okay, where was i? right. okay, so we're on the fabulous island of inis mor and get to go on this super cool tour with the crazy gaeltacht (from a pimarily irish speaking area) irishman.
first cool fact, pog mo thoin /pogue ma hon/ means kiss my ass in irish, second cool fact, this was the original name of the irish rock group the Pogues before they got outside of ireland. then the english had issues with the crudity of the statement, and they were shortened from pog mo thoin to the pogues. woo!


okay, moving on to the tour, the picture below is one of three memorials for all of the people who have lived and died on the island. very pretty, and it shows you just how insulated of a community they are, they really do rely on the community for everything, it's really nifty.
the next is one of the seven ( i think...) beaches on inis more, we actually saw some crazy boyos going out to surf the gravel beaches, whoah.


there are over 7,000 MILES of stone walls, built by the celts a couple hundred years ago for the sole purpose of clearning the land enough that they could plant crops. we saw a bunch of walls with pieces missing and animals chilling inside, and what they do to keep their sheepies or goats or any other quadruped really from wandering into their neighbor's yard if the stone fence isn't up all the way is looping them together by the leg (if it's a sheep) with rope, or by the leg and head (for more frisky goats) and the round thing at the top of this picutre is one of the ringforts, an duhronag, where we headed next, it is the inhuman love of my life.

this sign was posted at the beginning of the hill leading up to an duhronag and as you can see, it points toward the rest fo the world, in fact, New York was only 3,000 miles from where we were. and I like the additions by passerby ^_^



the guy there is my friend Billy as we are all climbing up to the entrance. i thought this was a pretty picture, as it shows the steep hill, and really the kind of feeling even walking up to this place gave you. Majestic. It is a ringfort up on the top of a cliff, built by the early celts on the island for shelter, and for meetings.

the cliffs of inis more



as we all look out sitting on the edge of the cliff, i haven't been that happy in a long while. the water was so blue, and so wild, and so powerful, and i wished that there was a way i could jump in and not die. but as there isn't i remain here ^_^ anyways, the wind there was so incredibly powerful, you could atcually stand and lean into it and it would hold you up, it really was something else. a force of nature. An duhronag had pride, and personality, and a fierce love. it was just...ther are not enough words in the english language to describe this. so with one goofy picture of some of my friends:

i'll stop trying (that was Dierdre and Dolker, by the way)
moving, on, the other side (the ring wall side) of An Duhronag:
and on to the rest of the island. The seven churches (there's actually only 3 churches on the island, 3 churches, 3 schools, 3 graveyards....and 6 pubs. tells you what's important eh?)


it's named for seven friars that once were there. and the tour guide sworre that they really didn't tear down the prosetsant churches...they just stopped being used! (the island is now totally catholic) it's interesting though, you drive around the island and see thigns like this all the time, places where most or some of the walls are standing, and ivy and plants are groeing all aorund it, there's remanants of houses in people's backyard, some converted into gardens, some not, like the past is right there living with them. they don't try to make it the present, but it is there nonetheless...
they still use these as graveyards as you can see from the modern headstone, very anachronistic looking ^_^ and all gravestones on the island face east, toward the "holy land" cool.
artsy shot, i really liked this place...
I'm not sure how well you can read this, but that is modern irish ^_^
this guy made enourmous baskets in his front yard as tourist attractions to promote the hand woven baskets he sold further on into town. our tour guide tried to tell us that they were for this special breed of "really bigg chickens...huge eggs!" uuuuhuh...i believed THAT!

anyways, that wraps up most of the galway trip, that and a relaxed night at one of the local pubs seeing the nightlife of Galway, and a really really drunk irishman who tried to convince the five of us to go to this club to dance all night, and the "hen party" complete with women in lingere and flashing bunny ears (no, i'm not joking) apparently having reserved the little room that we all thought we were so clever for having found. as a very well muscled man came in with screaming women arrayed from ages 20 to 40 and started to strip, we thought we had probably been mistaken about our cleverness.... anyways a hilarious night all around ending - as all nights should - with irish frenchfries from supermacs...mmmmm. anyways, there's a couple more pictures, but these really are the very best, so huge hugs, and as soon as my friends post the pic they took on facebook, i'll yoink em and post em here. love, peace, and crashing ocean waves..


~Jean~