Saturday, October 6th, 2007
We didn’t get up until after noon (yes that was over 14 hours worth of sleep), but were well refreshed after our trans-atlantic flight followed by our trans-Ireland drive.
We headed up to Dermot’s uncle’s house for “breakfast: at around 1 p.m. With our bellies full from a traditional Irish fry, we decided to explore the farm.
First we headed up to Blackpark to check on the cattle that were going to be sold at the mart this coming Monday. Blackpark is the highest point in all the land on the farm, so we walked up the field to enjoy some views of Sligo, Leitrim and Longford.
The day was unusually warm and pleasant for October in Ireland and we enjoyed every moment of it. We then headed off to see the bog, the place were you get the turf to burn in the oven. Luckily all the turf was saved for the year, so we did not have to take part in the back-breaking work normally associated with the bog.
From there we dropped off Uncle Bernie at the house to start the spuds and headed into Castlerea to pick up some chicken for dinner.
After dinner we headed down to Ballinagare to see Ultan and Sheena (Dermot’s Irish friends). We watched France upset New Zealand in the rugby world cup and then headed over to the Corner House pub for a Guinness. Ursula met us at the Corner pub and then we headed up to the Goal Post pub next door for a few more drinks, before we called it a night. We learned that Ursula is also going to be traveling to at the end of November for 4 months! We’ll have to try to meet up with her on her journey.
We ended up staying at Ursula’s parents house since we did not want to drive back to the farm after having some drinks. The Mulleady’s have also been generous to offer Dermot a place to stay after a night out in Ballinagare.