An Irish Horse Adventure!

The Irish Countryside on Horseback

I forgot to write in my Cork blog about my adventures the weekend before my trip to Cork, so I am adding just a short post.  The weekend before last I stayed in Galway, and decided that I really wanted to explore the city and surrounding area more.  So, on that Saturday a big group of my friends decided to go horseback riding at the Feeney’s Equestrian Centre about 20 minutes outside of Galway city. 

We all met at our friend’s apartment in Galway City Centre and then grabbed a couple of cabs out to the countryside.  I truly had no idea how close the countryside was!  It was like instead of walking straight to my apartment, you just took one turn and suddenly all you could see for miles and miles were grassy hills, cattle and sheep, and rows of crumbling stone walls. 

Me and Pearl

Once we got to Feeney’s Equestrian Centre we were all paired with a horse.  I got a really old horse named Pearl, and boy was she a beauty!  She even had 2 different color eyes, one blue and one brown.  The one problem with Pearl?  She was OLD...about the same age as me, which is getting up there for a horse.  I had to really push her to keep up with pack, but hey I didn’t blame her for being a bit cranky…I certainly wouldn’t have been pleased if someone was riding on MY back!  Pearl and I bonded for sure ☺.  We rode up the gravel street outside of the horse farm after doing a few turns around the ring and headed up the road to a beautiful view for a group picture, but then we really got into the ride.  Our young leaders (they were probably all of about 12 or 13) led us through bramble and brush, up and down hills, through mud (Pearl did everything in her power to avoid the mud...let me tell you.  She even hit my leg against a tree branch leaving a massive bruise in her efforts to avoid the gunk!), and essentially all through the Irish countryside.  Boy, was it beautiful.

All of Us Equestirans
From Left to Right: Jaime, Caitlin, Logan, Katrina, Cassie, Annie, Nicole, Sally, Me, and Jason

Now it was a chilly day that day…ok slight understatement it was freezing and drizzly but I’ve learned in Ireland that unless the wind is knocking you over then the day is fair to middling (plus it never hurts to look at the silver lining of the rain cloud ☺).   Anyways, so since it was so cold the horseback ride did get challenging at times especially since our hands were turning red and blue with the cold!  I did feel a bit worse for the younger kids who were leading some of the newer riders’ horses…they had to climb and jump through massive puddles and slip through mud all in that cold!  So, finally despite the beauty of the surroundings we did get a bit tired of being chilly and we all headed back to the farm where those who wanted to gallop were allowed to try some jumps (I really wanted to, but BOY was Pearl stubborn…she was not having it.).  All in all though, it was a GREAT experience and one I would definitely recommend for anyone wanting to see the true glory of the Irish countryside.

Now, Saturday was a tough day to beat, I mean horseback riding was amazing.  Sunday though, my roommate Maria and I decided to further our Galwegian adventures by venturing out more into the city.  So, we went to mass at Galway Cathedral, which is an amazing stone cathedral building right across the street from my university.  After the ceremony we wandered into the city and attempted to go to the Nora Barnacle house (the house of Yeats’ wife when he proposed to her) but it was closed for the winter season.  So then we tried to look at the castle that is in the city…but it was turned into a bank and you can’t really go into it.  So finally, we appeased ourselves by going for a pizza lunch at a cute little buy-by-the-slice joint, and then checking out Charlie Byrne’s secondhand bookstore.  This bookstore is the way all bookstores should be.  You can buy fabulous reading material, even textbooks for class for amazing prices like 10 euro!  I even bought some books published in the late 1800s and early 1900s (I bought 2 old detective novels one written in 1880 and the other in the 1920s) for literally only 2 or 3 euro!  This is definitely some place that if I allowed myself, I would go EVERY DAY…yeah if you can’t tell I nerded out a bit. 

Alright, I’ll take a break from posting and stop bothering you all for a bit.  I just HAD to write about this when I realized that I had forgotten!