Kylemore Dreamin'

This slideshow of my photos shows Kylemore Abbey near Connemara in Ireland. Babs had a poster of Kylemore displayed in her college rooms and so we had to visit it. It's just as gorgeous as it looks! There's a sparkling lake, extensive gardens, a beautiful Gothic chapel as well as the castle-like Abbey itself on the grounds.

And guess what? It's also a RETREAT CENTER! Are you RevGals dreaming what I'm dreaming? Let's start saving now.

Babs at Newgrange

These are pictures of the Megalithic passage tomb at Newgrange in Ireland's Boyne Valley. Archaeologists estimate that the tomb was built circa 3500 B.C., which makes it older than Egypt's pyramids. This was the oldest site the QG family has ever visited and because no one knows anything about the people who built it or why they built it, Newgrange is interesting but not informative.

The interior of the tomb captures the light at the winter solstice for 17 minutes. The tour guide said that one theory was that the people believed that the light of the winter solstice shining on the remains released the souls of the dead buried in the tomb, but they didn't really know if that was correct so you can make up your own story if you like. For me, Newgrange was a reminder of the universal symbolism of light overcoming darkness so powerfully presented in the Gospel of John, and found in the myths of people all over the world.

Babs gave it her Much Ado About Nothing award, so I invited her to complete this post as guest blogger. Here's Babsy's review of Newgrange:

For starters the museum connected to the megalithic structure looked like something that came out of the Houston Museum of Natural Science. It involved plastic dolls dressed as Native American princesses -- complete with moccasins and beads -- dragging stones to and from the building site. The exhibit where they theorized what the children did was my favorite part. It had them bringing their parents food and fanning them. You know how the Irish have problems with heat stroke.

When we went inside the tomb El Jefe felt very claustrophobic as the height was about 6'. When we got inside the tomb they turned off the lights and simulated the winter solstice with a 40 watt bulb. I then decided to put Portia and DK 's name in a drawing to win a chance to be inside the tomb at Newgrange when the real winter solstice happens in December. Surprisingly, I had no interest in being there myself.

Black 47 and Katrina

I took the pictures here near Galway Bay on the west coast of Ireland. They show scenes of a "famine village." The terrible famine in Ireland in the mid-nineteenth century was caused by the failure of the potato crop which sustained the population and resulted in death, suffering and emigration on a massive scale. Our tour guide explained that in 1847 (called Black 47 in Ireland) the landlords evicted all of the people for failing to pay rent and then burned the roofs of their homes and all of their belongings.

Those evicted were left to live and starve on their own, with no assistance from the British government, which governed the country at that time. Our tour guide said that those who lived on the west side of the country usually left for the United States and Canada, while those on the east side usually left for the UK and then Australia. Those traveling to the US faced a 30% mortality rate onboard--hence the term "coffin ships" was coined to describe them. Those traveling to Australia fared much better because the ship's captains were paid according to the number of people who arrived at their destination safely.

Almost a century and half later, these ruins still remain. The guide said that the people didn't want to tear down these structures and rebuild because of their belief that would disturb the spirits of the evicted families. I had to wonder if the reluctance to tear them down was also rooted in concern that this ugly part of history would be forgotten--built over and eradicated-- instead of remembered. Today some of these properties are being bought for development as vacation homes for British and European owners who don't share the Irish view of the famine villages. Still, the area is really eerie and sad today.

When the guide mentioned that during this time Liverpool had over 500,000 Irish refugees descend upon the city, I was reminded that only 2 years ago Houston received the same number (or more) refugees from Hurricane Katrina. It's hard to imagine Americans leaving the ruins of New Orleans or the Mississippi coast untouched as a memorial to the devastation that storm wreaked on the area rather than rebuilding it as quickly as possible.

Although Black 47 was an act of man and Katrina was an act of nature, in both cases communities were shattered and dispersed as desperate people fled their ruined homes seeking new lives elsewhere. And in both cases their governments failed to assist the people affected in a timely and efficient fashion.

El Jefe's ancestor Patrick Harrington left Ireland circa Black 47 for America, so this story is also his family's story. Patrick Harrington fled Ireland aboard one of the infamous coffin ships from Cork, Ireland. He survived the journey which took him to Halifax and shortly afterwards made his way to New England. Subsequently he traveled westward and participated in the Oklahoma land rush, becoming a landowner which would have been an impossible dream for him if he had stayed (and survived) in Ireland.

