April 6--Ardara, Ireland to Westport, Ireland

After a hearty Irish breakfast, we set out for the seaside town of Westport in County Mayo. Along our route, we stumbled upon Yeats grave in a churchyard at Drumcliffe. Yeats actually died in Morocco but was returned to the churchyard of his Grandfather's church, ten years later. We bought a book of his poetry and had a tea to go in a local tea shop.


We stopped in Sligo to visit Sligo Abbey, 
the partial ruin of  a 13th century Dominican 
Friary. We learned that the Abbey graveyard 
was the primary burial site during the era of 
the Black Death.  Men joined such orders to 
be safe, have three meals a day and a roof 
over their heads. Not a bad life in the 13th 
century. 

Driving south, we decided to visit another "ancient thing," making full use of our Heritage Pass. This visit was to Carramore Megalithic Cemetary, another site of passage tombs, though more modest than Newgrange.  There were over 30 tombs at Carramore, some as old as 5400 BC, although most were from 4000 to 3000 BC. We hiked in soft rain to the largest of the tombs and quickly down again. 



Unable to find an official picnic stop, we parked the car outside of Temple House, a classic Georgian mansion, dating from 1665, that now serves as a B&B. We ate in the car, due to the rain, but did have quite a nice time of it making jokes about the weather and getting lost, which, John adamantly insisted, we were not!

We drove onto Westport, where we spent the night at the Ardmore Country House Hotel, thus varying our night's lodging choice once more from guesthouse to B&B to working farm to thatched roof cottage to small hotel. We ate dinner out and our delightful waitress explained that the nearby conical mountain, Croagh Patrick, was the legendary location where St. Patrick cast out all of the snakes in Ireland. Every August, thousands of tourists climb to the top...barefoot...in commemoration of that event. 

John's toast this evening was to "Ancient Things." Mine was to "Croagh Patrick," a most impressive mountain.