We spent our main holiday for 2014 in Ireland. Our first stop was West Cork, Baltimore to be precise. The trigger factors for Ireland were West Cork Whale Watching (Nic Slocum and his team) and the IWG Annual Seminar that we've attended for the last few years but just for the weekend until now. As usual for one of our multi centre holidays, there are a few pages so please click below for where you'd like to visit.
Thursday and we drove up to Sligo (after a yummy breakfast and a play with the dogs). Checked in at Radisson Blu, said hello to a few early arrivers for the IWG Seminar then went to Gallery No 6 where we bought a few pieces for The Daniel Collection.
Dinner was at Tra Ban, Strandhill (really yummy).
First stop, Glencar Lake - very pretty with the morning light on it.
Jonathon was enjoying the interplay between the water, the grasses and the sunshine.
From there we went to Glencar Waterfalls - even more spectacular. The walk to the falls was lovely.
This is Yeats country and he wrote:
"Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout...."
From W.B. Yeats' poem - Stolen Child.
The noise from the waterfall made it easy to know where to walk to - it was really powerful.
We took the (very) long way home so we could call in at the Coleman Irish Music Centre where Jonathon bought a few more CDs and we enjoyed a short film about the history of Irish Music and an inter-active display.
The centre is named after Michael Coleman who was one of the finest traditional fiddle players of his era.
We had a quick stop at Lough Talt to take in more pretty scenery - still can't believe how lucky we were with the weather.
There were quite a few windmills around the place. Appropriately, this photo was taken from a place called Windy Gap!
We spent Saturday at the IWG Seminar (the reason we were in Sligo). There was a really good range of work in the competitions so plenty for us to look at and enjoy.
I've added a few snaps here to give you a flavour of what there was.
In tribute to Nelson Mandella
Dinner for our last night was at Eala Bhan. The food was fine but it was really noisy as there were a couple of parties in so we ate our main course then went to A Casa Mia for dessert.
All too soon we had to say goodbye to Ireland as it was time to fly home but not before we had thanked Simon profusely for agreeing to take the pieces we'd bought in his van (couldn't quite fit them in our hand luggage!) and Alison and Mark for taking those that Simon couldn't find room for (good excuse to come and see them again to collect them).
We highly recommend Ireland as a country to visit (unless you're on a diet!). The food is good (and more than plentiful), the people are lovely and friendly, the scenery is stunning and we were really lucky with the weather - what's not to like!