half of the church is related to you...

When setting out to find the best live music in Galway, we relied on the expert Meghan. She led us to a pub on one of the main streets, Taaffe's pub where we would soon learn how to have a session in stag party style. When we first walked in, people were gathering around to hear the music and we were able to grab a seat right by the band. They started to warm up and just as they did, a strange lad walked up with a brown bag containing mysterious contents..after conversing with the band for a bit, they began to play and just as they did, the mysterious contents were revealed. Out he pulled a tin whistle and Irish dance shoes..as everyone stared, he also took off his jacket and revealed a Riverdance shirt! Were we in for a great night or what? Putting on the shoes and putting the whistle to his mouth, he began to whistle and also dance! What a sight this scrawny lad was and the poor band tried to play over the screeching of this man's twiddling whistle. Joining in the fun was a large group of guys in town for the weekend to celebrate a Bachelor party . Soon enough we found ourselves being talked to and asked to dance by various members of the stag party, most of whom were jockeys. Meghan told us that dancing never happened at Taffee's when she had been here, rather people used to sit around and listen to the music. Apparently things had change in the past years because we were up and down dancing around with various lads along with our "teacher", Mom. The craic was unbelievable that night also adding in the crazy dancing man. After what seemed like hours, finally the pub closed and as Caitlin, Audrey, and Mom went back to the hotel, Meghan wanted to live up the rest of her time in Galway before we left in the morning. Unfortunately things had greatly changed since Meghan had been there and the hot spots had been switched and some places were different names. Eventually we went to Supermac's and then headed home so we could be ready for the relatives of Mayo the next day.





In the morning, we again loaded up the car and made our way north. On the way to Swinford, Mayo, we stopped at the holy site in Knock and took a look around. Since we were cutting it close, we had to get back in the car as soon as we could and head for Swinford. There we attended the one year anniversary mass of one of our relatives who was a Garda and had been hit by a kid in a stolen car. The church was packed when we arrived and we luckily found some familiar faces in the crowd and made our way to find a seat. In Ireland masses are quite quick and are over in the blink of an eye. The memorial mass was no different, but was a great way for people to come together. After the mass we went to the cemetary and then to a reception at the hotel in town. There we had tea and sandwiches and were able to meet some of the relatives. From there, we made our way to the family's home and there we met more relatives and had some dinner. It was a beautiful day so we tried to get outside as much as we could and enjoy meeting all of the people with whom we had relations. When we left Swinford, we made our way to Ballinrobe, also in Mayo, to stay with more relatives TJ and Assumpta. We tried to get there as fast as we could so that we could see the cafe that TJ had recently opened. It was a beautiful cafe and the deserts were beyond delicious, although we were already extremely full before we ate. Being three stories, their cafe is the tallest building in the village and what they call the Sears Tower of Ballinrobe. After we had a tour of the cafe, he took us to their home which is on one of the main streets of the town and is found in between TJ's flower shop and Assumpta's hair salon. We got situated and then we went to Ashford Castle where TJ helps with the flowers. We walked around the gorgeous grounds and gardens, even seeing house from the Quiet Man. The walk was refreshing to try and work off all of the food we had had all day and to also make room for the dinner that we had yet to eat. When we returned to the house, we toasted our journey out to Mayo and had a wonderful meal. After several hours we had spent sitting around the table talking and realizing that it was about half twelve, TJ suggested that we got to the nightclub that is literally around the corner and the back entrance is in their backyard. We all were persuaded to go and danced a little, after one of the longest days, we finally left and slept in.











The next day was Sunday and the last day of our driving journey. We wanted to see the main city of Westport so we drove to the coast and saw the city and then made our way to Louisburgh and to the harbor where we were able to see the island that started it all, Inisturk. Although we had missed all of the boats out to the tiny island, we were able to see the island and pretend that we were there in spirit. I am hoping to still make it there someday soon. We then made the drive back to Dublin passing Croagh Patrick on the way. After a few hours, we finally made it back and since Audrey and I had a history test the next day, we had to get back to Maynooth to try and study. The next day while I was in class and taking my test until 5, the family went with Luke and saw the beautiful south campus at NUIM and the National Botanical Gardens. For dinner we were invited to dinner with more relatives, Phyllus and Liam who live south of Dublin. We enjoyed dinner there and then I had to say my farewell to my family until I would see them a month later.