19 to 31 July 2023

Wednesday 19 - Monday 31July 2023.  Wild Atlantic Way, with detours.

Wednesday 19 July     This morning it's just us and an older model Bentley in the car park.  Shower, dress and go to the Nevins Newfield pub for a hearty breakfast.  Sadly no robot wait staff this morning, but I do get a photo of Phil Lynott's picture and autograph.

Leave the car park and drive east then south to Westport.  Very pretty town centre, though parking is not mo-ho friendly;  we send some cards, admire the river and wander along the very busy high street. 

On then south and west, passing Croagh Patrick where St Patrick is said to have spent forty days fasting on the summit.  It is still a place of pilgrimage.   At 764 metres John is not convinced about its claim to be 'a mountain'.

To Cross Beach where there is free camping.  Only facilities are a couple of portaloos but stunning sandy beach and views of islands.  

One of us goes for a swim but returns quickly after spotting many jellyfish in the water.   

Lovely afternoon and it's great to be able to sit outside and read in the sun.  There's a friendly dog who wanders between the six or so motorhomes and one tent, looking for pats.  

 Beautiful sunset.

Thursday 20 July   bit of an oopsie as we have run out of fresh water and there's no tap here.  Just enough water in our bottles and the kettle for a coffee each.   No shower so it's a 'festival wash' with wet wipes!      

The weather has reverted to overcast and damp today but we go for a short walk along the beach to get the benefit of the sea air.    We see several jellyfish washed up by the tide and they do look scary. 

Drive across country with views of hills and lakes.  Call in for a coffee at the village (hamlet) of Letterbrickaun at the head of Killary Fjord and stop at Cleggan to watch the ferry come in and buy ice-creams.   

Reach our destination, which is the Clifden Eco Beach Camping & Caravanning Park - it's on the dunes and next to a lovely beach - we're given a site with a sea weedy but very pleasant view.  The camp ground has quite a lot of 'thou shalt nots…' (check out late/ muddle your recycling/ empty your waste water if you use the wrong sort of toilet cleaner etc) and not enough loos (4) or showers (2) for busy times, but the couple who run it are lovely.

Friday 21 July wake to the familiar sound of persistent rain on the roof and unfortunately it stays with us throughout the day.   We're obviously being wimps but it's an indoor day of blog, reading etc rather than the planned walk and possible swim.

Saturday 22 July today we're definitely in a cloud and can barely see across the bay. Plan A had been to spend four nights from Thursday 20th at Lough Rynn, but the campsite cancelled us as they had a lot of people staying for a regatta.  We've rebooked from Sunday.   So we're going to a stopover in Rooskey on the Shannon River for one night - I'd phoned to book and spent a good few minutes chatting to the chap who booked us in.

The first part of the journey (we're heading east towards the centre of Ireland) is through hills and then it's much flatter, mainly farm land.   Stop at the town of Claremorris for a coffee and a top up shop.  Claremorris's claim to fame is that it is the fastest growing town in County Mayo, with a 31% increase in the town's population between 2006 and 2011.  It's raining so we don't go to look around.

Reach Rooskey and easily find the Rooskey Diesel & Fishing Tackle place, which also has motorhome stopover park with EHU, which we don't need.  It's only €13 for the night;  river views, loos and water disposal, but no showers.  Friendly man lets us in and explains the facilities, gate password, recycling and the local pubs and Chinese takeaway.  

Local pub and the Chinese takeaway are definitely on my radar, despite pouring rain, and we cross the river bridge, from Co Roscommon to Co Leitrim, and go to the Weir Lodge for a drink. Busy, with a cheerful crowd.  I pop next door to the Harvest Chinese takeaway and order food - the waitress says she'll bring the order to us in the pub in 25 minutes. Another pint and the food turns up as promised.  We dash back to the mo-ho and eat it while it's hot!  Spicer than I expected (not a bad thing) and generous portions.

