The day started bright and early this morning with breakfast at the hotel. We didn’t get a lot of sleep last night for a very good reason, we got a call in the middle of the night from Conrad saying that he had asked Steph to marry him and she had accepted!!
After breakfast we started off across the Irish countryside towards the Irish National Stud farm. The farm was beautiful with lots of grazing fields and also a large Japanese garden. We got to see one of the most successful stud horses, and also some 6 week old foals. The whole garden and farm were lovely.
Gardens at the National Stud Farm
Sculpture made of sticks
Road running between the gardens and the grazing fields
Mom and 6 week old foal
Another mom and 6 week old foal
A view from the grazing fields
Japanese garden at the national stud farm.
Next we headed off across the countryside bound for the Irish Potato Famine museum. I will write a lot more on this later, it was really very interesting. We toured the museum and found that the severity of the famine was made much worse by people around the world, especially the British, who refused to help. For example the British were used to a certain amount of exports from Ireland, and even as the Irish people were starving, Britain insisted that the imports of food be kept at the same levels, taking much needed food from the starving people of Ireland. After we toured the museum we toured the home of the land holder of that estate and that was also very interesting.
Home of the Mahon Family – land owners of the estate where the Famine Museum now resides and where significant numbers of people died because of the famine or because they were sent to North America aboard ships in terrible conditions. . Strokestown House.
After a lunch at Strokestown House we headed on to Knock which is a small town where the villagers saw an apparition at the church. Since that time there have been a number of miracles there and many pilgrims come to that site to worship and see the site of the apparition. We lit some candles and got some holy water to take home. It was very pretty there as well.
Knock
At the end of the day we headed to Claremorris where we are staying for the night before heading to the coast of Ireland and more beautiful scenery and excursions. Hopefully also a little bit more free time so that I can update the details of some of the places that we’ve visited.