Monday, August 22, 2011

Ireland: Connemara and the Picnic

 driving towards Connemara

 Connemara, notice the stone wall going straight up the hill
 Clifden

 peat bogs, where they have been digging peat.  It is drying in the little piles
 Kyemore Abbey, Connemara
 Ciara being watched by Chica
 Ciara and the dogs, Chica and Tazz
 Peat bogs, Connemara
 Tazz being sure that his people are coming back, and he won't be left with the Yank!
 You suppose they pay this Connemara Pony to pose for the tourists?!
 Roundstone Quay
 Our picnic spot!
!!

For those of you wanting to see paintings, they are coming, I promise!  But I also have to post pictures from Ireland.  It was such an amazing, wonderful experience, that I want to get the pictures out there, to share with all of you.  I am trying to hang onto the feeling that you get from travel.  It opens your eyes to other places, other people, other ways of doing things.  It makes things seem new to you again when you come back to your everyday life.  

Two quotes from Mark Twain, which I find so "right-on":

"...nothing so liberalizes a man and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kinds of people."
- Letter to San Francisco Alta California, dated May 18th, 1867; published June 23, 1867

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."
Innocents Abroad


4 comments:

Egretta Wells blog said...

Such beautiful photographs. They make me want to leave here TODAY and go to Ireland! My daughter lives in Northern Ireland, but I wasn't able to go this summer...miss the lovely scenery, the slower pace, the quietness and quaintness. I'm looking forward to seeing your paintings. To see some photos from my trip last summer to N. Ireland, view July of my blog last year...http://egrettawells.blogspot.com/

Egretta Wells blog said...

me again, Elaine. Actually, I was in Northern Ireland in July 2010 and posted photos in August. By the way, did you paint with Grahame Booth while at the festival?

Elaine Hurst said...

Hi Egretta! Thank you for your posts, I love hearing from people. Yes, I did paint with Grahame Booth at Art in the Open! At least he was there, and I was there. He did a wonderful demo one day out in one of the squares in Wexford. If you are on Facebook, you can find me and find the pictures of him doing that. I think I uploaded them. He is a wonderful painter!

Colleen said...

Love seeing your photos!!