It’s bright and cool again as we head out to travel north. Our goal is Ceide Fields, with stops between. The land gentles as we drive, goes to rolling green, bisected with those wonderful stone walls or clumps of hedges. Cows and sheep–and I spot a deep brown sheep. Too bad we can shear it for Kat!

Some we pass is thick forest, deep and mysterious, and a village where they’ll have a big fair the next day. The Titanic village–to honor 14 who went down on her.

We’re after Errew Abbey, follow a sign post that says 5 km. It’s a skinny thread of a road, bordered by high hedges and winding as it goes. If another car comes along, someone’s going to be backing up a considerable way.

But luck’s with us, though it’s much longer than 5 km, past farms and through the hedges. We come to a stop where we can either go back again or park at a little gate beside a horse trailer. It’s a farm–you can hear the cows.

The little stone wall has rough steps. Kat climbs over first to see what she can see, and I go over after. We come to a field and can see the brooding gray stones of the abbey some distance off. We decide we’ve come this far, so start over the field.

There’s a smallish cow in the pasture who takes a long look at us, then stretches out her neck and gives a long, annoyed moo. The cows back in the cowshed answer her. One of them I can see is enormous, maybe a bull, and I’m glad he’s locked behind the gate.

There’s a lot of mooing from her, from them, and after another long look at me and Kat, she turns her back, lifts her tail and shows us just what she thinks of us.

The cow begins to walk, we follow. Carefully avoiding cow pies on the rough, clumpy grass that turns to a muddy track. Both the cow and the abbey seem to vanish.

We come to the lake, lovely views over it, water lapping at the rocks, and the sun still shining. The wind here is fierce, blowing strong ripples in the water, and snatching at my hoodie. And cold with it.

We spot the abbey again, close now, walk on where the sheep have grazed.

It’s a good-sized, well-preserved building, again with little rough steps worked in so we can climb up and in. Roofless, of course, but there are little archways to explore, then a set of narrow, steep steps. The short climb’s well worth it. We come out on a wide platform with views of the hills and fields and water. Strong sun, strong wind, and miles of green and blue.

We can clearly see the hills of Sligo to the east.

We ramble back, see the farmer who wanders over to say good morning. He’s a young guy, pleased with the company, and chats us up. We answer the inevitable where we’re from, and he’s delighted to tell us he’s been to D.C. for the cherry blossoms. And he lived awhile in The Bronx, loved it, and working in NYC–just being in America–but his father took ill, and he came home to help with the farm.

His father dropped dead this past October–in his words, and now he’s running the farm altogether.

We talk for some time, and he wishes he could go back to America where he feels a man willing to work can make a good living. Farming doesn’t pay. He has horses, cows, sheep, and he’ll be helping out a friend at tomorrow’s fair–which he highly recommends–on the hot dog and chipper van. He asks where we’re bound for the day, and says we’ll enjoy learning about the old ways at Ceide Fields. There are Sweeneys plenty (that question also came up) in the area, in fact he names several, talks about hiking as herself enjoys hiking. He has a thick west county accent, uses ye for you at least half the time. Jason says later when I talk about Noel (his name) and herself hiking he’d thought he’d meant the fish–hake–and couldn’t figure it out.

He’s charming, personable and obviously longing for his time in America.

Off we go again, and before long we’re traveling with the hills on one side and the great stretch of the Atlantic on the other.

Ceide Fields is a huge place, the biggest of its kind, apparently, anywhere. Up a steep road is the Visitor’s Center, with a cafeteria, and many exhibitions. You can see how the bogs formed when the old ones came to farm, cut down the trees to clear the land. And the rain bogged the ground, keeping vegetation from fully decaying to form the rich peat. Nature finds a way to work its will.

Up and up stairs and outside to an observatory with views of the magnificent chalk cliffs, the sea beating at the, the endless fields where archeologists discovered the signs of communities and farms under the turf.

There’s a pink-veined stone on exhibition, and it warms and hums under my hand.

We watch the short film–or fil-um as they say here, grab a snack in the cafeteria, then wander out into the wind to walk one of the pathways. It’s huge and amazing, and I think the farmers and people who settled there must have left some trees or built some sort of windbreaks. The wind’s wild. But the spot itself is glorious, away from anywhere, just the endless sea with its clumpy islands and high cliffs, and the high, high hills rolling up to the sky.

Inside there’s a big, petrified tree they pulled from one of the bogs. You can clearly see its twisted, artistic roots at the base, and where another set formed higher up as it adjusted to the bog that formed around it.

People are forever enterprising. It’s always a mystery to me how anyone figured how to mine rock, form tools from it, how they figured to dig turf and burn it, to tan hides, make bowls, any of it.

We head back, a quick shower here and there, but mostly sun. We stop next at Foxford, the woolen shop. If I had room, I’d have bought blankets galore, they’re all so lovely. And soft as clouds. A few gifts nonetheless, with the mind that we’ll be packing up for Ashford on Saturday.

BW asks about a place to eat in town, and is told there’s only the one, a hotel restaurant.

We decide to go on, try our luck in Castlebar.

And there’s a round tower–and the gray cat who guards it. She–I think she–is small and cute, and friendly, reaches her head down for Jason’s fingers and allows him to give her a scratch. Approving of us, she follows us around, deigns to let us stroke her as we walk around the tall, stone spear.

When we move on, she sits down to give herself a wash.

 We find a little restaurant, take a seat by the window. It’s gone gloomy. BW’s after a pint, which they’ll get for him at the bar two doors down–same owners, same name. I’m after the soup, and it’s just right.

The place has what seem to be regulars, mostly single men I figure stayed with their mothers and never married. The waitress brings BW his pint, says: That’s 19 Euro, and laughs when he blinks at her. It’s a happy place, homey, with good food after a long day. Suddenly the sun comes out like Africa.

Kat, who’s getting what she thinks of as her day of Travel Sickness, asks the waitress for a supermarket, and is shown just where to go for the garlic and honey she wants.

And it’s back to our Westport home, and an early night for Kat. We’ll stick close today, and I’ll get some work in, Kat will sleep. We’ll end with a dinner in the fancy restaurant before we pack it up.

Tomorrow we head south, toward Ashford.

Nora

And the competition is fierce with everyone sending their snaps.  Today’s collections are from NR and BW.