UCSC Extension Multimedia and Web Design Certificate - Final Project

Project Plan: Erin Dreams

Elsa DieLöwin

Light green background as used throughout site,
dark green map with yellow text

Images:header
map of Galway area, north to Connemara

back button - link to map-Killarney.html & j-Killarney
slideshow button - link to s-Galway-59-25.html
next button - link to map-Sligo.html & j-Sligo.html

Light green background as used throughout site, dark green text as on all text pages

anchor for link to top of page

Sidebar/ single cell table with literary quote

Images:header
note button - link to music
back button - link to map-Killarney.html & j-Killarney
top button - link to top of page
next button - link to map-Sligo.html & j-Sligo.html

Craggaunowen, Galway and Connemara

Galway Piper
{text as below}

Journal text

August 5, 1998

  We drove out of Tralee, through Listowel and into Limerick. Though I had hoped to see some of the town and stop at the river Shannon, the new by-pass made sure that we got quite lost and saw nothing much. We stopped for gas and a deli lunch from Collins and Quinlan, then headed out for Craggaunowen, following odd twists and dilapidated little signs. Arriving felt like a triumph.

 The castle there is actually old, but has been modernized enough inside that I wouldn't mind moving in and living there, though I'm sure that the natives would be none too pleased. Krys was fascinated by one of the window mechanisms, so he made diagrams while I took photographs.

 There are reproductions of a Bronze Age village; roundhouse buildings and tools, and a Souterraine. Though I felt less ready to move into the roundhouses here than either the roundhouse reproductions at Turus Tim in Newtonmore, Scotland or the castle here at Craggaunowen, it was well made.

 In an oblong glass building sits the Brendan ship. It was odd to see a ship in the middle of a wooded area, and impossible to get any single picture of the whole thing. There was a young woman sitting on the boat and reading, completely ignoring the visitors. I expect she was between shows for the village re-enactment that we managed somehow to miss though we were there through two showtimes. Oh well.

 The wild boar seemed quite tame, but they were penned and didn't come near the fence, which was fine. The Kerry cattle stayed distant as well, so it's hard to know if they were really as miniature as they looked.

 We did spend quite a bit at Craggaunowen's gift shop, with Krys actually a bit enthusiastic about it. We bought books, of course, and music, and t-shirts in beautiful colors with Celtic animals screen printed on them. Only after we came out again did we eat the lunch purchased in Limerick. The chocolate ganache cake was the best chocolate I've had since leaving home. Yes, I'm a spoiled chocolate snob.

 Back in the car, we continued on the country road to the village of Quin, which is booming, and on to Ennis, which is also booming, then got back onto the N road and on into Galway.

 We spent 20 minutes exploring wrong streets before finding our B&B. Mary Coi is the owner, and she's very sweet. She loves silver, and recommended a shop in Quay St. for jewelry. Though we drove nearly in a circle, there is a pedestrian shortcut to the Wolfe-Tone bridge to go get dinner.

We walked through and up Quay Rd. There was a shop called Pearls of Wisdom that had magical stuff, including a map of churches with Sheila-na-Gigs, but we didn't stop in as Krys didn't want to pause before dinner. we pressed on with surveying the possibilities: Pierre, the Grapevine, and Fat Freddie's (not seriously considered, but there.) At Pierre we had good food and a bit of wine. The large group at the next table was loud enough that we couldn't hear each other until we got back outside.

 I wanted to stop in a pub to listen to music, but Krys had already spent more time in smoke than was good for him. We walked back to Salthill to bed through strong winds, and saw ghostly fog roll in.

August 6, 1998

 We woke to misty-moisty weather and Mary knocked at the door for breakfast time. We went down to eat. Just as we were finished with the main part, a couple from Manchester, England came in, so we ended up chatting for nearly an hour. They are vegetarians and had dinner at Fat Freddies, which they said was good. Mary said that the place was inconsistent so they were lucky.

 They described a ferry crossing to Aran (which he recommended and she didn't) on a tiny boat that had left them drenched to the skin.

 They asked about us, and told us that he'd just gotten a computer as he intends to use it for publishing and artwork. She thought it was a bit of a threat and he compared my enthusiasm to that of a gun nut. I made the analogy to TV rather than guns, then spelled out the advantages of a computer over TV (not to mention guns!) I felt like I nearly talked their ears off.

 As we were ready to leave, I put our address into the guestbook and Krys dug out our postcards. It turns out that Mary has been to Santa Cruz! We gave her 3 postcards from home. After a brief stop at the Post Office, we took the N59 all the way around the Connemara loop to Westport, then cut to the N5 through Castlebar north to Sligo.

 The windshield wipers were acting up, so I pulled off early on and Krys fixed them. As he was coming around the front of the car to get back inside, another car passes close raising an enormous fantail of rainwater, drenching poor Krys. The rain went on and on, never very hard, but all day long. We stopped for lunch at An Turin in Clifden, which cheered us considerably.

 Back on the road again, we went around the Twelve Pins, but didn't see much because of the rain. On the bank of Kylemore Lough, near and just a little east of the abbey, I saw a waterfall so beautiful that I had to find a place to double back so I could take a picture of it.

Top Next

St. Brendan
from The Story of the Irish Race,
by Seumus MacManus (written 1921)

The Devin-Adair Co. , 1981, pages 204-206

 Another famous southern saint of the early Church was the Kerryman, Brendan--known as the voyager, or Brendan of Clonfert--to distinguish him from his contemporary Brandan of Birr. Throughout the Middle Ages Brendan was known and famed in all corners of Europe, through the romantic account, then translated into every written tongue, of the wonderful voyage, extending over seven years, which he is said to have gone upon--a voyage, in the course of which, say some, he landed upon the Continent that is now America.

The Fairy Fiddler
by Nora Hopper
from A Book of Irish Verse,
ed. by W. B. Yeats (1895)
Dover , 2001, page 219

'Tis I go fiddling, fiddling,
By weedy ways forlorn:
I make the blackbrird's music
Ere in his breast 'tis born:
The sleeping larks I waken
Twixt midnight and the morn.

No man alive has seen me,
But women hear me play
Sometimes at door or window,
Fiddling souls away,--
The child's soul and the colleen's
Out of the covering clay.

None of my fairy kinsmen
Make music with me now:
Alone the raths I wander
Or ride the whitethorn bough;
But wild swans they know me,
And the horse that draws the plough.