Today we went site seeing at Kilmacduagh which I mentioned previously is a monastery that was founded in the early 7th century. It's about 3 miles southwest of Gort. The churches were plundered in the 13th century but the site remained the seat of a bishop until the 16th century. The round tower on the property was a place of refuge for the munks in case of attacks. The tower leans 2 feet out of the perpendicular and probably dates back to the 12 century. There is also a roofless church, known as the cathedral or Treampall. In the surrounding fields lie the remains of several other churches that once depended on the monastery.
We had a great time and took a ton of pictures. Afterwards we drove into Gort and got a snack and coffee at a local bakery. It was fantastic.
We left Gort to drive to "our castle" (Dunguaire Castle) but we just missed closing time due to an unforeseen blockage in the road. Two HUGE cows walked in the middle of the road for quite awhile. Every time we tried to pass them they would move over and block us. We have it on video. It's hysterical. I was driving, Amanda and Carrie were video taping and Cheryle wanted to look at their ear tags and return them to their rightful owners.
We're going back to "our castle" first thing tomorrow morning and then to Galway City to do some shopping. Since we missed the castle, we did what we do best and ate! We went to Pier Head for dinner. The food was amazing and the view of the bay reminded me of Mobile. The surrounding village reminded Cheryle of Newport.
After dinner we walked up the street to Greene's Pub (the owner of our house recommended it). We met Mary, the pubs owner, and her daughter Hillary. Hillary is a 23 year old young woman with special needs. She came into the pub about 5 minutes after we arrived, walked right up to me and Carrie and told us to "scootch" over. She sat down next to Carrie and wanted to play cards. We told her we needed to wait on our friends. So Hilliary proceeded to heckle Amanda and Cheryle the entire time they were waiting for their drinks. Once we all sat down, we figured out that the game we all knew was Go Fish (aka Fish in the Pond). Hillary got out her Elvis card deck and the game started. I won the first round, but we soon discovered that the Elvis deck was missing a few cards. Ah, who cares, we were just playing for fun...right?! Would somebody please tell Hillary? Every time she was forced to give up a card she would say "feck you!" We are quickly learning that the F word is not a curse word in Ireland.
Hillary's sister or care taker walked in and said it was time to go and the tears started flowing. Ultimately her mom let her stay and play about 5 more rounds of cards with us. After Hillary had a good cry, she came back to the table and while wiping her eyes said "I'm so sorry girls." My heart melted. Cheryle said, "What for? You're surrounded by a group of girls that are a threat to have a meltdown at any moment." Hillary asked why and I said, "because we're women!" Then Cheryle called her a stinker and Hillary informed her that it's not nice to call people tinkers!
We played for money on the last round of Go Fish. Hillary won 25 Euro cents and 11 American cents! She was thrilled. We left Greene's and came back home to watch the rest of the movie we started last night.
What a great day we had. It's funny how God put Hillary in our life to remind us what child like fun is all about! Well until she threatened to "take me outside" after I won the first round of Go Fish. It's nice meeting another fellow competitor!
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