Archaeologic Explorations & Irish Music

The main attraction today was a visit to the Caherconnell Stone Fort. It is owned by the Davoren family, who have farmed sheep and cattle at Caherconnell for five generations. They run a really good historical tour of the fort and offer sheepdog demonstrations. This is an active archaeologic site, and excavations indicate that the fort was occupied from around the early 10th century to the early 13th century.

We were then taken to see a demonstration of how sheepdogs are used on the farm to this day. At one point, the farmer got a dog to separate one sheep at a time from the flock and drive it to the farmer. Each dog responds to a unique whistle tone/tune from the farmer, because there might be as many as ten dogs working at a time. It can take up to four years to train a dog (we wondered how long it takes to train the farmer to all of the whistle tones!).

Just up the road from the farm, is the Poulnabrone Dolmen, another stone age burial site. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the tomb was probably used as a burial site between 3800 and 3200 BC. This was the first stone site we've visited that was roped off -- all of the others we've been able to walk close up to.

After our day of discovery, we arrived in the university town of Galway -- a bustling tourist destination as well. We found a pub that had music starting before our bedtime, finally! It was crowded and we enjoyed the 'craic' (had a fun time) talking with a couple from Philadelphia while listening to traditional Irish music. Scottish bagpipes have been referred to as sounding like "a bag of cats," but the Irish version of bagpipes are softer, more like a "bag of kittens."Baca lagi