Ireland ~ Cyndi The Weaver, The Gaelic Athletic Association & Dun Na nGall (Day 10) 31Jul23

We left Donegal center early and bussed out to Dunkineely and St Johns Pt on a peninsula to meet Cyndi Graham, a local weaver, entrepreneur and artisan. Cyndi is a force of nature who was born @ St Johns Pt and moved away and then back. She has the only remaining thatched building on the peninsula; it was cute but requires maintenance every 5 years by integrating new thatch. She rebuilt her dad's loom from weaving work long ago, into full working order, and created a weaving studio and point of sale on the side of the road across from her family's DIY home. She weaves with all local wool died and spun nearby and her sister Sharon is the seamstress who fabricates the goods for sale at the shop. She was completely amazing describing her process and history of finding this "work." Her stuff was gorgeous and soft for Irish wool. OAT did a great job setting this up and Cyndi made decent sales from our stop.

Along to our next stop we visited the memorial of young Irish orphan girls who were shipped to Australia during the famine to "find a better life" but also to be married off there. They are the famine orphan girls and remembered by a famine pot. Heart wrenching from a time a dire need and different proclivities.

During a lashing rain we went to a GAA club for Ballyshannon. There we met presenters and players from the club in both hurling and football. They described the fine organization of GAA which holds over 1000 clubs now in Ireland and more internationally. It is locally run in each case and fully dependent on volunteers ~ think Little League but perhaps even better with the tight association of birth county to playership. I've mentioned the recent All-Ireland finals in these sports already but we heard the core of the org and admin is fundamental to kids and players all over Ireland. Very cool. Every county selects an all-county all star team to compete inter-county (32) and then province-wide (4), then nation-wide. The clubs are shown and the counties are shown below; we learned and attempted the main game skills. Both games are played on the same gigantic field with teams of 15 players and they are scored the same and have similar rules as to carrying, dribbling, passing, hitting and shooting. Amazing. We learned also of "the workhouses" of toil which, during the famine, ripped families apart, but which might've saved some from starving.

When back in Donegal we were on our own and ate at Chandpur, a super tasty Pakistani place, with our new friends Jim & Gwen ~ super good and contrasting with the Irish food of fewer spices. I was feeling a smidge punk but K3 went out for Irish music and caught a keen set of dancers.