2017 day 38 (9th October- Newport)

Plans change. My plan A  for today involved probably hiring bikes today and exploring the Mayo area using their apparently famous Western Greenway cycle path but we awoke to heavy mist and showers and a forecast of more of the same for the rest of the day so we quickly decided that cycling was off and we would return South of Westport to the Kylemore Abbey which we had missed on the way north yesterday because we took the coastal circuit.

Quite a wet trip down (about an hour) and not only did we find the Abbey but also some peat bogs which we had been looking for to photograph.

The Abbey was fascinating and we ended up spending most of the day there quite easily. It was built In 1867 by Mitchell Henry who inherited a fortune from his cotton mill owner father. It was an amazing feat given the remoteness of the site and building challenges confronting him but he developed the estate with massive tree plantings and a huge walled garden.

Tragically his wife Margaret died on a family trip to Egypt in 1874 and he brought her body back to be placed in a mausoleum built on the property and then built a "mini-cathedral" nearby in her memory. He sold the estate in 1903 to the Duke and Duchess of Manchester but he was a gambler

and bet the mortgage in a card game and Lost!

The estate was then purchased in 1920 by the Benedictine Nuns who had been based in Ypres in Belgium but their Abbey there was destroyed in WW1. They established an exclusive school there but a fire destroyed the accommodation wing in 1959. The Nuns still own the estate and hold retreats and conferences there as well as produce crafts and chocolates!

Toured the walled garden with its old greenhouses and chief gardener's house - all really interesting and beautifully restored.

Easy trip back to Westport for some coffee, shopping and browsing before getting back to the B&B are Newport. Almost finished our Irish holiday - just a drive back to Rosslare and the ferry to Wales the next day.