Saturday, 16th August                    BALLINAMORE - TULSK 

Robyn writes: Yet another morning of sleeping in - it was after nine when we went down for breakfast to find we appeared to be the first up and about. A cold and overcast morning trying to rain - very good for sleeping in!

Kiltoghert Cemetery - McWeeney heartland

Once we were organised, we headed out at about 10.15. First we called into the library to thank Margaret for her help yesterday, then we drove in the direction of Carrick-on-Shannon again. On the way, we noticed a sign for the Kiltoghert Cemetery so turned around and went back to check it out - and found about a dozen McWeeney graves there with dates of birth going back to the mid 1800s! It certainly is the area for them. Then we headed on to Carrick-on-Shannon itself, and found the old workhouse, where Brigid and her sister Mary lived. It's on the top of the hill and now part of the town's hospital complex. It's a big old stone building which has had many additions over the last century and a half but you can tell it would have been an imposing and scary sight to the townspeople. There is an attic room that you can visit but it wasn't open. We went down behind it where they have a memorial with some of the soup pots they used in the soup kitchens, and the garden where the mass graves of the famine victims are.

Looking towards the garden which holds the mass graves of famine victims

These huge pots were used in the soup kitchens to feed famine victims

The very forbidding old workhouse building

View towards Carrick-on-Shannon from the workhouse

We needed a lift after that so found our way back to the river car park and the little cafe we had morning tea in the other day for a cuppa. Then we popped into the tourist information office next to the car park to find out about the prehistoric sites at nearby Tulsk.

We found our way to the Rathcroghan Visitor Centre there with no problems. It's in the town itself though the sites are about 4km out of town. We decided to have lunch first so adjourned next door to the Friary Restaurant (located just across the road from the ruins of the Tulsk Priory) where we had a delicious lunch - I had oat-crumbed chicken gougons and I have to say they were the best of their kind I've ever eaten! Lex had a beef and noodle stir-fry. Very nice.

Adorable baby robin in the garden at the information centre

Cool Celtic throne!

Ogulla Well and shrine

Following lunch, we waddled out and back to the visitor centre (5 Euros each) to find out about the sites. It had a few videos and good explanatory displays. Then we headed out of town to look for the sites. This is always interesting as Irish maps can be rather .....Irish! Anyway, we did manage to find them.

The first site was the Ogulla Well, which has a statue of St Patrick and sundry other statues plus a glassed in gazebo (have never seen one of those before at a shrine...) It's based on a spring, of course - most of these are. This one only had a few things tied around nearby trees - some we've seen have hundreds of items. It looked a bit sad and neglected and in need of a good cleanup.

Then we went looking for the mounds - there were three of them we were able to visit (the others are on private land), believed to be Iron Age 'forts', though they think that their use was ceremonial (eg crowning kings) rather than military. They were certainly built up above the surrounding area. We visited and climbed Rathcroghan, Rathbeg and Rathmore. By now the weather had turned on us, and after threatening to rain all morning, it started blowing and drizzling and was so COLD! However, we heroically climbed each mound and worked out the ditches etc surrounding it and its position in the landscape. The nearby cattle looked mildly interested at our antics.

Lex: jumping for joy, or trying to keep warm????

Scene from the top of the first mound we visited; Rathcroghan

Rathcroghan

Interested spectators

Once we'd finished, we headed back towards Ballinamore and took a different route home through Roosky - lots of loughs (lakes) so rather pretty countryside. By now the rain was pretty much set in so it was good to get home to our warm room (the radiator is working magnificently). We've been back across the road to the Commercial Hotel for tea (lamb chops for me, chicken burger for Lex). I'm afraid the rain will be dampening the festival tonight - it was fairly miserable out there. Tomorrow we're off into Northern Ireland, which should be very interesting - we are going to Derry for two nights.