Ireland Travel Diary: Living That Farm Life

My mom grew up in Ireland and she still has a number of siblings living there – 7 to be precise. Growing up, home was a farm. In fact my Uncle Tom and his wife Mary and their children are living there and running the farm now.

When we head to Ireland, we always make time to visit my Granny’s house down in Knock, Co Mayo. She passed over a decade ago but you can still feel her presence in the green fields.

That farm life she grew up with is very different from the life that I lead!! There are definitely no cows waking me up with their mooing in downtown Toronto. No manure either!!

On this trip home, I wanted to head out to the fields behind Granny’s house. It’s been a looong time since I last trekked through the fields. Of course, like everything else it has changed over the years.

That Farm Life

It’s a farm, with cows so there was plenty of mud and manure!! Luckily my cousin Maura lent me a pair of her Wellington boots!! Tres chic! 😉

Cows. They may be a little smelly but man are they beautiful!! I took SO many pictures of the cows on both here and at my Aunt Myra’s house. I know, there are two farms in my family!! 🙂

Tom still has a few cows on the farm. When my mom was growing up they had a bigger variety of farm animals. Of course they had to kill their dinner back then too!!

With Tom, mom, and Aunt Myra by my side, we headed out to see the cows. I was able to get pretty close to them.

In fact, I think I made Tom a little nervous with my cow selfies!! I think he was a little concerned I was going to get knocked down.

On the other side of the cow pasture, there is a mass grave where long ago all of the babies who weren’t baptized were buried. Interestingly there was never a marker but all of the families in the village knew where the grave was. Now of course, they have placed a headstone on top. Times have also changed and this is no longer the practice here.

More Cows!!

After spending the day at Tom and Mary’s farm with 2 of their 4 children, we headed back to Myra’s house where we were staying. Myra is the oldest and these days she is the one in charge. 🙂 She has cows too, so of course I had to take their pictures as well. If you look closely in the first photo, you can see the brown cow on the right watching me. I moved further down the road and when I came back up, boom!! He was right there at the hedge! Posing for me.

The sunsets in Mayo are beautiful!! 

I managed to get a couple of great shots from Myra’s house but if you really want to see some amazing sunsets you need to check out my cousin Maura’s Instagram – her pictures are incredible!!

This my friends, is a two way road. 

You could be driving along and suddenly there is another car heading towards you. There isn’t exactly a lot of space to pull over either.  Don’t even get me started on this bridge!! You are taking your life into your own hands driving down some of these old farm roads!

Typically, our time is divided between staying down in Mayo and staying in Dublin. Living in a big city, it’s nice spending some time on a farm, living that farm life.