A Taste of Days In Between IV (Feb 19)

On the 19th we headed yet further north.  Although we had frequently wanted to stop and take pics on previous legs of the trip, on this one it would have been helpful to have had one or the other of us positioned on the hood (bonnet) of the car snapping away while the other (me) drove. The pics we do have are very limited in portraying Ireland's northwest.  Beautiful in a dramatic way.

This was our stay the night before.  You see a chapel at the far end.  There is a chapel behind us as well.

Yeats Country!  Less than a year (1938) before his death (1939) W.B. Yeats wrote his poem Under Ben Bulben, the last stanza of which reads:

Under bare Ben Bulben's head

In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid,

An ancestor was rector there

Long years ago; a church stands near,

By the road an ancient Cross.

No marble, no conventioal phrase,

On limestone quarried near the spot

By his command these words are cut:

Cast a cold eye

on life, on death.

Horseman, pass by!

By his poetry he willed his burial and the inscription on his headstone and although it was several years later before he was buried under Ben Bulben, his will was eventually accomplished.  Yeats was from this area of Ireland and claimed that the area had a great influence on his writing.

The church at Drumcliffe (current spelling); St. Columba's Parish Church, behind which is the head of Ben Bulben.

Yeats' grave in the churchyard, under Ben Bulben's head.

Yeats grave and headstone, reading as willed, facing the tail of Ben Bulben.

The "diamond" which is the center of the shopping district in Donegal (pr. "Dun e gull") Town.

Lunch in Donegal (Irish Stew).

A stream from the hills flowing into Donegal Bay in the heart of Donegal Town.

Donegal Castle.

Heading north and the roads narrow!!!

From the other direction with some perspective.

The fields on both sides are full of pics to be taken.  This is looking into the seldom seen sun over Donegal Bay as it heads to the ocean.

For Kiera!

'The back yard of the B&B where we stayed for the 2 nights in Ardara (pr. "Ar dra").

After checking in at the B&B, we drove the short distance to Ardara and watched a weaver at his loom.  This is the heart of the Donegal wool area.

 
and another.

Til later ...