen which takes you into Northern Ireland and in 1991 there were still British soldiers guarding the border.

We were met by a very young soldier who looked at our passports and said he knew someone in Winnipeg, perhaps we knew him LOL.





The town of Bundoran.


The Great Northern Railway Hotel in the background.





My cousin in Dublin through a travel agent friend got us a great deal on this hotel.





The view from our room.


The beach at Malin head the most northerly point of the island of Ireland.








 Malin Town





Considered to be the most dramatic of the beautiful Donegal peninsulas. You get a real sense of the power of the sea and the resilience of the land on this wild peninsula.










Around Donegal Town.








4 comments:

  1. Beautiful landscape. It's interesting seeing the similarities and differences over time of a single location.

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  2. We did a medieval banquet in Ireland that was the opposite of small and intimate -- yours sounds like more fun!

    Love the misty skies in some of these photos.

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  3. Amazing as usual! I love the different shots of the same place as well, my fave has to be the college and all that gorgeous red climbing plant! Stunning.

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  4. I sure a, enjoying reading about your travels and looking at the old photos. It's a beautiful country, Irrland, and we have been twice but not made it to some of the sights you are presenting. One day.

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