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Westport
Clifden
Doo Lough Pass
Saturday, September 8th
Westport, Louisburgh, Clifden, Connamara
After a full Irish breakfast, eggs, bacon (more like ham), sausages, black pudding (blood sausage), broiled tomato and brown bread, we headed down the coast. We had considered staying at Westport a lovely college town with a river running through it but decided instead to just tour it and continue. Fell in love with bright colors the terrace flats and stores were painted and all dolled up with window boxes. There was an art fair in town making it even more festive. We strolled through town.
I decided to try their public toilet. It was a pay type in a circular shape (actually there were two sides). We put the money in and it slid open to an all stainless steel facility spotlessly clean. Then it closed. Yikes. When you were done you put your hands over the sink, soap dispensed, then water, then air dry. Wild. I was glad to find the exit knob.
I loved the orange heads bobbing in the river canal. We enjoyed the plentiful green space. I noticed it had proclaimed a “Tidy Town”. And from what we saw it certainly was. We began to search for the Coffin Ship an amazing bronze memorial, crafted by artist John Behan, to the emigrants who died during the crossing to America and Australia during the potato famine of 1850’s. We first thought we had missed it, but it was farther away from Westport then the maps showed. Skeletons swirl around a rough textured ship of one-third scale. My relatives on my father’s side had fled in 1853 traveling as steerage class. The memorial sat in a beautifully landscaped park. Having believed we could find a picnic spot we stopped in Dunnes, a shopping complex in Ballina, and picked up grapes, cheese, brown rolls and scones. The park was framed by the bay and Crough Patrick Mountain. We were content to eat in the shadow of the mountain and chose not to climb as it would have taken 2.5 hours and we have mountains at home.
Continued down to Louisburgh beautiful drive but we found Louisburgh to be a lackluster town in comparison to Westport so we pushed onward. After all Clifden didn’t appear to be too much further. Hah! Little did we know we had to travel through mountainous terrain. The Doo Lough Pass was stunning but at 100k mph on a very narrow, twisting road with tour buses heading toward us it was knuckle biting wild. When we did catch a glimpse of a tour bus we would find a space in the road that where there was at least some grass we could stop until the bus passed. Reached Clifden, in the Canamara district, a seacoast town with a resort kind of feel. We are beginning to hear the Irish language be spoken here. It is a beautiful warm day. August had been so rainy that it appears that a lot of folks took a weekend trip to town. Finding a B&B with vacant sign was a challenge. But there on hill overlooking the valley, mountains with a glimpse of the ocean was Atlantic View B&B. There wasn’t a “no vacancy” sign so Michael asked. Eureka! A group of friends had decided to sleep in the same suite instead of two so we got their vacated room. After which we watched as other tourist asked for a room. Margaret Price, the innkeeper was very helpful she allowed us to use the phone (we had purchased a Planet Card with 50 minutes of time) to call the kids. She also helped us secure a hotel for the Dublin airport.