I am now two days behind on the blog, so I’m going to catch up kind of quickly with a recap of prehistoric Ireland, sheep herding demos and our first steps into County Mayo, where Will’s family came from.
Our day started today with saying goodbye to the rest of the family, as they headed back to Dublin. Their flight leaves tomorrow. I know Doug will be happy to no longer drive the “church van” on these tiny Ireland roads.
Will and I headed toward the Burren, a unique rocky landscape of limestone. This limestone originally formed when Ireland was down by the equator 330 million years ago. It’s so bare because the prehistoric settlers of Ireland cleared the land of trees and vegetation. The topsoil eventually eroded over time.
We stopped at two sites — Caherconnell Ring Fort and Poulnabrone Dolmen.
Caherconnell is a ring fort that had been occupied by succeeding family communities over a thousand years. It’s actually incredible how many items have been discovered from centuries past, including these animal skulls.
We toured the fort with an excellent guide who brought to life each successive generations.
I was especially touched by the findings of sewing and writing implements from more than 1,000 years ago. These were signs of a very wealthy family community who traded as far as Germany and Venice.
Typical for our stay in Ireland, it started raining near the end of the outdoor part of the tour, and we finished with a video. On the way, our guide pointed out how close the cows were to the stone wall, their way of seeking protection from the wind and wet.
After that very chilly tour, I enjoyed a hot vegetable stew and a plain scone. The Irish do stews and scones really well!
After the wet, rainy ring fort, we drove 5 minutes down the road to Poulnabrone Dolman, an ancient tomb, and the weather was now blue skies. Typical Irish weather. Here are photos of the tomb, the Burren landscape and hardy flowers.
We decided to return to Caherconnell for their sheep herding demonstration. Will already shared one video on Facebook, but here is another one. The presenter asked the crowd how many sheep they wanted the dogs to bring up to the podium. The crowd said four. Here ya go:
It was quite fun to watch. Ireland has almost 4 million sheep. You see them everywhere on farms and grazing land, including the steepest of hills and out in the worst weather with no concerns at all.
The rest of the day, we drove to Cong, where our BnB is. This town, just over the border in County Mayo, has a population of 145 and is most well-known for the being the site for filming the movie The Quiet Man. Along with an ancient abbey, the town also has a statue to John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. You can see both in the photo below:
Our BnB also has A LOT of movie photos and posters, including this one outside our door.
The next post will be all about our foray deep into County Mayo, the birthplace of Will’s great grandfather.
Travel Buddies 
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