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Traveling west out to Connemarra and saw the bridge that John Wayne sat on and walked across in “The Quiet Man”. Pretty cool as its one of our favorite movies. Traveling further west to Kylemore Abbey. This place is so beautiful! I could have stayed there all day….big sigh. They had a huge Victorian garden that they are restoring. It fell into disrepair a few times and now they are doing a huge restoration effort. It will cost approx. 1.5 million pounds to complete the project. The Abbey was unbelievably humongous. They had an all girls school there for many decades and it was just shut it down in 2010. The castle and grounds were given as a gift by Mitchell Henry to his bride Margaret. Some gift!!!! But alas there was tragedy….in 1874 the family holidayed in Egypt and Margaret fell ill with dysentery and died. Mitchell built the church in memorial. He passed away 40 years later having never remarried. They are both laid to rest on the property in the mausoleum.

After we drove back we walked down to the shopping area in downtown Galway where I did some shopping….bought some new leather boots and an original Claddaugh ring made in Galway. We also stopped in at the pub called Tig Neactain and sat in a snug for a couple pints. ;0)

~ by jmaurais on October 13, 2013.

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