Kylemore Abbey

Kylemore Abbey, Renvyle, Co. Galway, Ireland

I have something really funny to say, funny to me, anyway. I had an opportunity to go to a location with a building that I had seen in many pictures of, online, but had no idea what in the world I was looking at, nor where that building was located. It was like a castle nestled in the woods in front of a lake, picturesque. When I first saw the pictures of this castle structure, it was on IG from a page that I later realized was not created by a real photographer who took the picture, rather by some person who is using other people’s pictures to prop up their dumb IG account to get followers- typical stupidity online today. How did I know? I commented on the picture of this location and inquired about the location, but this person running the account had no CLUE! Took a week to get a reply and it came from someone who was not the IG account runner. That’s how I knew this account was run by someone taking other people’s pictures and not giving credit, in fact, none of the pictures used had watermarks or anything, which is likely what this account looks for, so they can pretend like they took it. I desperately wanted to know about the place because I wanted to know what that castle looked like on the, not just outside, since there are millions of pictures of this place, from the outside, all over the Internet. I was going to do a reverse image search for it but completely forgot about this place, due to other commitments in life, shortly after. Some time passed, and this year, I needed to take a trip to unwind and relax, but also heard that the USA would finally do away with the annoying Covid test requirements that left me scrambling to get Covid PCR tests 24 hours before a flight back to the USA, which isn’t easy to do from just any location. I couldn’t find a place I wanted to go, or at least a place that wouldn’t be overrun by other tourists. However, I ended up going to a place that I always wanted to go to, and would risk being around a tourist trap to experience, using a technique of some better yearly timing, to finally see a place I only recently learned was called Kylemore Abbey.

Previously, I gave up many times because travel in covid times is kind of wack- I’ll have to admit that now, and I had to force myself to stop working and go get a trip off. I was out of ideas, UNTIL I saw an advert for the UEFA Nations League soccer, and as I went through the European / Middle East/Asian nations that are playing in that tournament in upcoming June 2022, I read the countries and came to, “hmm Ireland, Scotland…” Surely they had to have somethings interesting to see, I thought, and then the first thing I saw, when I went to search for a map of interesting things to see in Ireland, BAM, THAT CASTLE that I saw was on the front page of an article I saw, and I learned the name, Kylemore Abbey.
Kylemore Abbey. I finally had its name and finally remembered that I wanted to go to this place for so long, and I now knew its name. I started to look it up online and saw there was so much more to this place that just these pictures showed, I certainly had to get there. I mapped it out and when mapping it out, I saw that Ireland is REALLY small, and that Kylemore Abbey was 285 kilometer (177 miles) and 3-4 hours West from Dublin, in a straight shot on the highway. The most I looked this place up, the more I inspected peoples’ pictures of the place and saw a lot of places that photoshopped out people who were in the pictures. I quickly realized that the place is a huge tourist trap, which meant that I’d get there are the place would be so plagued with people that I likely wouldn’t even enjoy it. So, I did one of my techniques, as I commonly advise people to do, on this site, hit up these locations just before the peak seasons such as the last week of May, and only the verst first days of June. Most people will land in Dublin or Belfast and spend multiple days there, without leaving, so you have until mid-first week of June to hit the place up without overcrowding because they’ll still be in Dublin/Belfast that first week. So that’s when I was at Kylemore Abbey, end of May, and there were not as many people as I had seen in pictures and videos. I was banking it taking 4 hours to there from Dublin, but never sleep on the many local towns with hotels because there are many people in hotels in those towns, and I’m sure much of the crowd came from these places, just like I was coming from, in Galway, 1 hour away at worse. Then I realized, I had seen a lot of people in Galway, on the beach where my hotel was, and I bet they’re all going to the same spots on western Ireland that I was heading to.

