The Town of Westport on the Western Coast

Westport is a touristy town on the coast about 1.5 hours from where we are. After the long drive up from the south a couple of days ago we thought it would be a breeze. Somehow we came home exhausted from this jaunt. So today we are sticking around Strokestown and catching up with this blog and other communications, plus internet research for our trip to Dublin by train tomorrow. Robert is looking forward to sitting back on the train and relaxing since he’s been doing all the driving.

Since we don’t have internet service at the house we are in a local community cafe set up to earn money for programs that train intellectually challenged folks in vocational skills. In the evenings we’ve been known to park just outside the local hotel to tap into their Wi-Fi.

Back to Westport. 

Close to Westport we got a glimpse of Croagh Patrick, this lovely mountain. We were entranced by the mountain. 

I was told by a local shopkeeper that for penance the priest would prescribe a penitence of climbing the mountain. Also, rather than locking criminals up in jail they would be required to climb up and down numerous times. Robert, ever the logical questioner, wondered how the Garuda Siobhan’s (translated to Guardians of the peace) knew for sure that the criminal actually completed the required penalty.  Guess we could wonder the same for the priest, but they probably figured that the “man above” would know. 

We just couldn’t get enough pics of this lovely mountain. I had Robert driving all over the town trying to get more angles of it. No wonder he was so exhausted.

Here are a few more photos of Westport. I spent most of my time shopping and chasing the mountain so there are just a few of the town.

V

We’ve really been enjoying the Irish brown soda bread. It’s very dense and nutty and seems to also have wheat berries in it. Yum.  I’ve been indulging on this bread with honey goat cheese.