Today we are staying in Cleggan, a coastal village near Connemara National Park
We woke this morning to this rainbow outside of our bedroom window. We overlook Omey Island, which is accessible in low tides.
Breakfast in this comfortable holiday home with Maugie and her sister, Dolores, and John.
Our mission today was to climb Diamond Hill in Connemara National Park. It is one of the Twelve Pins. It is about 200m high and a popular route for walkers.
The path is gravel, rock and wooden walkways.
There are ponies and sheep in paddocks en route.
Mark's favourite subject has become peat farming. Here,on our climb, we had a good view of peat excavation. There is a movement to curb this type of fuel to preserve the local environment.
The weather was fine, showery, windy and then the same repeated pattern throughout the morning.
Fabulous views from the top.
To the east is Pollacappul Lake with the impressive Kynemore Abbey on its shore.
Kynemore Abbey was built for Benedictine nuns, whose abbey in Ypres, Belgium was destroyed
in World War 1. It became a renowned girls' boarding school.
A formal award- winning walled garden is also on the property planted on the barren Connemara boglands.
On the opposite slope of Diamond Hill is a totally different landscape.
The view towards Cleggan and the coast.
In the National Park there is still the Letterfrank Industrial School which was an institution for poverty-stricken or illegitimate boys from 1890s - 1960s state and church run. In the adjoining chapel there is acknowledgement of the terrible wrongs afforded these young children.
There is a graveyard with at least a hundred graves, dating from 1890s, with these dedications.
The house in Cleggan is on the shore and across the bay is Omey Island. Today there was a horse riding class as the tide was receding.
When it was low tide we walked across to the island for an explore.
There are about 20 houses on Omey Island (all holiday rentals) and a monastery ruin attributed to St Fechin, who evangelised this area.
Guinness pint (and half pint) practice.
M&M
6/7/2014
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