Day 4: Saturday June 22, 2024

Saturday, day four of our adventure was truly a day of adventure from bike rides, cliffs, long walks, seals, great food, a boat ride and finished the day with a great performance. This day usually comes up in conversation with our travelers pretty quickly when “How was Ireland?” was asked. 

We started the day out at 7 AM with our full Irish breakfast at the Galmont Hotel for a departure of the Aran Islands. We head east out of Galway following the northern side of the coast of Galway Bay to our next mode of transportation. We were ahead of schedule before we made our way completely out the Galway area so we stop at the beach. We witness a very common year long ritual by many locals, a morning swim. 

We arrived on time at the Aran Island Ferry port at 10:30 AM where we would travel for 45 minutes by ferry to Inis Mor, the largest of the three Aran Islands. Inis Mor is 9 miles long and 3 miles wide, all the islands are mostly made up of grey limestone with little grass but many wild flowers and many rock fences. Our island bus driver told us that it is estimated the island has 2000 KM of rock fences, I thought it might be humor at first but he might not be exaggerating. The bleak landscape in its own way is very beautiful. The island has also been the back drop of many movies including most recent the dark movie with Colin Farrell “The Banshees of Inisherin”(2022) and the Amy Adams movie “Leap Year” (2010). Surprising small island has several small villages that thrive mainly on tourism. The island has very few cars, one grocery store that is open most days, several pubs, and one post office & bank that is open one day a week. 

We started our journey walking from the docks in the village of Kileany to our group lunch at the Bayview Restaurant at 11:30 AM. First thought from most people in our group that this was a bit early for lunch but not knowing what we were really in for, the early food fueling was going to be needed. The fish and chips and the pizza was the highlight for many at lunch, with the pizza be especially tasty. 

After lunch we were to make our way to Dún Aonghasa, a prehistoric stone fort on the cliffs of the island. We had two options to make our way to Dún Aonghasa, a short bike ride or a 5 minute bus ride followed by a short walk up to the fort. When a European tells you its a short walk or bike ride you quickly learn that Americans and Europeans have completely different definitions of the word “short”. 

For those of us that rode the “short 5 minute” bus ride (actually more like 15 minutes with a great local tour) we learned about the walls, the movies, the villages, the ancient church & cemetery, the bike ride is actually a 6 mile ride in each direction and that more importantly the walk up to the fort is a 30 minute hike up a 330 foot cliff and a 30-40 minute strenuous walk down on a gravel path. As we found with age and conditioning of our group some had no problem with this and others earned a certificate of completion. The group that took the bus were later named “The Smart Ones”. For those on bikes it was bit of a learning curve to ride on the opposite side of the road and on very narrow roads with some small island bus traffic. 

The views to Dún Aonghasa were very iconic stone wall landscapes with sheep & cows, ruins, and rocky shores. The bus riders of the group did make a stop at the Tempull Breccain, commonly called the Seven Churches of Aran, is a complex of churches and other buildings dedicated to the 5th-century Saint Brecan. On the grounds of the Seven Churches of Aran was a very rocky active grave yard with grave markers from hundreds of years old to only a few months ago. 

At the base of Dún Aonghasa was a couple of huge parking lots for bikes, gift shops, and coffee shops where all could rest at your next step in the journey or some left their bikes to venture back on a bus. It was at this site behind the coffee shops where “Leap Year” was filmed. 

Dún Aonghasa is one of the oldest and best preserved mid-evil fortress in Europe. The original construction date is unknown but is estimated that its construction sometime between the Bronze and Iron Age. The views are amazing and dangerous as some of the fortress has fallen into the sea. The original construction was built with loose rock as many of the border fences on the island. Today the original construction and the preservation construction can be identified as the stairs and reinforced walls have been updated with the use with mortar. 

We all slowly made our way back to the docks for a 4pm departure on the Aran Island Ferry. Along the way some stop see the beach, a seal on the rocks, or do some souvenir shopping back at the main village. Many took quick naps on the boat ride back or on the bus ride back into Galway. Our bus ride back into Galway was a bit longer than expected as we ran into traffic of a huge Hurling sporting event that had just ended changing our destination from our hotel to Saint Nicholas Collegiate Church for our next performance. 

We arrived around the 6:30 PM at Saint Nicholas Collegiate Church which left little time to find dinner nearby, change into performance clothes, and rehearse for a 8 PM concert. Saint Nicholas Collegiate Church is a parish of the Church of Ireland in the city center of Galway built in 1320. Mona Shores Orchestra received some local press in the newspaper and on local TV about the upcoming performance, so 8 PM the orchestra performed to a sizable crowd for their first Ireland performance. The beauty and the acoustics of the church made the performance amazing experience. 

Link to a small rehearsal of the performance on Facebook.

After the performance we walked back to the hotel at our own pace with sight seeing, snacks, or dinner for some. SuperMacs became a favorite for some on the group for meals on the journey home. We were all in the hotel early for packing and a good night sleep as we would be traveling to our next destination of Cork.