Good-bye now, green country

It feels right that our last exploring day here (yesterday) was spent at Tara and Newgrange.

The photo, above, is me standing on a hay roll atop the Hill of Tara, looking over 3/4 of Ireland (on a clear day they say you can see that much of the country from this site).

On Tara, 142 kings of Ireland were crowned. There are Celtic mounds here dating back 5,000 years where castles were built millenia later, but are now gone.

Tara is where I feel a strong connection with the yew trees planted more recently in the churchyard. I felt them welcome me last year in a way I have never felt welcomed before or since.



At Newgrange, there is a burial/worship mound INTACT that is 5,000 years old. We squeezed inside to see the structure of rocks that curves up to the capstone. I still don't really understand what it means to be that old. My mind can't grasp it. It's older than the pyramids at Giza by 1,000 years. Older than Stonehenge by 1,000 years. The builders of this structure created a narrow opening to allow the sun to shine through it into the structure on the winter solstice every year (and about two days either side of it).


Newgrange; the narrow opening that lets in the light on Dec. 21 is just in the middle where the dark squares are; our students are gathered around the opening

These sites are viewed as sacred and connected to the spirit world by some.

I'm not sure what it is I feel there, but it is strong. I am in awe of people who lived in alignment with nature and its cycles.




Below are two man-made structures. One 5,000 years old: a carved rock at Newgrange. The next a few hundred years old: a door at Trinity College Dublin.






They are just human forms. Beautiful, inviting, full of understanding about their cultures, if we study them.

I don't have a problem with religions, also human constructs (in my humble opinion), as long as they do not divide and violate the Life in all things. They are ways to reach God, understand God, worship God. They are doors. Sometimes closed, unfortunately.

Jonathan Swift said, "We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another."

Trinity College, Jonathan Swift and the love of literary things

Click on photos to enlarge.

Most of us who have a degree in English fall into raptures when we enter old universities, especially their libraries.

Our group has the good fortune of staying at Trinity College Dublin, founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I. The library is another world, and visitors can’t take photographs, so I’ve downloaded this one, below, from the internet for you. The Book of Kells (c. AD 806) is housed in a special room in the library building (photo of a closeup of a page in the Book of Kells below the library photo, below).


Library at Trinity College


close-up of Book of Kells page Chi-Rho

In my photo of Trinity, below, you can see the building where Don and I are staying on the left. Our room looks out on tree-filled Library Square to the right. The library lies across the square from us. Hundreds if not thousands of visitors come to Trinity daily because it is such a landmark in the heart of Dublin and has a lot of historical significance. Every time I walk through the front gate to come “home” I pinch myself.




Trinity's front gate

One of Trinity’s best known alumni is Jonathan Swift (1667-1745).




The author of Gulliver’s Travels (a bitter satire of Anglo-Irish relations) was an outspoken Irishman born in Dublin. He attended Trinity College Dublin 1682-1686 and became Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1713. While Dean, Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels and other scathing attacks on the British and Irish political establishment.

I did not know before reading about Swift in St. Patrick’s cathedral today the compassionate spirit he had.


Chairs in St. Patrick's cathedral

In addition to the remarkable stand he took against injustices (kept him from any higher position politically than Dean of the cathedral), he had this memorial (below) erected to his manservant, Alexander McGee, and upon his own death left money to found a hospital for mentally ill patients. Ironically, at the end of his life he suffered from Ménière’s disease, which led many to believe him insane.




By the way, Don and I saw the new film “The Wind that Shakes the Barley,” and highly recommend it. It is a gut-wrenching account of the “Black & Tans” – soldiers of the British government who were sent to stamp out the Irish fight for independence after WWI. If you’ve wondered about the beginnings of the Irish Republican Army, you’ll see it told in this lovely and sad film that won the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year.

(Another BTW, Don and I met at Trinity College in 1975. Ha, but not this Trinity College. We met at the one in Deerfield, Illinois.)

Do you believe?

Click on photos to enlarge.



This is Eddie Lenihan, folklorist and storyteller of Irish stories. He has collected and recorded more than 20,000 personal stories from Irish men and women, stories of their own first-hand experiences. What stories? Well, among them, fairy stories.




Are fairies real? If you talk with many Irish people, they will not answer that question "yes" or "no." Their answer will be related to someone they know whose life has seemingly been affected by fairies. Eddie told us a few, and our bus driver to Killarney Monday told us some more.

We heard a lot about "fairy forts."

"A Fairy Fort, also known as raths, are the ruins of old houses where the ancient Celts lived. It is believed that the Druids’ magic surroundings these raths. Although a superstition, many Irish believe that misfortune will come to anyone who disturbs these raths. These raths are located throughout Ireland." (found at http://www.romanceeverafter.com/Fairy%20Forts,%20Music%20&%20Language%20of%20Ireland.htm)

We heard story after story of people who had bulldozed a fairy fort and suffered early deaths or disease in themselves and loved ones. Every Irish man or woman we asked knew just where the local fairy forts were.

After hearing Eddie's stories, next day we travelled to Killarney, a 25,000-acre national park that felt like a fairy land. We rode in boats, horse-drawn carts, and listened to the wind through the heather and mountain gorse.
















On the bus ride back to Cork, the driver stopped for us to show us this fairy fort! You can see (through the window, sorry) the trees are in a ring.

Whether or not they believe, the Irish respect fairies and don't ever want to meet them.

Kinsale: another harbor town

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All of us -- 45 students, 3 instructors, Don and I -- hopped on a bus yesterday for a 30-minute ride from Cork to Kinsale (emphasis on the second syllable - "sale"). This is another quaint harbor town, like Cobh, with lots of history and charm.



The hills of Kinsale overlook a harbor that leads to the Irish Sea. A famous battle here in 1601 between the Irish (with Spanish allies) and the British ended in British victory.




Don and I cruised the harbor for an hour, finding the Charles Fort, a classic star-shaped fort (photos below).







Kinsale is the gourmet capital of Ireland, and so after our cruise, we had dinner with the instructors Linda, Phil and Jim. I had a wonderful stuffed seabass.

There was a "poetry trail" all around Kinsale with poems posted every here and there. I did not intend for this photo of two of our students and Jim, an instructor, to be associated with each other. Nor do I personally feel this way about men from my own experience. Click on the photo to enlarge and read the poem by Wendy Cope.