When you arrive at Kylemore Abbey, immediately, there is that picturesque view that I spoke of earlier, the one you certainly have also seen by now, on the Internet, with the iconic castle of Kylemore Abbey popping out from the scenery in Connemara, Galway Country, Ireland. And as expected, when you make your way to the location, you will see the piles of people trying to get the same iconic picture that you see everywhere, and that will give you the estimation of how many people are likely in Kylemore Abbey. You must cross this little bridge in order to enter the entrance area, and that bridge is where a lot of people will be gathered. When I arrive at the bridge, there were less than 10 people taking the iconic picture at the same spot on the bridge, although they were all fighting for position and others off to the side waiting to get their chance to get their IG photos in– and that was a good sign, because we arrived early and that meant I had to get a rush on taking pics and videos before the real crowds came. I looked up the hill towards the castle and the path leading east, leading towards a church, and I didn’t see that many people in Kylemore Abbey or leading towards the church, so I knew to make a move quick. I did a few pictures to try to get different, better angles than I had already seen, tried to get some quick video, and when I realized that 1 billion other people already took the pics I was taking and immediately stopped taking photos. Then I looked for another place to take photos, to avoid the crowd and I had a great idea to take pics in the shrubbery to the left Kylemore Abbey. The iconic castle, lake (Pollacappal Lough) and tree backdrop would be amazing, is what I thought, and when I looked at the area I wanted to go to, there was yet another clump of about 10 more people all clumped in that area, waiting for each other to move so that they could get their IG selfies in, and that killed my mood for that picture too. LOL I still took my pics, of course, because I saw the crowds advancing on me and I saw a good opportunity to advance towards the tree area as the crowds began to desert it. I quickly abandoned waiting for my time to take pics of Kylemore Abbey at the bridge, took some quick passing photos over people’s heads, and rushed to the tree area up ahead, as that other crowd began to thin. The whole place is roughly 4,950 acres, so you would think you should be able to avoid the crowds, right? LOL

Ultimately, the crowds caught up to me in that pocket I moved, because they saw me quickly dart out and then set up taking pics under the trees, and I quickly had to get out of there because people got right in the way of my shot, they didn’t care that I had good position. Another good thing was that I looked up ahead and I saw people turn left, the opposite direction from Kylemore Abbey, so I knew it was my time to get up in Kylemore Abbey quick. As I made my way into the castle of Kylemore Abbey, and I kept calling it a castle because if you look at the structure, it’s a castle, so it’s a castle. I mostly kept calling it a castle because I had no idea WTF an “abbey” was. Lol Now I had heard of Downton Abbey, but I thought that was a show about a streetwalker chick named “Abby” who was selling drawers downtown somewhere in England… I didn’t know, I don’t watch that show. I asked, at the castle, and a lady said that Kylemore Abbey was a building that is a convent, which means it was used to service religious groups like monk or nuns or any group tied to churches and cathedrals. Kylemore Abbey was a Benedictine monastery founded in 1920 and was occupied by nuns who fled Belgium during World War 1. However, the actual Kylemore castle, as I had been calling it from the beginning, was built in 1868 and was the property of a rich family from England. For whatever reason, they built it with 70 rooms. It was taken over later by Duke/Duchess of Manchester, but because these two were completely irresponsible, they gambled a lot and went into debt and had to sell the Kylemore castle to pay that debt off. And because of those pictures I was trying to take, Kylemore Abbey turned into one of the most “romantic” places to take pictures at. There were at least 10 couples that tried to get me to take pictures of them together, with Kylemore Abbey as the backdrop.

Look at TV, there are 1,000 shows about with Tudor-style castles and structures, so to go to such locations in person, that’s a dream of a lot of people. I wanted to get the castle with the backdrop of the mountain range known as the Twelve Bens. Oh, I also inquired about the “Kylemore” portion of the name, which I thought was someone’s name, but apparently it is a Gaelic word for “I also asked someone and apparently the “Kylemore” part of it means “Big Woodland”, referring to the Twelve Bens and woods that surround it. Kylemore Abbey also got its fame as one of the best places to send Irish daughters because in the Georgian (17th century) and Victorian (18th century) ages, Irish families would send their kids off to Belgium to be under the tutelage of the Benedictines. In 1920, some Benedictine Nuns took advantage of the struggling Duke and Duchess of Manchester’s gambling debt, and the Nuns bought the castle for themselves, which made it officially the first Irish Benedictine Abbey in Ireland. Why was this important? In the 17th and 18th centuries, many Irish families sent their daughters to Belgium to be educated by the Benedictines, but at that point, the Nuns could just operate right from Connemara, Ireland, in their Kylemore Abbey. Irish girls could now be local to Ireland, and it doubled as a international boarding school for the girls, who could put those 70 rooms to good use! This continued until 1959, where a really bad fire gutted the place entirely, and by 2010, the religious landscape change so drastically in Ireland that it closed as a school and opened as a tourist location.

