Wednesday, January 2, 2008

The Rock of Cashel

Cashel was a lovely town (I've now officially lost track of the days). The Rock of Cashel is the mound on which the castle is built. It's suffered some weather damage over the years from wind (parts blown down) and rain. It's a sprawling place and cold. It was a windy enough day there but we could see from all sides, overlooking the town or the country. I didn't do as well a job of editing these photos so there are a lot of pictures of fresco details and pillars.

Ireland 2007--Cashel


Viewing over the cemetery, the distant hills show a dip. We were told that the tale goes that one day the devil was walking along, in a foul mood and took a big bite out of the hills. That dip is called the Devil's Bite and when the devil spit out the chomp he took, it made the Rock of Cashel.

Brian Boru, and his grandson were some of the Munster kings that ruled from here. But his grandson gave the castle over to the Bishop of Limerick. The town itself was fairly small and we were hardpressed to find a place to eat that night, but ate at the Town Hall a higher end but very good restaurant.

We'd had a drink in one of local pubs earlier and many of the pubs in this area of Ireland have little hearths and some that burn coal still. We spent several hours at Cashel and then moved on to Limerick.

Delays, Death and Life

Unfortunately I hoped to get all of the pictures of Ireland up before the end of the year. But first my place was broken into and my camera stolen (I had it for all of four months). I did have all the Ireland photos uploaded so I didn't lose them but I did lose the Nikon D80 and two lenses.

The next week a good friend died and then it was the holidays. It's been a bit of a tumultous winter with everything. But I'm going to endeavour to get the pictures up and then on to other matters.