Crosses of Kells, Hill of Kings, and almost another day in Ireland.

Day five

Last Day.  We decided to sleep a little longer this morning (considering I was gradually getting absolutely wrecked by the constant late nights).  After breakfast, we packed our things, payed up for our stay at the guesthouse (which involved a quick trip into the town of Mullingar as we didn’t carry large wads of cash with us), and we bid farewell to our wonderful hosts.  Since our flight wasn’t until about 7pm, we thought it would be good to make a lazy beeline in the sort-of direction of Dublin airport, and stop off at a few historical sites along the way.

Our first destination we planned to see was The Tower and High crosses of Kells.  Though along the way we passed Delvin Castle.  I thought it was quite interesting as how the modern town has continued to grow around the ancient castle, practically keeping it a part of the town, dispite its gradual decay.  We did some castle admiring, and moved on.

 Delvin Castle

 Delvin Church (or whats left of it)

We got to Kells in the afternoon (I think it was about 2:30pm), to which is famous for its Tower, and its High crosses, one being known as the ‘Market Cross’.  It seems that Monks and Priests used a similar technique when it came to rampaging hords, as this tower was practically identical to the one we saw at Kilmacduach, and had the same purpose.  The crosses, as we discovered, were erected shortly after the monastery was built.  As you can see from the pictures below, the crosses have had a hard life, most of them being broken over the years by various not-so-friendly peoples.  One of the crosses was never finished, but they were always re-erected, if they could find what was left of them.
The Market cross, unlike all the other crosses, wasn’t within the immediate church surroundings, but was originally places at the entrance of the town.  With progress, the Cross had to be moved, and now sits under cover, well protected from rain.
As it was afternoon tea time, and we hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast, we though it would be good to have a breather at the gift shop and cafe at the Market cross. After satisfying our hunger we pushed on.

 Kells Tower

 One of the High Crosses

 Another High Cross

 Some of the detail on the cross

 Some more detail on the cross

 Whats left of one of the other crosses

  Kells church

 The Market Cross (That’s the hall with the cafe and gift shop in behind)

We had some trouble finding our next historical location.  It was getting on 4 pm and we found ourselves rather lost in the area of where the map said the Hill of Tara was supposed to be.  Unfortunately, While the map said we were there, our own eyes were telling us differently.  In the end, we stopped and asked a kind local if he knew where it was.  It turned out that we weren’t at the right place, and the Hill was more east, and after some looking at the map, we found where it was.  According to the map, there were two Hill of Tara locations.  Unfortunately, the one we were at, wasn’t the right one.  So after much thanks givings to the nice man, we rushed off to locate the hill.  Thankfully, our guides directions turned out to be quite accurate, and we finally arrived.   I’ll let the photos do the talking with this one (with small comments, as the pictures themselves, while quite nice, don’t explain everything)

  A statue of St. Patrick near the church on the hill.

 A burial mound

 A stone

 A more recent grave  on the hill (but not recent enough for us to still be able to read the tombstone)

 Another more recent grave (but, like the other, not easy to read anymore)

 This stone was found in the graveyard of the church.  Long since worn away, the details carved on it are almost lost, but we were told that at the base, there is a a fertility goddess’ image.  If we weren’t told this, I doubt I would have paid any real attention to it.

We had an absolute nightmare trying to fly back.  Since we spent a bit more time being out finding that last burial grounds, we were too late to drop the car off at the rentals, but we remembered that it was possible to drop the car off at the airport.  Unfortunately, when we got to the airport, we found every other rental place had a parking lot but the one we were with.  Kathleen was able to dive into airport and talk to one of the rental peoples (not from our company, they had already nicked off), and found out we could just park the car in the short-term car-park.  That’s after almost an hour of driving around and around and around the parking lot.

  After that little fiasco, we rushed into the airport, only to be met with a packed check-in area.  Thankfully, our check-in desk was reasonably empty.  Unfortunately, we discovered that the baggage weight for the return flight was less than coming over, so we had to fork over a good chunk of money to get one of our bags back.  Once we worked that out, we were told we had almost 10 minutes to through the security, get from one end of the terminal to the other, or else we would miss our flight.  So once got through the security (I must have stripped of everything metal, including my belt, to ensure a speedy check), we hightailed it to our gate, with me trying my best not to lose my pants, and Kathleen not to have an Asthma attack.  We got there later than they said (only by about 5 minutes), and the plane didn’t get boarded until almost 20 minutes later.  I was drenched with sweat, because I dressed for the cold, not a marathon, and poor Kathleen had to sit down all that time to recover.  From the grumbling of the crowd, we weren’t the only ones that were fed that bit of bull-flop, and had to run to the gate.  Anyway, we got on the plane, and made it back home safely.

So, fun was had by all.

I am sorry for the lateness of this final blog entry, being almost two months after the actual trip, but life over here isn’t all travel and sight-seeing.  Gotta earn the moneys to pay for these excursions.

Anyway, Please send us your emails, comments, letters, Owls, etc.  We miss you all sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much, and are dying to hear from you all.  We try to phone when we can.

May I also re-assure everyone, THE WEDDING IS STILL GOING TO HAPPEN!  No changes have been made, so your roles are still the same, if anything, we may add more people to the mix.

Tune in next time for the city of love, PARIS!

 Hug and Kisses,

Kathleen and Keith