Clonmacnoise

On our way home from Galway we stopped off at another ancient monastical site, Clonmacnoise. This site was founded by St. Ciarán (pronounced Kieran) in 548 AD. It is in a beautiful spot, overlooking the river Shannon in County Offaly. James and I were commenting on our drive there how the monks seemed to have a great knack for choosing their monastic sites in very beautiful spots, but right in the middle of nowhere. However, once we arrived and watched the short introductory video explaining the history of the site, we realised Clonmacnoise was not actually the middle of nowhere after all! It was actually chosen because it was the meeting spot between two major communication lines - running North/South was the river Shannon and running East/West were gravel ridges left over by glaciers from the Ice Age. These ridges were used as paths across the country. So Clonmacnoise was built at the meeting place of these geographical features. It was also an important place as it was situated between the provinces of the powerful kings of Meath and Connauct.

Clonmacnoise has been an important site for the past 1500 years and people have come there to live, pray, learn, work and teach but also to murder and steal! The settlement would once have stretched over about 10 acres and was more a small town than just a monastery. There used to be many wooden houses and buildings, however what is left now are the stone buildings including 2 round towers, 3 famous high crosses, the ruins of a cathedral and seven churches and many early Christian grave slabs. It was raided many times over its history by the Vikings (again!) but also by the Irish themselves and then the Normans.

We enjoyed our walk amongst the ruins, imagining what the settlement and life must have been like back then!

 

This tiny church (above) is acknowledged as the site where St. Ciarán himself is buried and it has attracted thousands of pilgrims. St. Ciarán's feast day is still celebrated here each year.

The plaque above commemorates the visit of Pope John Paul II here in 1979.

 

 

 

 

One of my favourite ruins is the castle (below) which was built by the Chief Governor of Ireland in 1214. From some angles it looks like it could easily be pushed off the edge of the small hill it is resting on!

Clonmacnoise is famous for its excellent examples of high crosses and grave slab inscriptions, many of which are in great condition. The 3 best examples of high crosses have been moved indoors to the museum area. The Cross of the Scriptures is one of these and its ringed cross and shaft were all carved from the one piece of sandstone.

Below you can see some other examples of carvings from the churches and the grave slabs which date from the 8th to the 12th century.

 We arrived home in time to get ready for another religious celebration - Easter! The girls prepared their notes and drawings for the Easter Bunny as well as a basket of snacks for him! They did let the Easter Bunny know that as it is still so cold here they did not expect an outdoor egg hunt, an indoor one would be just fine (luckily, he listened to that advice!)

And this morning, the Easter Bunny had found us in Ireland and delivered some goodies! We then went to Easter Mass in Dun Laoghaire (all in Irish!!) and then enjoyed a lovely meal of Duck à l'orange!

 

 

 Happy Easter!

Galway

We started off the first week of the Easter break catching up with some of our Sydney friends, Kerrie, Steve, Caitlin and Erin, who were visiting Dublin.We enjoyed spending time with them visiting the Natural History Museum again and the National Museum of Ireland (Archaeology) where we viewed the bog men of Ireland with a mixture of horror and fascination (more on them in another post!). The girls enjoyed having some Australian playmates for a few days!

On Good Friday, we did a one night trip over to Galway. It is very nice to be able to travel from the East of Ireland over to the West in just over 2 hours! We were also pleased to leave the cloudy weather of Dublin behind and enjoyed seeing the sun and blue sky again - even though it was still very cold! This is actually supposed to be one of the coldest March weather periods on record.

Galway is a beautiful city and its city centre is very compact so we enjoyed being able to explore its many medieval streets and buildings on foot.

 The above photo is taken in Eyre Square. The statue below commemorates JFK's visit to Galway in 1963.

 

 

The ruins above are part of the excavated remains of the Hall of the Red Earl. This hall dates from the 13th century when the de Burgo family held power in Galway. Richard, otherwise known as the Red Earl, used this hall as his seat of power and people would visit him here to ask for favours. The hall was lost over time once the de Burgo family lost their influence in the town (power was granted to14 leading merchant tribes instead) and its foundations were only rediscovered in 1997.

We were also in town on the weekend of the Galway Food festival and the girls were able to sample the delights of the chocolate fountain! Later that night we also enjoyed a seafood meal (our first time eating plaice) at a local restaurant.

The Claddagh ring is also one of the most famous symbols from Galway and there are many jewelery shops selling Claddagh rings. The symbol can also been seen in a carving on the pyramidal spire at the Church of St. Nicolas of Myra.

In the afternoon, we did a lovely walk up to Galway Cathedral along the canal walk which runs along the Corrib River, the shortest river in Europe. In salmon season, you can apparently see fish passing through the weir here.

 

 

The inside of the Cathedral is beautiful and was also of particular interest to James for its mosaics of Patrick Pearse (one of the leaders of the Easter Uprising) and JFK, placed on either side of a mosaic of Christ. JFK's mosaic was placed here to thank the people of Boston for their contributions to the building of the cathedral. It is a fairly new Cathedral, especially by Irish standards, being built in 1965. It's full name is the "Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St. Nicholas". I think that's why it is usually just referred to as Galway Cathedral!

Today, Saturday morning, we did a short walk (it was freezing!) towards Salthill and enjoyed the view looking out over Galway Bay.

 

Galway has had many foreign visitors in her history and this monument remembers one very famous visitor, Christopher Columbus, who then went on to discover a great land on the other side of the Atlantic! 

 

The Spanish and Portuguese played a vary important part in Galway's history, trading in seafood, wine, spices and salt.  The Spanish Arch, below, is part of the remains of the medieval wall, which enclosed the city of Galway. It was built in 1584 and it is thought that it served as a passageway through which ships passed to unload goods from Spain.

 

Apparently, in the late 15th century, one of these Spanish visitors was killed by Walter Lynch, who was the son of the Chief Magistrate of Galway at the time. Walter was condemned to death for his crime and was to be executed. No-one in the town would put their hand up to execute him, however, so his father ended up having to do the job. The above window, known as the Lynch Memorial Window is where he was hung. It looks suitably sombre, complete with skull and crossbones! His father then disappeared into a life of seclusion from that point onwards.

 

We also visited the Galway Museum, which traces the history of Galway and its arts and crafts. Here you can see samples of Donegal tweed...

 and below, James wearing his own sample of Donegal tweed (on his head!) which he purchased in Galway.

 

The museum also had an interesting collection of war-time posters, complete with Irish imagery and symbolism, encouraging the men of Ireland to do their duty and go to war!

 

 

It was then time for us to say good-bye to sunny Galway. On the way home we stopped at Clonmacnoise, an ancient monastic ruin, similar to Glendalough which I'll write about in my next blog post.