Foley Family Adventures: Day 6

The final photos from our trip...

On our last full day in Ireland, we woke up to blue skies and sunshine in Galway. We walked around the city a bit, and enjoyed not needing to carry an umbrella.

Have you heard of the Irish sport called hurling? We hadn't, but we quickly realized that this is something they take seriously and are very proud of. Each city/county seemed to have their own team and would proudly fly their teams colors and flags throughout the city.

Mid morning we started driving west - back towards Dublin. I tired to get some photos of how narrow some of the roads were. You can see from some of these that the trees grow or are shaped by the trucks and buses that drive these roads regularly.

Many roads are like this with walls on both sides and absolutely no shoulder to pull over on.

We passed a couple houses with thatched roofs...pretty cool!

First we drove to Bru na Boinne - an ancient site of three passage tombs built in the Neolithic age. We really wanted to see something that old (5000 years old!), but the wait for the tour was an hour and a half, then the tour itself was an hour long and we didn't have that much time. We barely caught glimpses of it as we drove away...it's located pretty far off the main road so you couldn't just drive or walk up and take a quick look. The only way to see it was on the tour.

So then we headed to Slane Castle. This isn't a very old castle (compared to some), but it is the site of a pretty big music scene. Several years ago the family invited some big name musicians to have concerts on the lawn and it's become a popular venue. U2 lived in the castle for 6 months and recorded their album The Unforgettable Fire in the 1980s. Interestingly, after the album was recorded, there was a fire that destroyed the east side of the castle.