County Mayo — Lisa's (& Steve's) Travels

Continuing to head north up the west coast, the edges of County Mayo were our next destinations. Beautiful country was all around -

Muingelly Head was neatly flat…

(note the little white dots of sheep in about the middle of the picture)

… and beautifully cut in -

Our next stop was Downpatrick Head, but I couldn’t get a good picture of it, due to the curve of the road and the topography. This is when I used my long lens from Muingelly Head -

This was why we came out here -

Dun Briste sea stack.

In that shot I was really grateful for a person on the point, adding scale. An arch that led to the sea stack collapsed in 1393. Remains of walls and houses have been found on top.

A little further up, the coast continues to be quite rugged -

We had stopped in a small village for sandwiches that we enjoyed here -

… and were given a couple of fantastic tips on local sites. The first was a standing stone…

… which is reputed to be the tallest still standing in Ireland. It is 15 feet high…

… and besides the crosses near the base, there are ogham inscriptions. This was the earliest form of writing in Ireland, characterized by short strokes of lines in groups of between one to five. I only found out that last bit of information when I was writing this up, thus I didn’t take a picture of the marks, as I didn’t know what ogham writing was. (Remains of a nearby church date from the 7th century.)

Our next stop was Moyne Friary. What a hidden gem! Reviews online said not to worry about the sign, and just climb the stone stile and walk down to the field. Mm…ok?…