"Not all who wander are lost.": Castles and Clifden: Day 13 in Ireland

Today's free day included Hannah and I's first picture to add to the "Hannah, Chase, and Castles" album we intend to create the next month and a half. While a lot of the camp took vans to Galway, a small group of us decided to visit Kylemore Castle and Abbey about an hour or so away from Clonbur. Although not as old as the abbey in Cong (Kylemore was built in the 1800s), it was easily the coolest castle I've ever seen...pay no mind to the fact that this was in fact the first castle I've ever seen in person.

The castle had an interesting story behind it as well that went something along the lines of this...this guy named Mitchell Henry and his wife, Margaret Henry fell in love with the Connemara area while on their honeymoon. Since then they both dreamed of going back and living there, well Mitchell Henry as a sign of his love for his wife, built this castle for the two of them and went on to have some 6...8...9?...kids and live out their dream. In 1874 while on a family vacation in Cairo, Egypt, his wife came down with dysentery and died. Overcome by grief and refusing to ever leave his wife, he had a mausoleum built next to the castle so that she could forever rest in peace in the place she loved so dearly. Not a bad place to rest for all eternity. Now Kylemore is home to nuns of the Benedictine order who came here in 1920 after their abbey in Belgium was destroyed in WWI