On the Road to Connemara

We rented a car in Galway and headed up to Connemara.  

The scariest thing about this trip so far has been driving on the left side of the road.  My initial reaction was to panic every time I passed an oncoming car who seemed to be driving in my lane. It doesn't help that they have no idea of shoulders on the roads. They plant hedgerows and build stone walls so close that they nearly scrape the paint off the car.  I told myself that I wouldn't get confused, that I was intelligent enough to figure this out, but five minutes after getting behind the wheel I was trying to get in the wrong lane.  After a couple of hours, though I started to get the hang of it.

When drove north from Galway into the district of Connemara,  headed for a town called Clifden. The farther we drove, the more we were taken by the stunning landscape.  Ireland has been like an onion  with layers of beauty and discovery, each mile a fresh vista of greater beauty.

A half hour up the road we stopped to visit the ruins of Aughnanure Castle (Pronounced to rhyme with "hog manure)'.  It is an ancient fortress of the O'Flaherty clan.  On the gates of old Galway was a written an ancient prayer "God protect this city from the plague and from the Ferocious O'Flaherties"  Visiting the castle, you can understand why they wrote it.  It must have bristled with armaments. Arrow slits and murder holes are still there among the granite slabs.  You can still see the high keep, and the ruins of the great feasting hall.  Now, though, the only feasters as sheep, and the only besieging hordes are milk cows.   After  imagining ourselves as lord and lady of the castle and taking pictures of it all, we traveled up the road.

A few miles later, we came upon a road sign marked the "Quiet Man Bridge." It was a bridge that was used as a location for the 1951 movie "The Quiet Man" with John Wayne and Maurine O'Hara.  It's just a stone bridge on a farm path over a gurgling stream.  It looks to be hundreds of years old.  Typical of the beauty of this place, though, there was nothing to mark or celebrate it except a small plaque with John Wayne's picture on it.  No one else was around.

If the first half of the journey was pretty, the second half was beyond spectacular.  Words are inadequate, pictures even more so.  Out of a barren wasteland of grass and stone, hills rose up like ancient giants, bare as bald men, out of rugged stone.  There are few houses here. The only inhabitants were the cars which went by, a few hikers and cyclists, and of course the sheep, which seemed oblivious to us.  They slept in places by the road and occasionally on the road.  In Ireland they don't have road kill--but they should have road mutton.  Streams meandered over the plains.  Never rushing,  always seeming to take their time. 

I'll always remember one place, after we passed the town of Clifden,  where we climbed a small hill, and the road suddenly opened into the valley below.  Coming round the curb,  we could see the great hills of Connemara National Park in the distance, reflecting the afternoon sunlight.  Down below were the treeless grassland,  dotted with sheep.  Loughs and esters--lakes and gentle sea bays--cut through the plain.  The composition was perfect; the coloration was perfect in the afternoon sunlight,  and it was all I could to keep my eyes on the road. 

Sometimes life is hard and mean. Other times, like today, suddenly surprises us with glimpses of heaven.  I could  stay here forever and stare at these hills.  But then, what other wonders would I miss?