September 29, morning in Westport.

Breakfast at the Brooklodge B&B was French toast and bacon for me; scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for Al.

During breakfast I talked with a woman who had bought her Celtic necklace in Michigan and found the perfect matching earrings in Ireland. Of course I had to show her my Celtic jewelry find.

Craigmont Celtic Earrings with pale green Connemara marble stones

She was travelling north and we were travelling south so she recommended that we see the famine sculpture/coffin ship which she found “very moving”, along with the nearby Murrisk Friary ruins, “all good and there’s a sea view as well”.

Consequently our first stop was the Murrisk Friary, situated beneath Croagh Patrick, on the southern shores of Clew Bay in Co. Mayo.Celtic Cross at the edge of Clew Bay.Behind the Friary is Croagh Patrick, the Holy Mountain: “St. Patrick, while on his missionary journey around Ireland, spent forty days and nights of prayer and fasting on the summit during the Lenten season of 441 AD.”
Source: http://www.murrisk.ie
In close proximity is a small park containing the Coffin Ship Sculpture, a ship of the dead representing victims of the Irish famine.
From here we drove southwest along the Connemara coast on the way to the village of Roundstone.My photos of Ireland were often mystical and I haven’t been able to resist messing around with them. So I’m hoping to provide one shot per post that has been messed with. This is Murrisk Friary run through the photo app Pixlromatic.More on our 2015 trip to Ireland.