DAY 3 - ON INISHMORE

We spent a second day walking on Inishmore and this took us to the Eastern end of the island.

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We left the B and B and walked South and onto a track that took us out to the coast to the Black Fort - Doonaghard on the map.

The coast the Black Fort

The Black Fort sits at the edge of the sheer cliff and the walls form part of a circle. It is believed that it was originally a full circle built on a promontory that has been slowly erode by the sea leaving just part of the circle at the cliff edge, like Dun Aengus. The walls are extremely thick as you can see, up to 6 m high and 5 m wide.

The "To prove we were both there" photo

The Black Fort exterior

On our way back from the Fort we passed close by a number of herons on their nests.

We saw some potatoes growing in what looked like rather poor soil which has been generated from sand and seaweed over many years.  There was plenty of room for rain water to collect between the rows

 Our next port of call was a tiny early Christian oratory high upon a hill.

This is the church of St. Benan which claims to be the smallest church in the world.

It certainly was very small

The view over Inishmore

 

The view out of the tiny entry

On our way down from the church we passed by the Round Tower. This 9th Century tower was once 35 m high and was part of the monastic village of St. Enda.

The Round Tower

 We retraced our steps to the B and B, collected our baggage and made our way to the ferry terminal to catch the evening ferry back to Rossaveal. 

The Bar where we had one of our evening meals . Two horse and buggys wait for customers

At Rossaveel we met by a rather worse for wear taxi that took us successfully to Oughterard on a lovely cross country road where we were staying the night.

The Oughterard B and B - the Woodlands