A few random pics from Dublin

Sandy at the Organ in St. Patrick's Cathedral

Sandy, Sharon and Mary

Outside St. Patrick's Cathedral

Singing in St. Patrick's Cathedral

Day 2

This morning began with breakfast in the hotel and then a drive towards the Connamurra National Park area, northwest of Galway. Our leisurely, winding drive through countryside dotted with peat bogs and sheep was beautiful. The sun and rain have cooperated nicely with us so far!

We stopped in a small town on the way for a tour through the Celtic Crystal factory (where several of our members did their part to help bolster the Irish economy.) We arrived at Kylemore Abbey just before noon - a little late, but no matter. Conor, our guide, informs us that the Irish live on Ish time: "1-ish", "2-ish"...

We made our way over to the small but lovely Gothic Church on the grounds and gave our first concert - a perfect warm-up concert for us: very low-key with our friends and a small group of visitors who stayed to listen. (By the time we finished, we had approximately 20-25 people who had come in and listened to at least part of our performance.)

A quick lunch and time to stroll the grounds followed the concert, and then we headed back to Galway via a different road that took past the only fjord in Ireland. Beautiful vistas greeted us throughout the day. A stop for a tour of the Connemurra Marble factory led to more support of the Irish economy. We are now back in Galway and heading of on our own for dinner for the night. With one performance under our belt, we are ready to polish the stone a bit more and make our remaining performances increasingly better and more moving.

A note about photos - the connection in the hotel here is rather slow, so uploading pictures takes a very long time. I will probably only upload one per post here for now, then upload more on the gracefirstevents.org page when we get home.