The area is fairly touristy so there were tons of shops and restaurants tucked into the hills. We stopped at Joyce's Craftshop - the sign said it was the best in Ireland ;). It actually is quite a nice shop. They have a lot of gorgeous sweaters and yarn, but the warm sun was so strong that I had little interest in purchasing an enormous wool sweater. We did get to see the Giant of Connemara.
The giant stone statue sits across from Joyce's with a sign that reads "Late 20th c. antiquity - This stone monument was built in 1999 for no apparent reason." I love it!
We left Joyce's and continued along the N59 to Clifden. We had never been there before and I must say it's a hidden gem. The town is packed full of restaurants and shops and sits along the coastline so it offers great views and fantastic seafood. We had lunch at Mitchell's Seafood Restaurant and I think I'll be dreaming about the cod and leek pie for a few weeks. It was absolutely perfect, and Dan's smoked salmon on homemade brown bread was pretty damn good too. Clifden is also the site of the first Marconi Telegraph tower, but by the time we had eaten and shopped we opted out of visiting that area which was still a few miles further south. Instead, we made our way back to Galway, stopping at the Connemara Marble Visitor Center (aka - Gift shop for tourists).
Tonight we are going to conference to hear the controversial roundtable on immigration. This panel has caused quite a stir with some of the potential conference delegates - well really just one - it's quite a long story, but in any case some accusations of xenophobia and racism arose in a flurry of emails. So - here we are at the contested roundtable. I hope it's as good as I anticipated it to be!
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