Last Day in Nenagh May 28

Last Day in Nenagh May 28

It's already after 10:00 tonight and we had a fabulous day, full of twists and turns (literally, some of the roads, and figuratively, with some of the events).

Before we started our tour of the lough, we headed over to the John Handy woolen mills and factory. Just a few minutes away. Not saying what I bought, but they have some beautiful things. :)

We did get started out a bit earlier today, but not much. This was our day to tour around Lough Derg. It's a huge lough that feeds into the Shannon River and with the sun shining we headed out south to cross it at Killaloe and then head north. It was not long before we were turning off the road at every opportunity to take lots of pictures. Whether it was from a hill looking down, or from a beach at water's edge, all the views were stunning. I'm not even sure the pictures we took can even show the richness of the area.

By the time we were almost at Mountshannon we had pulled off a side road and traveled down a small narrow strip to a boat dock where you could get boats of Holy Island. It was a monastery on an island in the middle of Lough Derg. Arrangements for the boat trips needed to be made in advance in Mountshannon, so we were out of luck, but again the view of the round tower on the island was a site to behold.

At Mountshannon was drove down to the boat docks. This is a very busy boating recreation area. It's also the area where they have recently had the first mating pair of eagles with a successful birth and those who were lucky enough might have seen the eagles flying. We were not that lucky, except we did get to watch some very pretty swans.

The rest of the drive to Portumna at the top of the lough was mostly uneventful except for when we thought we were following a sign to another holy well. Seemed more like a wild goose chase in and out of random back roads. We finally found our way back to the main road and in Portumna. So much to see and so little time. Portumna has a castle and gardens, a workhouse, and a priory. We checked out the castle and opted not to take the time as we were once again running late. The same for the workhouse (this is definitely on the list for next trip). As Rita and I so often do we turned down a road with no markings just to see what was there. What a surprise when we came across the ruins of the Portumna priory. It was fabulous! We walked around there, just the two of us, for about an hour. What remained of the priory was huge. I later learned that this was one of the richest priories in the area. It seemed that when they were forced to raise money they used the priory as a brothel! And because of that it was closed down.

From there we headed back south to Puckaun and stopped at Peg's Cottage. Peg runs a facebook page called “Ireland and Peg's Cottage” and often posts pictures and information about the area. We met up with Peg and Bill and stopped by their favorite pub in town to share a jar. It was great getting to meet them after only “seeing” them on FB. We had a great visit, and then headed to Dromineer to the Whiskey Still for a small dinner.

Another beautiful day here. It got so warm in the car early in the day we actually had to put the AC on when we got back to the car after it sat in the sun for a bit!

Almost forgot to add a few pictures. The first is from the priory at Portumna, and the second is a couple of swans on the lough at Mountshannon.