It brought me enormous delight to visit both Roundstone and Clifden. They were the primary settings for the third of Dervla McTiernan’s crime fiction series featuring Cormac Reilly (McTiernan is an author I only recently discovered, and I absolutely love her books, most of which are set in Galway and the west of Ireland.). I’d read The Good Turn while T and I were in Amsterdam, and it felt very exciting to then be in situ.

Roundstone is tiny but offered some amazing photo opps, including a real Galway Hooker which, despite the image the name may conjure, is a traditional fishing boat that can withstand strong winds often encountered in Galway Bay. The boats are shiny black with a red stripe running down each side of the vessel, parallel to the water, and a red sail. They’re really beautiful!

Clifden was larger, and there I found a book I’d been researching and searching for, a biography of Grace O’Malley aka the Pirate Queen. If you want to read more about her, and I think you should, click here. In short, Grace was born around 1530 on Ireland’s west coast (some say Connacht, some say Clare) into a mighty seafaring family. From an early age, she demonstrated zero interest in following the expectations for women and instead became a fearless leader, feared pirate, and unforgiving warrior. Lore has it that when she first, as a child, asked her father to take him with her as he sailed, he said no, that her hair was too long and would get stuck in the ship rigging. So, she chopped her hair short, demanded again, and never looked back. When her father died, she rather than her brother, took over. One of her husbands died, one she divorced, she even took a lover. What a woman!

As I was checking out in The Clifden Bookshop, two Ukrainian women and their children came in. It quickly became clear that they were refugees newly arrived in Ireland. I assume that if they’re married, their husbands remain in Ukraine fighting. Anyway, their English was really strong (I am on day 168 of Ukrainian study, and mine is not strong, although I can tell you that I can cook dumplings with cabbage and that Khreshchatyk is a big street) and they were inquiring, with huge smiles, about children’s books written in Ukrainian. They had loved the ones the shop had been able to get: had any new ones arrived? The shopkeeper was so kind and dear- she kept applauding their English and apologizing that the new books weren’t yet here. One of the moms mentioned that her daughter especially loved unicorns and so any stories that included unicorns would be particularly appreciated.

I wished I’d had an armload of books to give them. As I left the store, the shopkeeper and I looked at each other, hands on our hearts. The spirit of some people, I tell you. I hope desperately that their loved ones are safe and that at some point they can go home again if they want to. Fucking Putin.

After snarfing a lunch that I have no real memory of, we headed to Kylemore Castle.

Essentially, it was built as a love letter from a man to his wife, and it is spectacular in every way. The location and angle of construction were chosen so that on clear days, a full reflection of the house could be seen in the Pollacappul Lough over which it looks. The grounds are as magnificent as the structure itself.

During a family trip to Egypt with their children, the wife fell ill and died. Distraught, her husband had her embalmed and returned to Kylemore. There he built a miniature, perfect replica Gothic Church in which he planned to inter her, but ultimately, she was buried in a small, understated mausoleum nearby, and honestly, that seems just perfect.

Kylemore Castle is now Kylemore Abbey, and visitors are welcome to explore parts of the home, the various outbuildings, and the 1,000 acre grounds which include a Victorian walled garden, a pig sty, and a small, stunning herd of Connemara ponies. They are spectacular creatures.

Everything was just so stupidly beautiful. On our way back to Ballynahinch, we stopped quickly to explore a bog, and this little guy came across the road to visit.