More of Salthill and Galway City

Can you see any family resemblance in the photo below???

The man on the left is Peter Cain---my DNA cousin---would you believe? We belong to a "Cain DNA project study" and have matched quite closely in DNA haplogroups. We are also classified as a group of Cain/Kane/Keane/O'Keane families that appear to have come from the same region of northern County Galway in the Connemara region and western County Mayo.

Just by chance, when corresponding by email this past year we had discussed holidays in Ireland and Peter's month-long, Gaelic language course is taking place at the same time and is in the same Galway area as our stay at Salthill. So we arranged to meet at our hotel for a visit.

Peter must be from the brilliant side of the family tree because he is a translator for the EU (European Union) and works out of Luxembourg, while living with his family in Germany. He is originally from England, but his grandparents came from right around the Galway-Mayo border.

Besides knowing over a half dozen languages, he thought he would take on the toughest language he has had to learn thus far---Gaelic (Irish).

You couldn't ask to meet a nicer fellow, even if he hadn't come with lovely gifts from Germany as well. We ended the night by discussing the possibility of a DNA family reunion of Cain/Kane/Keane/O'Keane DNA-related cousins. 

Meeting with Peter was on day 8 of our holiday on Wednesday, 22 July, and then on our final day in the Galway area on day 9, Thursday, 23 July, we got into Galway City itself. We started at our favorite used and new book store---Kennys. They are on the internet too if you need to find a book about Ireland.

Then we built up our courage to drive to the center of Galway City which is called Eyre Square as shown below...

Just off the square are the many shops along a series of streets that are only used by pedestrians (and there were plenty of them) as seen below...

There were the usual "buskers" playing songs as well. Maybe because this is the high tourist season, we also saw a mime, a street magician and a fellow making balloon hats. But the most unusual was a fellow who was doing sand sculptures, having brought in the sand in a canvas tarp and spreading it out to make impressive art work.

We also got to the sculpture studio of Mike Weerakoon who we had met along with his partner, Maggs at the Accony School Reunion.

Mike wasn't there at the time, but Maggs showed us the lovely pieces of art that Mike had for sale in his gallery.

And tomorrow it will be on to Tralee in County Kerry which will be our longest drive of the holiday.