{i’ll be posting my ireland journal in it’s entirety for the next few days. if you haven’t had a chance to view the images, check that posting out here. i’ll also be posting my polaroid images when i get them scanned into my computer}
“we drove down to westport this morning, via a short trip back up to ardara so mom could buy a green blanket at the woolen mill. we also stopped in donegal and bough a few things as well as walked out to the abbey and graveyard that’s on the point. {we saw the irish army in donegal – huge presence – as (it appeared) an armoured truck was picking money up from the bank. but the military wasn’t stationed at the bank… it was at the hotels on either side, in the intersections, and across in the triangle in donegal city centre. there must have been 20 military police/whatever there. so strange, but we never figured out why}.
i had pointed out yeats’ grave in drumcliff {near sligo}, so when we got back closer to sligo, we stopped to see it and the drumcliff church. i had also thought we could have lunch in sligo, but it turned out to be (in mom’s case) impossible to park so after a few minutes of her driving and bickering w me/about all the one-way streets, we managed to get out back onto the road.
(note to self: do not ever travel with mom again.)
it took another 30 minutes to find lunch but we finally stopped at a small roadside diner, where they had delicious veg soup. we made it to westport around 4-4:30, checked in and i took a quick shower before we left to go into town. the b+b is about a 5 minute walk.
we spent a little time shopping and gma decided she wanted dinner – it was only 6! we ended up at the west, a large bar at the bottom of bridge street, across from the clew river. jess and i had fish and chips, but the fact that we’d had a late lunch combined w/ the fact that the fish wasn’t cooked very well meant i didn’t eat that much.
we had been told that going to matt molloy’s for music was an absolute must. so we went up the street to there around 7:30 and took a seat in the back bar near to where the music would be.
an older man came into the back, started talking to us and then started singing.
his name is mick lavalle, and apparently he’s an institution there – he sang “danny boy”, “molly malone”, “galway bay”, and a few others. i even got him to sing “loch lomond”. as the crowd grew, more people sang along with him it was great craic!
the band started up around half nine {9:30}, and mick left. nother took his place – a very drunk irishman named brian. he was fascinated by us – but mom and gma were very much not fascinated by him (neither were jess + i but i believe in at least humouring people – except mom) and they left around 10:15. mom practically dragged us out with them but we were allowed to stay only until 11. we left about five min after they did, and went to a different bar. the band had the drunk guy kicked out, but mom still insisted we got back at 11. i did NOT appreciate that, and it irritates me that she thinks she can boss me around. i’m 25 years old!