Connemara and Kylemore Abbey Full Day Tour (Kylemore Abbey)

Kylemore Abbey. I partly liked it, and was partly like… “meh.” The parts I liked, I *really* liked. There was one little spot, I’ll make it it’s own little gallery below, where it absolutely felt holy and magical. But most of it….? I guess, when I think “abbey” I think “working nuns” (or “working monks”) and lots of religion and history and … work. Like, I thought an abbey was a building or series of buildings that serve a religious order that’s somewhat self-sustaining. Like a …. religious commune.

Turns out that Kylemore Abbey was originally Kylemore Castle, built in the 1860s as a private home for Margaret and Mitchell Henry. She died only a few years after the castle was completed, and he had a small gothic chapel and a mausoleum built for her when she did. But he spent less and less time there after she died, and eventually sold the castle in the early 1900s.

It became an abbey in the 1920s, and has remained as such since then. I would have liked to have learned a little more about the nuns, what they do and make to sell (there’s a gift shop, of course, and it had lots of bath products, soaps and soaks, and other locally made things as well). As it was, the historical part that tourists are allowed to walk through is mostly a history of the Mitchell family. While interesting, I felt like… they really only lived here a few years. The nuns have been here the longest. Why is there not ten rooms on nun stuff and only one on the original builders? Ah well, it was gorgeous, though, for sure. The fireplaces were amazing. Below are some pictures from the inside of the house….

And below are some pictures from the inside of the little chapel (they were doing some renovation work on the outside)…

But here… here is my favorite part… the walk from the house to the cathedral. You can’t tell me there’s not magic here.

I can’t tell you how much I wanted to put that waterfall into my pocket and take it home with me.