We took it easy on our first day in the house but we had to head into Boyle for some more food for the week as we had only grabbed some breakfast things on the way in. We are in a farmy sort of area about 9 kilometers from Boyle, Shirley, who owns the house and lives in Melbourne, says the address is Mullaghroe via Boyle in County Roscommon but the house is actually across the border in County Sligo. No matter, it is a comfortable house with lots of character and it is centrally heated with enough mod cons to satisfy us. It has been a good base from which to explore the many things there are to see in the north western part of Ireland.

We went into town and found the visitor information centre and the girl in there was very helpful and keen for us to have a good time. She thrust all kinds of guides at us which we took home to read at our leisure. I needed to find a dentist and the man in the Londis supermarket was very helpful and told us to go to Carrick (on Shannon) as I had told him the local dentist could not give me an appointment and the other one was away. He was a real character, got us a larger shopping trolley and followed us around making sure we had everything we needed. We have found that people in Ireland go way out of their way for you, stopping to chat and giving you all kinds of information just when you need it.

I knew that the Drumanone Dolmen was in the Boyle area because it was mentioned in my Ireland Lonely Plant Guide book. The girl in the visitor information centre gave us instructions on how to get to it, and it was only just down the road from where we were staying. This Dolmen is one of the largest in Ireland measuring 4.5 by 3.3 meters and it was constructed before 2000 BC. The funny thing is, this dolmen stands in a field and there are no signs indicating that it exists even though it is mentioned in some of the tourist literature. It was on the Tubbercurry road running out of Boyle, we had to go under the railway bridge and then stop at an abandoned house on the right and go up the lane, over the railway line and then we saw it in the field on the left. Because there are no markings there are also no crowds. There are hundreds of old sacred sites and such in Ireland as yet undiscovered by tourism, maybe that is a good thing. For those who don't know what a dolmen is and haven't yet googled it is a marker for a grave, a kind of portal for the one buried there, usually someone of importance at the time as the stones weigh a bit, so you wouldn't be going around making one for everyone.

We took some short drives to neighbouring towns as we explored the countryside around us. We went to Gurteen, Tubbercurry or Tubbercurry as it is sometimes spelled and back in a big square. When we were in Tubbercurry a wedding party came through the town and everyone in the cavalcade were tooting their horns and waving so we waved back. Point at the pictures, some of them have explanation tags

We decided to head to the Arigna Mining experience which was north west of Boyle where we are staying. We drove through interesting country and began to climb upwards and there was this wonderful view. Now have I told you about Irish road and tourist signs. We its like this, the EU gave them some money to get Ireland up to scratch for the tourists and so on most of the main roads there are some pretty goods signs which may cause you to turn down in the hope of finding something very interesting.  However, having turned you may not be directed to that site again until you get to it (that is if you are lucky to get to it). We did not get lost on this day but we did drive what seemed a long way wondering if we were indeed heading for a site significant enough to warrant being given a number on a local tourist map. Once we got there it was fantastic, the view over the lake (Lough) Allen was magnificent and you could see up and down the valley. It was a bit hazy so the photos do not do this view justice. Once inside the mining experience centre we paid a modest sum of ten euros to go on the tour which turned out to be a tour of an actual mine by an actual miner who had once worked in the mine before it closed and we had to wear hard hats. It was a coal mine and the man had a lot to tell us. The first part of the mine led to to the place where the miners said prayers before they went on and off shift. It was nicely paved and relatively dry. Just a few metres along we entered the mine proper and although they had a shield overhead there was a lot of water dripping down and it was very damp and cold. Very atmospheric I must say. We tramped through looking at the main tunnels and the branch tunnels and then the tunnels where they actually dug the coal from lying on their side swinging the pick in a very small space (18 to 24 inches high). The guide told us of the function of all the workers and how they got paid and also what the conditions were like to work there.  Obviously as things got modernised they were given better equipment but it seemed that this mine remained fairly manual for a long time.  There were no deaths in this mine but many accidents which was odd because every time I lagged behind the others I felt the distinct presence of someone who was going along for the tour. Perhaps an old miner who has left this life who still likes to spend his time down the pit. It was a very good experience, inside the centre there was a DVD presentation and some great artifacts as well as a lot of information about this particular mine.

