The town of Cong offers a fascinating mix of attractions: a medieval ruined abbey, a modern church of exquisite stained-glass windows, and a museum about a John Ford film (The Quiet Man).
Cong (from conga, Irish for “isthmus”) likes between two large lakes. On the way in and out of town, there is a dry 19th-century canal that runs under a scenic bridge. Built between 1848 and 1854, the canal was a Great Potato Famine work project that stoked only appetites.
The canal, complete with locks, was intended to link Lough Mask to the north with Lough Corrib to the south, providing boat access much deeper into Connemara. But the limestone bedrock proved too porous, making the canal an expensive idea that just wouldn’t hold water.
The project was abandoned. The unfinished canal sits there, dry to this day, as an embarrassment to English Victorian Age engineering.
Cong Abbey: The ruins of Cong Abbey are the main attraction in town. Construction on the abbey began in the early 1100s in Romanesque style and continued into the Gothic age.
There is a mix of styles – with both round Romanesque and pointed Gothic arches (especially around the doorway).
The famous Cross of Cong, which was believed to have held a splinter of the True Cross (now on display in the Dublin National Museum), was hoisted aloft at the front of processions of Augustinian monks during High Masses in this church.
Rory O’Connor, the last Irish high king, died in this abbey in 1198. After O’Connor realized he could never outfight the superior Norman armies, he retreated to Cong and spent his last years here in monastic isolation.
Walking the cloister leads one down gravel paths behind the abbey. The forested grounds are lush, and the stream water is clear.
The salmon fishing here is legendary. From a little bridge on can see the monk’s stone house. It was designed so part of the stream would flow directly under it.
The monks simply lowered a net through the floor and attached a bell to the rope; whenever a fish was netted, the bell would ring.
Next to the abbey’s cemetery is the modern Church of St. Mary of the Rosary has three exquisite windows made by Irish artist Harry Clarke in 1933.
