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CONG |
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CONG , a few miles south of Ballinrobe, lies on the narrow spit of
land that divides Lough Mask from Lough Corrib at the point where the
dramatically mountainous country of Connemara to the west gives way to
the flat and fertile farmland that makes up the east of County Mayo. A
picture-book pretty village that caters for plenty of tourists, it's
also the site of the ruined Cong Abbey , which was founded in 1128 for
the Augustinians by Turlough O'Connor, King of Ireland (though it's
probably built on a seventh-century monastic site). The doorways
represent the transition between the quite different styles of
Romanesque and Gothic. The cloisters look just a little bit too good to
be true: they were partially rebuilt in 1860. At its height, Cong Abbey
had a population of some three thousand, and the practicalities of
feeding such multitudes can be glimpsed in the remains of the refectory
and kitchen by the river, where a fishing house over the water contains
a fish trap beneath the floor. The Cross of Cong , a twelfth-century
ornamented Celtic cross originally made in County Roscommon for the
abbey, gives an indication of the wealth and status of the foundation -
it's now on show at the National Museum in Dublin. From the abbey
there's a pleasant wander through woods down to the river and the lough,
although this runs through the grounds of the local big house, Ashford
Castle , now a luxury hotel , which charges for admission to its lands
(£2/¬2.54).
It's also worth taking a look at the canal . In the 1840s attempts were
made, as a Famine relief project, to dig a canal between Lough Corrib
and Lough Mask. The river that links the two, though you can get to it
at various points, including the Pigeon Hole, a mile or so north of Cong,
runs underground through porous limestone for most of its length. This
might have been an indication of what would happen to the canal: the
porosity of the rock meant that the water just drained away, and Cong is
left with a dry canal, complete with locks.
The town is obsessed with The Quiet Man , a film that much of the rest
of the world may have forgotten but which, shot here in 1956 and
starring John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara, is well remembered here. It's a
highly romanticized portrayal of Ireland and is in many ways an
expression of the emigrants' notion of Ireland and Irishness.
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