Martha went to church on the Sunday and when she returned we headed for Ballina (Ballinar) and then on to Ceide Fields (pronounced Cayja) which is a Neolithic site of a 5000 year old farm which has been buried under blanket bog. Although it may look like a boring old pile of rocks it was very interesting to hear of the stone walls made to keep the animals in and that these walls still existed beneath our feet. Someone digging peat for his fire discovered a cluster of stones which formed a sort of circular shape and so he wrote to the university of Dublin telling them about it. Eventually it was his son, who first studied teaching and then archaeology, who came back and investigated further.  Ceide Fields is in County Mayo and we saw a vast difference in landscapes on our 1.5 hour drive to get there. There were some old houses in decay but many which have been renovated and extended and also many new ones so the areas we traveled through did not look impoverished. The small hills gave way to plains with large hills, almost mountains behind them but when we reached Country Mayo and the bogs it was a amazing, just vast areas of nothing, no shrubs no trees or anything, just bog. I thought bog was soggy underfoot but we walked all over Ceide Fields and it was springy although we were there on a foine Irish day ie; it wasn’t raining, but it was windy, windy enough to blow a dog of his chain. Fortunately the wind died down somewhat when we were tramping around on our guided tour. The centre displays were good and there was a DVD presentation as well as the guided tour and the price was very reasonable. The pictures of the landscape show brown grass instead of the usual green as green for Ireland, this is because bog foliage has a log of sphagnum moss which dies to form the mass of the turf or peat and so it is brown on top.

If I was impressed by the Inauguration mounds, ringforts and the big stone we had also been given a map to an underground cave called Oweynagat (the Cave of the Cats) which in local mythology was the entrance to the underworld where one could come and go as one pleased, time being different on the inside than here. Inside this cave was an Ogham stone and the guide told us one could enter the cave and converse with Morrigan and she with you. We drove up a lane and looked hopefully around and Martha went one way I went the other and I found it poking out from beneath some bushes. The entrance was smallish but Martha scooted down on her bottom and took some photos. This amazing natural cave attached to long ago local legend was just in a field, no signs or tourist admission, I think many archaeologists must visit here and the guide said the farmer would not sell the land. I am not sure if Martha spoke to The Morrigan , she never said. The inscription on the Ogham stone in the cave is VRAICCI MAQI MEDVVI has been translated to read (the pillar) of Fraech … son of Mabd. Another inscription is QUREGASMA.

The next day we headed down to Roscommon town as I wanted to enquire about tracing some relatives on my mother's side who came from County Roscommon, I also wanted to see the Sheela na Gig from Rahara which was housed in the museum. The lady there was more helpful than the genealogy centre in looking up the location of certain surnames to help me identify which parish my relatives might have come from. For those who do not know a Sheela na Gig is a fertility symbol usually a rather lewd stone carving of a woman. We also did Strokestown Park house and the famine museum. ireland today seems quite affluent but its past is quite dire but not many people talk about it and there is not much evidence of how people survived those times. When the potatoes failed there was no money pay the rent let alone eat so evictions and emigration were common but so was death by starvation. I was happy to see Ireland in a better state than it has been for a long time, let us hope that those dark days never return.

Strokestown Park House was intereting, not because it was a flash house or anything. Posh houses in Ireland are usually not as grand as those in England and Strokestown was designed to look bigger than it is by making the kitchens and servants areas in a wing off one side and the stables off the other. The family responsible for the house and the formation and layout of the town streets is the Mahon family. The house was eventually sold complete with all its contents so there is a tendency for the place to look as if the owners will be back any minute. Even the wallpaper was original as were some of the threadbare carpets. I particularly liked the wake table in the main entrance. the guide said that if you died you would be laid out on it and if there was a hunting party the main game would be laid upon it, the side leaves pulled up and the hunters would drink around it. The famine Museum housed in the old stables was interesting too. There was also a fine example of a walled garden, part ornamental and part fruit and vegetable and still in production, there was even the remains of an old pineapple house which once had a glasshouse type roof and a fire to create the artificial heat with which to grow the pineapples.