Barry saw a heritage sign for a castle so we decided to head of our route to check it out. Taking a wrong turn we stopped at a service station in a small village to fill the car up and get directions. We were not far off course and then drove to the castle. It was called Dunguaire Castle and was built in the 1520’s. It overlooks the south side of Galway Bay. We stopped and walked through the grounds of the castle and took some photos.
We then drove a kilometre west and stopped in the town of Kinvarra. It is a seaside village with a lot of sailboats and has an annual yachting festival which is very big in Ireland. We drove through the town and I dropped the others off. They are going to walk back the other way to where we entered the town to take photos of the pubs whilst I go looking in the supermarket for beer cans or Pringles cans.
We met up at the start of the village and went into one of the pubs called Sextons.
The barman was the only one in the pub. We got a drink and spoke to him. He is 77 and has run the pub for 42 years taking over from his Father. He works everyday for 5 hours and his daughter does the late afternoon to evenings running the bar. They live above the pub and his only other passion is golf which he still plays weekly. Below is a photo of the Publican with Neil.
From there we moved on to Kilcolgan where Neil spotted and Antique shop and he was able to pick up a brass tap handle for a wooden beer barrel. It has two taps on it.
Then we drove into Galway but it was so busy with lunchtime traffic that we decided to travel on and started back towards Dublin. There is now a dual carriageway freeway between Galway and Dublin so it is quite a good trip.
Stopping for lunch at Atherry, we visited a pub called Iggy's for a drink.
The publican told us that the pub back in the early 1900’s also have a travel booking agent licence and actually sold one ticket for the maiden voyage of the Titanic. The publican still has the booking form that was filled out and details of the person who made the booking.
We then went across the road to the bakery to get some lunch before heading back onto the freeway to continue our driving.
Further along the freeway we pulled off into the town of Athlone and stopped at Monahans Pub.
It is a restored two hundred and fifty year old distillery which is now set up as a museum. The local community restored the distillery area and it has all the workings from 250 years ago.
There is a stream with a paddle wheel that turns all the machinery and it is a fascinating view of how things were done 250 years ago.
The distilery puts down malts for special occasions or you can get them to do one for a special anniversay if you order it 12 years or more in advance.
A working distillery has now been set up on the property behind the old buildings and you can once again buy Killbeggin whiskey in the tasting bar.
We stopped in one of the pubs whilst Neil did another Antique store and it was interesting to see all the racehorse memorabilia in the pub. There is a large racecourse on the outskirts of town.
Back on the freeway again we made one last stop before returning to Dublin. We pulled of the freeway at a town called Leixlip. It was the town in the 1740’s and 1750’s where Arthur Guinness learnt the trade of brewing from his father. His father was a brewery worker and close confidant of the local Archbishop. When the Archbishop died he left Arthur’s father and Arthur 100 pounds each. Arthur was 27 at this time and left to start up his brewery in Dublin.
We had dinner and a couple of drinks in Murphys Pub
and then finished our drive by arriving back in Dublin and to our hotel. By the time we unloaded the car and got sorted out it was already quite late so we did not go out instead deciding to recharge the batteries for tomorrow our final full day in Dublin.
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