Our Sunday Drive

We took our Sunday Drive west along Galway Bay and almost saw "red sails in the sunset," except that it wasn't sunset yet and it was overcast all day---but at least the rain held off, instead of having the intermittent showers that we've had for at least half of last week.

We had only an 8 mile drive to get into the Connemara Region of County Galway and the town of Spiddal where they have a cluster of art/craft shops.

There were shops with jewelry, silk-screened clothing, knitting/weaving, soap-making, musical instruments, pottery, wood carving, and ceramics. (We must be getting jaded, since all we picked up were some post cards for our non-computer friends and relatives.

The craftsmanship was excellent and some of the artists were at work giving demonstrations.

This "cat" pillow reminded us of the book we purchased recently...

...entitled, "God Bless all here except the Cat" which tells short stories about Celtic folklore and superstitions. We've seen a few cats about, but back in olden days cats were considered to have a more sinister aspect. They were usually considered untrustworthy and might possibly suck the life out of a baby asleep in a crib, so they were never allowed near a sleeping child. If a person wanted to put a curse on a neighbor, he killed a cat and either threw the cat into the neighbor's field or sprinkled the blood of the cat in the field. There are also stories of "cat cults" in prehistoric times. Before primitive farmers plowed the land, they had to offer up a sacrifice to "Anu," the goddess of the earth. The sacrifice they usually offered was a cat.

So, our cat-loving friends may want to get rid of their cats at the first opportunity to avoid potential problems.

After Spiddal, we continued our drive by going north to Moycullen to check out the restaurant our landlord, Des, had recommended. The direct route was another narrow road---but at least there wasn't any grass growing down the middle.

The road took us through more of the very, very rocky Connemara area where there were fields for pasturing sheep and cattle, but most fields were half grass and half rock.

This part of County Galway is a "Gaeltaecht" area where the Irish/Gaelic language is spoken in an attempt to preserve the Irish culture. There are perhaps a dozen regions in Ireland that operate the same preservation design. Unfortunately for us, that means that all the signs have to be in Gaelic as well, so we had to make a guess that the sign that said "Maigh Cuilinn" was Gaelic for the town of Moycullen---and it was since we also stopped and asked some fellows along the road if we were on our way to Moycullen and they assured us that it was "straight on."

Moycullen was an interesting town, probably typical of the recent growth found throughout Ireland. It would probably be considered a "bedroom community," being about nine miles from Galway City and had a lot of new construction of homes in clustered areas throughout the town, plus a new, small shopping mall in the heart of the town where quite a few older buildings would have had to have been cleared out. We are noticing in the newspapers that there is quite a debate starting about excessive sprawl and the problems that arise with creating suburban settings versus how to deal with the congestion that occurs in the larger cities and towns. (The problems of a growing and still relatively prosperous country, we suppose.)

Rather than dine out at the "White Gables Restaurant," we headed back to Galway City's Salthill and stopped at our second-favorite pizza parlor in Irleand---the "4-Star Pizza" franchise. 

And while we were waiting for our "take-away" (carry out) pizza, we walked around the block and caught another "marryin' " going on---even on a Sunday.

Another reason for heading back to our apartment was to catch the All-Ireland Hurling Championship on TV between County Waterford and County Kilkenny. It turned out to be a real blow-out with Kilkenny trouncing Waterford. Hurling looks a bit like field hockey, but it's a lot more rough-and-tumble in its rules.

And, somehow or another, the pizza disappeared while we were watching the game...

...and wouldn't you know the pizza we ordered and ate was called "The American"---a double pepperoni pizza.