Ireland day 1186. Friday 27 December 2024- Xmas Mayo 7

Today’s summary	Got up (relatively) early and took the 10:30 ferry from Roonagh pier to Clare Island. Went on a short walk round one of the island’s hills then got the 1pm ferry back. Found a café in Louisburgh for lunch then spent the afternoon packing up the cottage ready for our departures tomorrow. Dinner in “The Tavern” pub at Murrisk in the evening.
Today’s weather	Drizzly and misty but with occasional glimpses of sun. Light southerly wind. Appx 11c

Today’s overview location (The grey mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Clare Island Circuit

Commentary

Today was the last day of our family Christmas break, and we were determined to make the most of it.

So we were up bright(-ish) and early(-ish) and away from the cottage before 10am, and on the road ready to catch the 10:30 ferry from Roonah pier to Clare Island. It’s about 20 minutes west of here, and James drove.

There was a boat in the harbour when we arrived at the pier, and I was pretty sure that it was a fishing boat – it was small and seemed to be bobbing around quite a lot. Anyway, unfortunately for us, it turned out to be our ferry so we somewhat reluctantly clambered about and, as the sea looked quite rough, most of us elected to stand outside – just in case!

Anyway, the boat duly departed at 10:30 on the dot and, as our voyage only took twenty minutes, we barely noticed the swell. Clare Island is quite small – only about 7 km long and 2 km wide. So it doesn’t take long to explore and, as it was drizzling and misty and pretty much everything on the island was closed, we elected just to take a short walk and then catch the 1pm sailing back.

So we had good walk round the back of one of the island’s two main hills, then made it into a loop with a trot back along the island’s only road, to the pier again. We enjoyed the walk and got a good flavour of this tranquil and relaxing island. It reminded me quite a lot of the UK’s Scilly Isles, off the south west coast of Cornwall. While we waited for the ferry, we had a look round Grace O’Malley’s curious square castle (OPW maintained), which looms over the entrance to the harbour. There were plenty of inquisitive animals to be oohed and aahed over, though I think Val was a bit less enthusiastic about the two large cows which scrutinised her uncomfortably carefully as we passed.

Once back on the mainland, we drove into Louisburgh and found a very nice café – “Tia” – run by a somewhat harassed proprietor, for lunch. Once we’d eaten, we had a look round Louisburgh – and quickly discovered that there were only two shops open. One was the butcher’s and the other was a book store. We had a look at the books rather than the black pudding.

From there, we returned to the cottage and spent the afternoon on the rather sad task of packing everything up and getting ready to return to the four corners of the earth tomorrow. But now it’s time to head out again, for dinner. We’re going to “The Tavern” this evening, which is a pub about 10 minutes to the east of here, in Murrisk. I have drawn the short straw and will be driving so my last yuletide drink will have to wait till after we get back. Val and I dined there last Christmas and very much enjoyed it, so I’m looking forward to a lot. Anyway, time to sign off now and make myself look beautiful!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Grace O’Malley’s castle on Clare Island	Rob feeding a small horse

James feeding an even smaller horse	Val not feeding two large cows because she had run away as fast as possible

Inside “Tia” café in Louisburgh – very nice for lunch, although the owner seemed very stressed by the whole thing	“Books at One” Louisburgh’s well-known bookshop. A nice ambience and I bought a book on motorbiking from Cape Horn to Alaska. Very sensible

At the high point of our walk round the Clare Island Hill