Nov 1, 2012 - Sue's first birthday in Ireland

My birthday morning was a lovely sunny one and while Jimmy and family went off to Dublin to visit friends they loaned us a car and we went off to see nearby Kells and the old St Columba’s church, round tower and cemetery there. The Book of Kells may have been either started in Iona and finished in Kells or written entirely in Kells by successive generations of monks. As the weather turned wet and windy, we headed for Navan and found a coffee bar for a bite to eat. We arrived back in Slane just on dark and after the children were fed and put...

Oct 31, 2012 - Around Co. Meath

Today we left Philly and Laoise to have a quiet mum and bub time, and Jimmy took us sightseeing around Co. Meath. We went first into the town of Drogheda, where we walked to St Peter’s Church, most famous for housing the National Shrine to St. Oliver Plunkett, the last Roman Catholic martyr hung, drawn and quartered for his faith at Tyburn in 1681. The shrine is most elaborate and contains the preserved head of the saint. It is also a beautiful old church with a magnificent organ and many lovely stained glass windows. We walked back to St...

Oct 29, 2012 - Slane and Newgrange

During Saturday night we changed from daylight saving so we gained an extra hour this morning. It was drizzling when we set off intending to travel the coast road around the Mourne mountains, but we took a wrong turn and ended up going west instead of south and ended up travelling the M1 down to Slane, and consequently arrived much earlier than we intended. We parked in Slane and waited in a local pub until Jimmy arrived to lead us to his house some way out in the country. Jimmy and Philly are Irish friends we met in New Zealand when they...

Sep 21, 2010 - Monasterboice

@@@@@@@ Background This small sites is one of the most famous religious sites in the country, it was founded by an obscure disciple of St. Patrick. The ruins of the monastery are enclosed within the walls of a cemetery and very much mixed with the modern graves of the residents of the surrounding villages. The site includes a roofless round tower and two small churches but the treasures are really the 10th century High Crosses, the finest in all Ireland. High Crosses are found in Celtic Britain and Ireland, but the distinctive ringed...

Sep 21, 2010 - Mellifont Abbey

@@@@@@@ Background The first Cistercian monastery to have been built in Ireland was situated on the banks of the River Mattock, 10km west of Drogheda. The order of St. Malachy, greatly influenced by St. Bernard based in Clairvaux, France, founded Mellifont Abbey in AD 1142. The Cistercians were brought to Ireland because of their rigorous monastic style, it was felt that other orders were more than a little ‘soft’. The new monastery became a model for others built around Ireland and maintained supremacy over them for the next 400 years....