Susan and Tom Carroll are already in Ireland!

Just a few notes on our pre-trip to Ireland:

Tom and I arrived on Weds., April 30 at Shannon Airport.  We picked up a rental car and drove in light rain north to Galway then west to Kilkieran, Connemara, Co. Galway.  We stayed in a lovely B&B with a couple who have 6 grown children-thus many spare  bedrooms.

Thursday, it was rainy in the morning but the sun broke through in the afternoon as we drove the Sky Road from Clifden around the coast of Connemara to our next overnight stop.  The views of the Atlantic from the Sky Road were stunning.

Friday, we toured Kylemore Abbey, a place with a fascinating history.  It was built by Mitchell Henry in 1867 for his wife, Margaret.  When she died at 45, he added a church in her memory on his 15,000 acres.  The estate also had a 6-acre Victorian Walled Garden much of which has been restored.  In 1920, an order of Benedictine nuns purchased the estate and started a girls' school.  The school closed in 2010 but still houses the Benedictine Order.

Tom is doing a great job of driving on the left and we have had the pleasure of navigating around sheep, cattle, and hundreds of bicyclists (raising money for breast cancer research).  Many of the small roads do not appear on our Irish GPS but we've only made a couple of wrong turns.  Tom has taken over 500 pictures so far!