Kylemore Abbey

We left Galway after breakfast and drove north to Connemara and Kylemore Abbey. Kylemore Abbey is a castle built originally on 13,000 acres of land by Mitchell Henry in 1867 for his wife. Sadly his wife died in Egypt in 1874 and Mitchell built a crypt and Gothic church on the land afterwards.

Kylemore is now owned by the Benedictines who maintain an Abbey on the site which includes not only the castle and church as well as a Victorian Walled Garden patterned after the original gardens that would have fed the residents of the castle and grounds in Mitchell's time. The tour of the castle was a self-guided walkthrough of the lower level of the castle.

Abbey Walk

Following our self-guided tour of the castle, we walked along the grounds towards the Mausoleum where Margaret Henry was entombed following her death and which also stores the body of Mitchell Henry.

Gothic Church

Next on our walk was the neo-Gothic church Mitchell Henry built as a memorial to his deceased wife Margaret. He designed it in the style of the gothic churches of Europe and used marble from all four kingdoms of Ireland. The church is still used by the Abbey for services and musical performances.

Walled Garden

We were planning to walk up to the gardens and then take the bus back, but the bus was waiting to take on passengers when we got to the stop, so we climbed aboard for the quick ride to the walled gardens.

Clifden

After leaving Kylemore, we headed off to our hotel for the night but stopped off in Clifden, looking for some lunch. Clifden is a cute little town on the coast of Ireland so we parked and strolled the streets, finally settling on the Derryclare Restaurant on town square. The restaurant had good sandwiches as well as great fish and chips (which was the main thing we dined on most of our time in Ireland).

Ballynahinch Castle Hotel

We stopped for some sodas at the local supermarket and then drove to our hotel, which was the Ballynahinch Castle Hotel. Rebecca had been saying 'castle', 'castle' all day knowing we were staying in a castle that night. The hotel was more of a manor house than a castle but still had stone walls which satisfied Rebecca. The rooms were very large and comfortable but the real draw of the hotel was the extensive grounds. We took a short stroll around the lake and then sat outside for awhile before dinner. We had booked a dinner in the hotel's restaurant and while the food was quite good, it was overpriced and the service was indifferent and spotty. J. R., Janie and Alex grabbed a night cap in the hotel's pub after dinner while Rebecca went to the room to Snapchat.