Wednesday 12 July

We decided to have the day just wandering around Boyle and started with a stroll downtown through light misty rain, to drop a roll of film into the chemist, then back to king House built by Sir Henry King in the early 1600s. The audio/visual display took us through some of the earlier history of the area, the building of the house and it's subsequent use as military barracks then its careful restoration.

Cesh Corran B&B

Cesh Corran Dining Room

The rain was clearing by then so we toured the Boyle Abbey (built between 1160 to 1200) across the road. This is said to be the best restored and most complete Cistercian Abbey in all of Europe. We had a guide all to ourselves.

Back to town then to collect the film and to buy a bolt to fix the handle of my suitcase before returning to the B&B for a couple of hours R&R.

The pressure of the last couple of weeks is catching up. Just before we put our feet up however Mary informed us the local library has an Internet service we could use by joining the library for 3 Irish pounds. So we spent the next hour or so checking emails and also Myfamily.com site. It appears that all the Libraries have on line computers that their members can use and membership is generally cheaper than Internet Café rates. Then we went back to the B&B for a rest!

Moygara Castle.

Dinner at 'The Royal' was lamb with ginger & shallots- Chinese tucker...Irish style! Not as good as Aussie/Chinese tucker and the lamb was more like mutton! Still it filled our bellies (after a walk up the street to get an ice cream)!

We can't get any Irish Stew for dinner, though occasionally it is on the lunch menus.

We plan on contacting our friends who are visiting relatives in Northern Ireland before heading that way later in the week. We have been assured this annual protest will all be over in a couple of days. In any case we had no intention of going near Belfast.