Ancestral Adventure

This weekend me and my three friends venture

d to Leitrim County Ireland. To give you some geographical background information – Leitrim is located in the North West portion of Ireland close to west coast actually. It was a

very last minute trip, which sometimes are the best kind because they are not planned. Why Leitrim you may ask, well before coming to Ireland my Aunt Joan told me this is where my grandmas past relatives came from. I was very interested in seeing the area…so we went! It took us about 2hrs to arrive by train. I was very impressed with the Irish rail system, the train was very clean, on time, and even had bathrooms. We arrived in Carrick-On-Shannon a town probably as big a Manchester, VT this was the closest stop to our final destination. The town was situated on a waterway with lots of boats and to my surprise some really cute shops and restaurants. We wandered in and out of places just exploring for the day. I think my favorite place we went was a rare bookstore – they had all old postcards and maps from t

he area and it was neat to see what it was like back all those years ago. We then ate at sandwich shop called Crumbs, everyone was very friendly inside and the portions were huge definitely a good choice. Even though it was rainy we still got to explore the rest of the town before getting our cab to the hotel which was about 20mins away in Drumshanbo. On our way we got to drive through Leitrim Village and I wondered if that was where my ancestors were exactly from...

I booked one night for the four of us at the Ramada which was probably the nicest place around. It was nice to live in luxury for a short time. The staff was super helpful – she even knew it was me when I called to ask a question. We had a great dinner at the hotel as well as our included breakfast in the morning. We then wandered

around the town of Drumshanbo which was much smaller then Carrick-On-Shannon. The rain persisted but we made our way to the library, the pharmacy, and then to a nice hole in the wall pub where we got desserts and soup. We then made our way back for our horseback riding trek. It actually even cleared up for us. The women running the barn Karen was extremely accommodating and nice. She gave the four of us some tips for riding and then brought outside on a trail ride. She even offered to take pictures for us. Getting to see the country side was beautiful. I rode a horse named Euge he was very stubborn but overall we al

l had a lot of fun. Karen even gave us all a 5euro discount. I would definitely come back. We then headed home making our way back to Carrick-On-Shannon and going to a nice Chinese restaurant which was a recommendation from the cab driver. It was very good Chinese despite not having lo mien =(I got chow mien though. We made it back to Dublin last night and I would say it was a very successful Irish adventure (despite not finding any of my relative’s haha) Leitrim County was the real Ireland!