Was down in Carrigaholt in Co. Clare to see the dolphins in the Shannon Estuary with Dolphinwatch. It’s a great experience, you spent two hours all over the Mouth of the Shannon watching the dolphins in their feeding grounds. There’s plenty of other wildlife in the air and on the cliff-face to see as well. The crew are very friendly and knowledgeable and I really recommend getting down there before the summer’s out!
Update to previous post: It appears that the Macnas Parade has been saved. Galway City Council have pledged an emergency fund for the Galway Arts Festival, who had a major sponsor pull out earlier this year. Part of this fund is going into a budget for the Parade, so it looks like the single biggest free gig of the Festival. I think the Council are to be applauded for this, but there is a caveat: this money is a crutch, and if Macnas’ funding is not increased by the Arts Council, and supplemented by Dept. of Tourism, regional development bodies and local businesses the parade will lurch towards extinction in the next 2-3 years. This isn’t a prediction I’d like to see come about.
As for this year, I can’t wait to see the spectacular work of Aine, Peter, the rest of the team and the hundreds of volunteers that give the parade life every year!
Went for a Sunday drive with the family to Lettermullen in Connemara yesterday after visiting the Coral Beach past Carraroe. As we neared the top of a hill we could see what appeared to be distant mountains- except they were moving. As we crested the hill we saw a sight that took our breath away. The sea was boiling up into 30-40′ waves that were crashing onto the coast, creating a thick spray that was being blown inland for miles. It’s hard to get a sense of the scale from the photos, but if you can imagine the sea wasn’t even a quarter mile from the shed above.
I’d never been out that far before and I’ve never seen waves that huge so close to land- and I grew up in Donegal! Sometimes the sights you see around Galway when on a whim you take that back road instead of driving on are a treasure, and Galway has so many of these hidden gems warped into the rugged coast that you could spend years finding them all.