Sunday 23 July    Pack up and have another chat with the chap at the site, then drive to Strokestown to visit Strokestown Park House and the National Famine Museum.  Guided tour of the Georgian house which belonged to the Mahon family from the 1600s to 1981.  

Nice house, quite a lot of original furniture and a rare galleried kitchen.   Allegedly the gallery was so that the lady of the house could see what the kitchen staff were doing without having to mingle with them!

During the Famine many tenant farmers were evicted, and in 1847 the Mahon family evicted 3,000 people.  Major Denis Mahon was murdered in November 1847, apparently as a reaction to the number of deaths of those sent on 'famine ships' to Canada by the Strokestown estate, which paid passage for tenants to get them away from Ireland.  People on the ships died due to overcrowding, lack of clean drinking water, unsanitary conditions and the spread of cholera and typhoid .

After the house tour we have lunch in the cafe and then visit the National Famine Museum.  Very sobering.  The peasant farmers really had all their eggs in one genetic basket, with very limited varieties of spud that meant that, when the blight hit their crops, there was no alternative food.  From 1845–49, potato crops repeatedly failed;  one million people died and another one to two million left Ireland.  

Some landowners tried to support their tenants but they were receiving no rent; 'make - work' scheme like road building,  and soup kitchens were run without much success.   Many parallels with some countries today.

Travel to the campsite on the shores of Lough Rynn, just down the road from Mohill where, we understand, John's mother's father's family, the Mulveys, came from.  As far as we can tell Thomas Mulvey moved from Mohill to New Zealand in the mid C19th (died in Central Otago in 1882).   

Accessing the campsite involves a phone call, a lock box and a swipe card but we manage, and pick a spot overlooking the lake.

Monday 24 July.     Potter about in the morning and in the afternoon go for a mile and a half walk to the Lough Rynn Castle, which is now a luxury hotel.  There's been a castle or house on the site for some years and the current building is a very elegant late Victorian one.  It was a family home until the 1970s, then was empty until the early 2000s when it was developed as a hotel.  

We go into the hotel for tea and scones and enjoy the very elegant surroundings, views of lawns and the lake and good service.  We're in a small room on our own but get a peek of the reception, bar and the elegant drawing room.  Lots of elaborate carved wood panels and decorations.

Have a walk in the grounds after tea then walk back saying hello to a pair of donkeys on the way.

Tuesday 25 July drive into Mohill, do some shopping and hang around the supermarket car park until we can use the drive up launderette.

Walk into Mohill and visit the Catholic graveyard - there's a useful board with a map of all the graves, and names.  Not a single Mulvey.  Go to the library and have a chat with Kim, the very helpful librarian.  She points out that there are 4 parishes in Mohill and many smaller areas called 'townlands', so it's possible any Mulveys are buried elsewhere, or that the graves fell into disrepair, have disappeared or simply had no headstone in the first place. We call in to the Church of Ireland graveyard (no handy map here) and have a look round but with no results.  

John manages to get the barbeque out tonight for a cook-up.

Wednesday 26 July wake to the all too familiar sound of rain on the roof.   It's another wet one and we're confined to the mo-ho.

Also wake to the news that Sinead O'Connor has passed away at the age of 56, so Ireland, plus any one who ever heard her songs, is in mourning.  Her version of 'Nothing Compares to You' is on my long list of songs for the day I'm invited onto Desert Island Discs (choose 8 records only?  Nervous breakdown time).

With the combination of other family members' research/ family trees and Ancestry.co.uk. John's getting some traction with the Mulvey family in the 19th century. It seems that Thomas Mulvey,  was born in New York, not Mohill, as his parents Michael Mulvey and Jane Hart had moved there, and ran a grocery store on Mulberry & Canal Street. Michael died in 1836 and we think Jane Hart then returned to Ireland, possibly just in time for the famine.

So, a useful day's work from the ancestry point of view.

Thursday 27 July   leaving Lough Rynn today for Galway and then to Doolin on the coast of County Clare for the night.    

