Since it is our last full day in Ireland, we stayed around and explored right around Ennis. Started off on a walking tour of the town given by Jane O’Brien, a lady born and raised in Ennis (her son Fergus tagged along). The tour was very informative and quite interesting, especially with all of the great Irish history here. We then toured the Ennis Friary which is now open after much restoration. It’s a nice little friary, however we saw some other great Abbeys/Friaries later on today. We stayed in Ennis for about four hours just wandering the streets and doing a little shopping. Such a quaint little town. We are ready to move =)
At this point, we started to lose our nice sunny weather, but we had to carry on! We went back to Quin Abbey to walk all the way through which was breathtaking. This is probably my favorite abbey so far on the trip. It’s touristy, but it’s incredibly beautiful. Quin Abbey began as a castle which was built in the 1200s with parts of the original castle still standing. As we were leaving Quin, the rain picked up, however we still had more to see. Clare Abbey was next on the list. This one is definitely less traveled but still very beautiful. This abbey was built in the 1100s and has very much turned to ruin, but it was still a very nice pit stop despite the weather. Good thing we packed rain coats!
There is something about walking into a place and just feeling the history. These friaries/abbeys really portray some incredible history, and it’s hard to wrap your head around how old these buildings really are. So far I have liked the abbeys much more than the castles we’ve seen.
Again since this is our last day, we have to do the boring stuff like packing back up 🙁 It worked out nice since it was raining pretty hard after Clare Abbey, so we just headed back to the B&B to do just that. Then we walked back down to the center of Ennis for dinner. Everything closes really early, so we ended up at a place called YOLO Bar and Restaurant. Ridiculous name, but actually really good food. Soooo much food too. We really need to start sharing meals.
Okay, enough about the day, pictures show so much more.
Ennis sign!
Busy/compact streets of Ennis. Such a cute little town! We can work anywhere, right??
Holy food! My plate: Two pork chops, two huge scoops of mashed potatoes, gravy, chips (fries), tons of carrots and cabbage, and applesauce. They really expect one person to eat this?? Kevin’s plate: Pepper chicken which was a fried chicken breast covered in peppercorn gravy, salad, and chips – oh and his Guinness, of course (When in Rome). Stuffed!
