New ground
After spending three and a half seemingly endless days (being so far north, there is only about an hour of darkness during a 24 hour period in summer) in Iceland, we were off to Ireland. WOW airlines (the same airline that brought us to Iceland) flew us to Dublin where we picked up our rental car. I had my usual brain fart at the usual intersection and almost killed us...The last three times I've gotten a car at Dublin airport, I've started out driving just fine until I get to the first roundabout where I promptly drove to the right, into oncoming traffic, instead of the left. Once we got that little snafu out of the way the driving was smooth as glass.
Our first stop was in Limerick where we got some food and then toured King John's Castle before heading to my cousins' home in Crossmolina, County Mayo. From Crossmolina we struck out on a variety of adventures, some local and others requiring a drive of an hour or so. Having been to Ireland a few times before, one might think that I had run out of things to see, but there is so much to do and see that this wasn't the case. I'm pretty sure there is even enough sight-seeing left for another trip, not that I care if I sight-see or not, I'm quite happy visiting family or relaxing in a quiet pub.
Some of the places we visited and things we did over the course the eight days included, Kylemore Abbey, Galway City and Salthill, Ross Errilly friary, The Devil's Chimney waterfall in Sligo, Glencar Waterfall in Leitrim, The Keshcorran Caves in Sligo, Strandhill Beach, Shanty Festival in Rosses Point to name a few. One adventure in particular consisted of us baking in the hot sun (never thought I'd say that when describing Ireland) at the Connacht GAA Football Senior Championship Semi-Final game where Roscommon hosted Leitrim. The game was a beat down, and most of us pale and pasty folk were lobster red by it's end. Overall we didn't cram too much in, most days were pretty relaxing. I managed to eat plenty of 99's and had quite a few of my new favorite drink called "Specials" a.k.a. Smithwick pint with a Guinness head.
I managed two training sessions while in Ireland. My first was at Atlantic Jiu-Jitsu Sligo, run by my old friends, Ryan and Morgan Smyth and Mickey Downs. Since I last visited they had moved their school into a new facility not far from the old location. When I arrived I was excited to see just how big the place was that they moved into. They had one large main matted room, with a space for chairs around the edge, a shower/locker room in the second floor loft and the potential for either a larger reception area or more training space in another section. Training started off with one of Morgan's intense warm-ups and if you weren't in shape, you were gonna be in trouble. Thirty minutes of light jogging, breakfalls, shrimping, gramby rolls, and shots were all on the agenda before we got into the technique. The technique of the day was demonstrated and then we drilled it and a variation of it for 30 minutes. The last 30 minutes broke down into 15 minutes of situational sparring and then 15 minutes of rolling. It was a great time and I had some really good rolls.
The second training session of this leg of our trip was at Impact Martial Arts which is located in Westport, Mayo. Extremely easy to find, the gym was just down the road from the center of town, right off a main road. With a good sized parking lot, the building consisted of a small reception area and two good sized matted areas. I hadn't trained here before so I didn't have any idea of what to expect, but upon my arrival I was warmly greeted by Carrie-Leia Cann, fiancee of the head instructor Rich Jahn, and one of the students, Ciaran Duignan. After some introductions and background information, we got down to the business of training. Rich was't able to instruct that night as he had an errand earlier in the day that ran longer then expected, but both Carrie and Ciaran were more then competent instructors. Training consisted of a 20 minute warm-up before we got into the technique of the day, triangle variations, something I always need to work on, which we drilled for about 20 minutes also. After technique we did a few rounds of sparring, which I found to be extremely satisfying and the perfect way to finish our last day of vacation. Just as we were finishing up, Rich came in and I introduced myself and thanked him and his academy for the chance to train. From my limited interaction with him, he seemed to be a super nice guy and was quite pleasant. Apparently he is a life-long martial artist, and has been practicing one form or another since he was a young boy before stumbling onto Jiu-Jitsu. After saying our goodbyes, we were on our way. Hopefully the future will take us back here once again!
I added Impact Martial Arts to my map under the "Training" tab on my page. There you can find a map and link to the gym if you happen to be in the area.