At Galway City we (finally) park at a shopping mall and visit a couple of shops there.  Fail to find the stuff that needs to be added to the fresh water tank to make it drinkable, but success with a SIM card and an aerial.

Have lunch at the 'Brasserie on the Corner' and then walk to the cathedral for a visit. It is, relatively, fresh out of the box, having been built in the 1960s.  Beautiful features including stained glass, marble floors and a dome.   

Then walk along the river to the 'Latin Quarter' which includes the Spanish Arch

and the High Street with loads of bars, restaurants and shops.  

John buys a linen 'granddad' (collarless) shirt.   We're entertained, on the walk back to the mo-ho, by a seagull doing battle with a packet of crisps, determined to get it open!

Set off for Doolin where we are booked to stay the night.   Unfortunately Google and Waze identify that the main N67 road is blocked by an accident, so we detour cross country, along a road that is not designed for mo-hos.  Or two way traffic come to that.   We have to stop a lot and pull in the ‘wing’ mirrors to let the oncoming traffic pass.   

Reach the Nagles campsite safely, though the driver is in need of a drink after the cross country drive, and are shown our pitch with some views of the sea.   Book a boat trip for tomorrow to go and see the Cliffs of Moher.

Friday 28 July.  Pack up and move the moho a short way down the road to the car park by the ferry pier.  

Ferries run from here to the Aran Islands.  Breezy today, and as we queue for the noon trip to see the cliffs we are warned that things could get a bit bumpy on the way out (calmer on the return journey).   To be safe I am chugging the homoeopathic motion sickness tablets we were sold when we went on the whale watching trip in  Kaikoura in NZ half a year ago - it is a bit bouncy and several people are sea sick.  And several get very wet from spray.   

But great to see the cliffs from the sea, and we’re pleased we did this trip rather than walking along the cliff tops.

Have lunch in the moho when we get back,  then drive, 

and take a 20 minute ferry from Killimer to Tarbet (which saves quite a distance) to our next stop, Crokers Farm, a camp ground just south of Limerick which we reach at about 6.00 pm.  Wooded site with inexpensive EHU pitches in amongst the trees, and a friendly owner. 

Saturday 29 July     More rain in the morning but in the afternoon we drive into Limerick and visit King John’s Castle which dates in part back 800 years, and played a significant part in Ireland’s turbulent history with England.    Really good museum that takes you from the Vikings, who settled in the area, to the building of the castle and development of the town, and then the various wars and efforts to take control of (and monetise) Ireland including by the Tudors, Stuarts, Cromwell, King William III and the Hanoverians.    Parts of the castle are still standing so one gets a sense of what it might have been like in its heyday.

Drive back to our camp site and decide, since it's not raining (much) to cycle to the Ranch House, the nearest pub, which is a short ride away on the flat.   One of those places where it all went quiet when we walked in, but had a couple of drinks, cracked a joke with some of the regulars, and cycled back.

Sunday 30 July  Today the weather forecast for the afternoon is pretty naff, so we head out in the morning to buy a Sunday paper and visit Lough Gur, a small lake where evidence has been found of prehistoric settlements.   A couple of nice walks (one of which involves over 100 slippery stone steps) and its good to get some fresh air.   As we get back in the moho it starts to rain so we agree to give the nearby standing stone circle (the largest in Ireland) a miss.   

Afternoon watching F1 from Spa on the tv, doing laundry and reading the papers.

Monday 31 July   leave Crokers Farm for Tralee and the Dingle Peninsula.  Drive through the town of Adare which is full of 'heritage', with a ruined castle, a fascinating church and plenty of ye olde thatched cottages.   

To Tralee where we do a grocery shop, then on to the peninsula to an 'aire'.  Aires are public parking areas and some private land where motorhome users can stop overnight for free or for a small fee.  The one we're going to is called the Bridge Field and is close to the beach (and next to a bridge) and has views of the hills.  EHU, water and one loo for €10 a night.

Weather closes in and it rains hard so the views disappear.  But it blows through and we go for a walk a mile along the beach, and back, and enjoy the sand and shells.