The village became famous when John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara filmed the classic Quiet Man there in 1952, and many sites and a statue are still there, along with quaint buildings around every corner.The Quiet Man house in red...
The village is also home to Ashford Castle (no pics), a regular haunt for the rich and famous and wedding venue for a host of international stars. Our guide says the hotel is a really nice splurge if you're in Cong. The Cong River runs through town and there are charming photo ops around every corner.
The town itself is darling with one main square and the usual businesses... butcher, baker, pub, B&B, etc. The proprietor at Butler and Byrne was sampling locally made cheese and black Irish butter, similar to apple butter but so much better. Here is her pastry case.
Ryan's nearby had loaves of fresh Irish brown bread which I finally tried at breakfast this morning.
Police in Ireland are called Garda
Like most villages, Cong has an old abbey, crumbling, but still used for burial grounds.
We departed at 11am, and passed through Connemara to the Museum of Country Life. There, we were introduced to the Irish way of life that has existed in this rugged and beautiful part of country since the 1800s. The museum sits on the Turlough Park House and Gardens property that was formerly the Fitzgerald estate since the 1600s. The high Victorian Gothic home was built in 1895 and offers fascinating insights into how the gentry lived in 19th century Ireland.
After touring the ground floor formal rooms, I walked through 4 floors of truly fascinating exhibits in the modern museum adjacent to the house. It is part of the National Museum of Ireland. There was a brief orientation movie detailing rural life in Ireland from 1850-1950. Exhibits included primitive tools and materials for weaving, sheep sheering, cooking, harvesting, thatch roof cottages, basket making, blacksmithing, fishing, planting and so much more. We only had an hour and a half to enjoy it, but I could have stayed a few more hours! There was also an exhibit dedicated to Irish Travelers or gypsies who still exist today. For centuries, poverty, back breaking manual labor and folk life traditions handed down for centuries were a way of life in Ireland until their Independence in 1922, and modernization from cars, electricity etc.
We departed at 2PM and drove north through farmland, heading off through the poetic heartland of Ireland. Nestled below Benbulben Mountain in the picturesque village of Drumcliffe, St. Colmcille founded a monastery in the 6th Century. Although the monastery seems to have been well known from the 9th to the 16th century, the only remains today are three High Crosses and the stump of a round tower from 10-11th century. It was struck by lightening in the 1300s.
The crosses are in a graveyard on the grounds of a former abbey. Adjacent to the ancient graveyard is a road leading to the early 19th century St. Columba’s Church of Ireland and the final resting place of the poet William Butler Yeats (1865–1939). The highly decorated cross pictured below is of sandstone and may date from the 9th century. Famed Irish poet William B Yeats is buried in the church cemetery. Yeats' grandfather had been the rector at Drumcliff between 1811-46.
We also admired the beautiful Benbulben, referenced in many of Yeats's poems. Benbulben is known as County Sligo’s 'Table Mountain' and is part of the Dartry Mountains. It was formed as a result of the different responses to erosion of the limestone and shale of which the mountain is formed. A hard and resistant limestone forms the upper cliffs and precipices. It was formed during the Ice age, when large parts of the earth were under glaciers. It was originally merely a large ridge, however the moving glaciers cut into the earth, leaving a distinct formation, now called Benbulben.
The steeper sides of it are composed of large amounts of Dartry limestone on top of smaller amounts of Glencar limestone. The smoother sides are composed of Benbulben shale. These rocks formed in the area approximately 320 million years ago!
This concluded our day, and we drove about 90 minutes to the mid-sized town of Letterkenny in rural Co. Donegal for the night.We're very close to the N Ireland border and will cross over tomorrow.
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