Day 2 – 6th Sept….

Decided not to have a cooked breakfast, despite Hannah’s generosity, due the fact we were “stuffed” from the huge meal the night before.  Just had a light one.

We had to get provisions so set off to PortLaoise, after a short reccy in Mountrath to see what was about with facilities, basically very little.  A Spar, a Mace stores and some run down pubs and cafe’s and low level eating.

PortLaoise much better.  Has a Tesco Extra – that does not take UK clubcard it turns out!, though the assistant on the tills was English and had a “secret” clubcard which would allow offers but not cubcard deals/points.  We also found a decent fishmonger, Daly’s, where Steve ordered some Monkfish for Saturday when we are going over to Brian and Katleen’s for Steve to do a monkfish laksa.  We also bought some salmon from them for that nights dinner.

Drove back to Roundwood and as it was part way through the day we decided to go to the Kildare Village Outlet.

Ended up spending a few bob there!

Steve got a new Barbour jacked for £145, normally nearly £200 and some Sketchers shoes.  Shaun splashed out on a pair of branded sunnies…

Back to the cottage for a dinner of Cajun Salmon, courtesy of Daly’s.

Day 3 – 7th Sept….

Off to Galway.

Steve had a business meeting with the manager of Hidden Ireland (https://hiddenireland.com), Aidan.  Lunch was booked at a restaruant called Ruibin’s, which is owned by the owner of Roundwood’s brother, Richard.

Got to Galway about 10:30am, parked up and went for a look about.

Went to the Latin Quarter, which caused us some discussion.  “Why was there a Latin Quarter in an Irish town?”.

Apparently this is the reason:

“Galway has always had a close relationship with both Spain and Portugal, so much so that at one point the ruling class in Dublin once said that “Galway is more Spanish than Irish” due to the large number of Spanish residence.”

Had a coffee in the “pub” that is in the right hand corner of the first image above.  Then set off to meet Aidan at Ruibin.

After lunch had finished we did a little more exploring.  Spanish Arch being one:

We then went to  the Galway City Museum to have a little bit of a history lesson.

They had a hanging fishing boat in main area:

Steve wanted to go to the Clannagh, which is just over the river onto the west side of Galway but Manda’s leg was playing up a bit so we decided to call it a day and come back to Roundwood.  Here is an image of the Clannagh:

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