Today was to be the day I finally got caught up with my blog, and there’s no internet connectivity. Typical! And since it’s Sunday, there’s nobody around to fix it. Ah well.
I couldn’t take many pictures from the bus today, because the sun was at a really bad angle for me where I was sitting and all was glare. The silver lining is that it didn’t take as long to label all my photos…
Anyway, this morning our first stop was at Knock. This is where today (21 August) in 1879, 15 people saw what became known as The Apparition of Knock. It consisted of The Holy Mother, St Joseph and John the Evangelist and the lamb on the altar all appearing on the side of the church. The site is a recognised site of pilgrimage and they were holding the Novena there until tomorrow. It’s a huge site now with room for hundreds of thousands to attend masses, which are held like clockwork – 45 minutes per priest – all day long, in the little chapel which was originally the outside of the church where the apparition was seen as shown by the statues now there:
Next stop was the Museum of Country Life at Turlough Park in Castlebar. This was quite interesting, showing how people used to live in the past, and how they used what was available to them to weave baskets and cloth etc:
The museum also contained The Cross of Cong, but the pictures of that are not allowed to be shown on social sites, unfortunately. The grounds and views from there were very nice, as was Turlough House itself:
Next stop was WB Yeats’ grave at Drumcliffe, along with the church and grounds the gravesite is on:
We then drove through some pretty countryside on the way through Moneygold and Bundoran to the Belleek Pottery in Northern Ireland.
The pottery itself is housed in a pretty building, and is right on the river, so quite scenic. The pottery itself is also quite impressive:
Then it was time to head to Donegal:
Our Hotel, The Park Mill Hotel, is outside town – apparently about 10 minutes walk. It’s quite the let-down after the Radisson Blu in Galway! My room is so small and no bath (only shower) and only a double bed instead of the double-queen I was getting used to there. Hopefully the accommodation will pick up again.
Father James from our tour-group held a mass for us in one of the hotel rooms (I didn’t go, so don’t know what it was like) and then it was time for dinner (so-so) and some of the others headed off into town to listen to some irish music. I passed on it and came to the room instead, to work on my blog…which I can’t post yet…
Can’t wait to see the town tomorrow afternoon. I want to see that castle!