One hundred sixty years after Black 47 we are living in the Houston area which continues to cope with the Katrina diaspora and that is our story, too. Most of the Katrina evacuees will probably remain in Houston and in the other cities where they settled. Today Ireland's biggest export remains its people--more than 48 million of Irish descent worldwide compared to slightly under 6 million in the Irish Republic. That's the legacy of Black 47 and the ruined "famine villages" give their mute testimony to it. Meanwhile the legacy of Katrina is being addressed up and down the ravaged Gulf Coast and we are still living it.

And Hurricane Season began 3 days ago.

Quick Impressions of Ireland

I'm planning to do some posting on our trip (yes, with photos!) on several topics over the next couple of weeks. Until then, here are some quick thoughts on our trip.

~The QG family does not handle jet lag well despite taking Ambien, drinking lots of water and following all the advice we get from well-traveled friends. We do fine flying home, but it seems to take us 3 days to recover when we fly east. This trip was no exception. Man (and woman) were not meant to cross several time zones in a few hours!

~Ireland is indeed green, green, green. See my photo taken at Galway Bay at left. This was not photo-shopped!

~A tourist would be forgiven for thinking that Ireland is an island of golf courses floating on a sea of Guiness Stout and Jameson Whiskey with more sheep than people. In fact I suggest the national anthem should be Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze."

~The Irish people are incredibly welcoming and helpful to random tourists like ourselves. But the fact that the streets change names almost every block and there are very few street signs makes for confusion and frustration when trying to follow a map.

~Ireland was having its national election while we were there. El Jefe tried hard to get a grip on the issues by reading the local newspapers, but failed.

~Huge cranes litter the Dublin landscape as there is a tremendous building boom, fueled by the fact that Ireland is a member of the EU and has an educated work force that speaks English, the international language of business.

~The Taoiseach is the head of government (like a Prime Minister). This is pronounced Tea-Shock, a Celtic word meaning "chieftan." There was some kind of financial scandal surrounding the incumbent that was reminiscent of American politics. You had your Clintonesque head of state (Bernie Ahern, the longtime Taoiseach), your foreign influence peddler (a Brit in this case), your financial funny business and much posturing on all sides with the Irish press having a field day in the middle of it all. And the Irish people, like Americans, were utterly bored by all the fuss.

~The official language of Ireland is Irish Celtic and you see it everywhere. It's completely unrecognizable to those of us who are familiar with Germanic and Latin-based languages. Think Tolkein's Elvish and you get the idea. Babs learned that the Irish version of her real name is Sinead!

~Ireland is the most homogeneous population that I remember seeing anywhere. There are almost no Africans, Asians, or Arabs in evidence even in the capital city of Dublin. With their membership in the EU, this is going to change and no doubt the Irish Republic will have conflicts between diverse groups.

~As God is my witness, I will never fly tourist class across the Atlantic again. I can't get my long legs stuffed into those seats and was in utter agony by the time we landed. Poor Babs (our "shrimp" at a mere 5'10 1/2") has bruises all over her shins from the flights. El Jefe ( 6'5 1/2") is usually stoic about it, given the cost differential, but this time admitted that he was really miserable, too, and indulged in a major whinefest. Next time I will use those frequent flyer miles and try to upgrade. Thus spake Scarlett O'Grace.

1000 Year Old Cross

Here's my photo of the second oldest sight we saw in Ireland.

It's the Muiredach Cross which dates from the 10th century. The cross stands in the middle of the ruins of the medieval monastery of Monasterboice, which was founded by a little known disciple of St. Patrick known as St. Buite. Anybody ever hear of St. Buite?

It is massive--17 feet 8 inches tall. One side of the cross depicts scenes from the Old Testament and one side stories from the New Testament. The monks used it to teach the Bible because the people couldn't read the Latin in which the Bible was written at the time and also couldn't read anything else.

The cross is in the middle of an ancient graveyard that you can see in the background. It is full of different styles of Celtic crosses.

You don't see the well-preserved and restored ancient sites in Ireland that you see in Britain. Most of the historic sites we visited have a wall, or a tower, or the outline of a foundation standing. At Monasterboice this famous cross, the graveyard and a small tower are all that remain of the medieval monastery.