We made a day of driving through Connemara to see Kylemore Abbey and to stop in the seaside town of Clifden. Kylemore Abbey is a Benedictine monastery and was also a school for young women until it was shut down in 2010. The estate has the main castle, a Gothic church, a mausoleum, and walled Victorian gardens. The roads to Kylemore were narrow and serpentine, and the stone walls just seemed to appear from nowhere once we made it to one of the turns right before the entrance. It rained on and off, giving my family a taste of the unpredictable weather; one woman on the shuttle bus to the gardens said "if you don't like the rain just wait five minutes." We then stopped in Clifden on our way back to Galway so Amy could buy some sweaters.
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| Kylemore Abbey |
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| Amy and Mark on their iPhones |
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| Side view of the castle |
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| Ridges in the distance that were all around the area, covered with sheep half-way up |
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| Princess Amy and one of her future properties |
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| Sally, Mark, Me |
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| Sally standing with a wooden cat cut-out |
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| The Gothic Church |
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| The mausoleum where Mitchell and Margaret Henry are buried. Mitchell Henry built Kylemore for his wife. |
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| Mark being grabbed by a giant hand |
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| Ireland and EU flags waving in the wind |
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| The Victorian gardens |
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| Mark and Sally |
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| I've never seen broccoli grown before; it really does look like little trees! |
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| Pathways in the gardens |
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| "The Rockery" area of the garden |
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| The residencies of the workers |
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| Standing door to one of the old glass houses currently being restored |
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| Pot shards outside the glass house |
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| Walls of the garden |
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| Amy, Mary Ellen, Me |
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| View of the garden through the entrance |
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| Some boats outside the garden |
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| Cute sheep sculptures made from rope and metal |
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