Woke up at a Beautiful B&B today, run by Mary Lydon. Turns out her family is married into the very Farragher clan that we came here to see. We went down to Ashford Castle, where we promptly got the “brush-off” since we weren’t their residents. We found a beautiful nature walk by a stream in Cong which was even better than the Castle itself.
Today is a day for meeting the Farragher relatives at Jimmy’s 63 acre farm overlooking the Connemara Mountains. We arrived to good food and warm hospitality. Soda bread, ham, pie, cookies, etc. The women pictured are all of Jimmy’s (Farragher) sisters, Anne, Catherine, mary & Peggy. Jimmy took us up to the fields with his border collie “Spotty” and showed us how a real Irishman farmer can use that dog to herd the sheep. Phil got it all on video tape, which we all agreed was one of our true highlights of this trip so far.From 3 PM to 7 PM was spent in a car on semi-decent roads, but nothing like highways as we might call them in the states. Some are like the Worthington-Cowansville roads but the Irish kamikaze drivers (all of them) are absolutely insane! We are by far the slowest car on the roads, which probably added time onto our drive today, but we feel much safer.
We put down in the town called Kells, famous for the “Book of Kells” which is mere miles from the Family McEntee homestead in County Meath. Tomorrow will be the Ruins at Tara, New Grange, Castle at Trim, and we’ll wind up the evening with the Maura Rafferty and the McEntee clan.
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