Sligo, Ireland: September 2-4, 2019 - The Castle Dargan

Sligo was a short stop for us made for one very specific reason: family history.  As mentioned, Dargan, my young nephew, was along for this trip; Dargan is a family name on my mom's side and has been used as various first and middle names throughout the generations thereof (read more here and here).  The name is Irish in origin, and one of the reasons a trip to Ireland was even proposed was because of the Castle Dargan, and ancient ruined castle bearing the family name whose remains stood somewhere in the vicinity of Sligo.

Weirdly, as a tangent, that isn't my only connection to Castle Dargan.  The church where as of this writing I'm directing the choir, Christ Church Cathedral, has a hallway with a number of plaques, and one day quite by chance I saw this one for the first time:

So not only is this place my namesake, but it is responsible for the beginning of the church where I work!  Small world.  It must be my destiny!

Anyway, today the Castle stands really more as a lawn ornament within a golf resort some 20 minutes outside of the town, which is where we elected to stay for this leg of the trip.  We got in Monday toward evening and mainly spent the rest of the day eating and retiring to our rooms for sleep.

The next day was the big day, both exploring the town of Sligo and seeing the castle ruins.  First, Sligo.  We dropped Beth and Scott off at a bike shop where they rented bikes and spent the morning exploring the town and surrounding countryside.  Myself, my parents, and Dargan explored the town as well, but bipedally.

My parents had picked out this wood shop to go to - where they heard about it I do not know - owned by a man named Michael Quirke.  We walked in and he immediately began carving something for Dargan, asking him what his favorite animal was and setting to work:

He told stories and spun tales while he did it and astonishingly never even brought up items we could have paid money for.  He just seemed happy to work and talk.

Next, we set about a walking tour - no bus to hop on and off of, this time.  We followed a map as well as the physical markers embedded in the sidewalk to tell us we'd found the marked locations.  

No joke, we went out of our way to see the library:

They use the same computer reservation software we use in Louisville!  Shoulda asked for a guest pass.

We then went to the Sligo Abbey, the only thing we had to pay for during the whole tour:

It was built I believe they said in the 1200s?  No wonder its roof is no longer there.

Then, to a church with a roof, the Sligo Cathedral:

I do love me some grand churches.

We met up with Beth and Scott at our pre-selected lunch spot, Knox, then drove back to the resort to make the walk, at long last, to the Castle Dargan.

The journey began just outside the resort:

Continued through the golf course:

And at last, we saw the ruins in the distance:

There's not much of the poor ol' castle left.  This shot contains all of it; two lumps of stone with a stray window or two and not much else:

That's the family legacy I guess.  Here's a plaque with poor grammar telling you far more than you'd ever want to know about this place:

And here's a contraband shot that I shouldn't have been able to take:

And so our journey to discover our ancestral homeland was complete.  We celebrated with dinner back in town:

And that was about it for Sligo.  Another quiet night back at the resort, and another morning, then it was off to our final destination for the trip: the capital of Ireland.