Visitors away home

Had a great time with my nephew, niece and Mum and Dad and took them back up to Belfast yesterday, we had a few stops along the way the first was at Clonmacnoise monastery it was founded in 546 by Ciarán, a young man from Rathcroghan  Co. Roscommon. Until the 9th century it had close associations with the kings of Connacht. The strategic location of the monastery helped it become a major centre of religion, learning, craftsmanship, and trade by the 9th century and together with Clonard it was the most famous in Ireland, visited by scholars from all over Europe. From the ninth until the eleventh century it was allied with the kings of Meath. Many of the high kings of Tara and Connacht were buried here.

It rained for most of the journey but cleared up and the sun came out for our stop here, we had a picnic and drove up to the Boyne valley and stopped at the battle of the Boyne site.

It took us about 7 hours to get up there with the stops along the way and I made it home today in 5 hours with stops for lunch and to do a bit of grocery shopping in Galway and it was sunny all the way today.
We missed getting onboard the SS Nomadic as we were too late but I got some photos from the dockside.