When at the Kylemore Abbey location, you’ll notice that it’s always covered in clouds during the summertime, just like a lot of Ireland for some reason. I’ve not seen pictures of the place with a sunny sky, and maybe you’ll get some sun to peak through, but it was no different when I went there, giving the area a gloomy look. In fact, so much of the place looks like neo-gothic, like that cathedral that is east of Kylemore Abbey castle. However, when you get inside, you’ll see some scenes that are set up like a luxurious scene with a mannequin in a living room with really cool Victorian-era decorations and furniture, which you wouldn’t think would be inside of a place that looks so intimidating, as castles were meant to do. I even noticed there was a scene set up with an old school camera aimed at a mannequin in what looks like a wedding dress, was not what I was thinking was going to be inside of Kylemore Abbey. There are also ways to get into the other rooms such as an interesting dinning room where they have all the silverware and glassware setup on a table. I found that really liked the interior more than the exterior and noticed that people dipped inside Kylemore Abbey but didn’t really stay long looking around inside, which allowed me time to get some unobstructed pics off. By the time I made it further in, I started seeing the hordes of people coming, it was then reaching mid-day and I knew to get out before the other hordes of tourists ruined the experience, which started happening because people were knocking over furniture taking selfies and kids were jumping on furniture they shouldn’t be touching, and they almost knocked over the glasses on tables, which made a worker there warn me about my selfie stick due to these other idiots who were acting dumb. Fortunately, there were more things to see at Kylemore Abbey, so I hightailed it out of there to see other things that were not so well covered.

I checked my map and saw this cool gothic church to the east of Kylemore Abbey, and then I saw to the west, after an uphill walk, there was a Victorian Garden to see. By midday, now there were too many people on the grounds, which is terrible for me taking pictures at that point, so I just threw up the 360 camera on a selfie stick and stuck it in my backpack, and let it record. I will tell you, don’t sleep on the garden. It is very well maintained and is peaceful, I actually spent more time there, walking the grounds, than inside of Kylemore Abbey itself, and it has much less people there because they didn’t want to walk there, although there was a bus there that will take you to it, on the premises of Kylemore Abbey. I was losing time and had to get back to the parking lot to join my group, which I separated from, and it took me 30 minutes to get back down from that place and I didn’t think I could walk back in time without being all sweaty in the ride. So, I got on the line to get back down the entrance of Kylemore Abbey and the line had about 100 people front of me, and the line wrapped the building. I quickly realized that this was a wildly popular location, DUH, and most people went up to the gardens because it was too crowded in Kylemore Abbey itself. There is no real secret to avoiding crowds here other than for you to get there as early as possible. As soon as I got back to the entrance, I saw 3 more busses of people empty into the location, and all went right to all clumping together at the bridge, to take that most iconic picture we all see in all brochures.

Oh, and a fun story, there is this legend from the Gaelic mythology that had a giant, Finn MacCool, living in Diamond Hill, near Kylemore Abbey, and he created the Giant’s Causeway by throwing boulders towards Scotland. In this legend, he pissed off a mythological hero turned villain in legend, named Cú Chulainn, whose power comes from him giving people the middle finger. LOL They were diametrically opposed, the giant had a stone thrown at him by Cú Chulainn, which landed on the grounds of Kylemore Abbey, and there is a stone there that they attribute to the giant. There is also a myth that there is a white horse that emerges from Pollacappal Lough every 7 years. So, when you go to the Victorian Garden, if you go left, you will notice a white horse, a real white horse, at the top of the hill. It’s a nod to the fable. You can see, this place dabbles a lot in fantasy, making it very attractive to ladies mostly, (I saw one crying her eyes out in amazement—DRAAAAAMAAA), so, fellas, if you want to really impress your lady and win her over bigtime, you should make sure to take her to Kylemore Abbey, it will blow her mind. All in all, after speaking to others who had gone there before, they said that I got lucky to not be completely overwhelmed with people there. It confirmed that going late May was a good option and is why I only had challenges where I said, with regards to the amount of people crowding up the place.