Glendalough, County Wicklow

The Upper Lake

Our second weekend in Ireland was spent in Co. Wicklow, visiting Glendalough. I loved Glendalough. It is the site of an old monastery set up by St. Kevin. It was breathtaking. I can only describe the experience as walking through the Redwood national park while also climbing through the ruins of a monastery founded in the 6th century. All of my photos were used without a filter. I feel as though I cannot tell you about Glendalough, rather the photos can only do this place justice.

Sligo, our first weekend in Ireland

"Neath these portals thread some of the
most Beautiful Girls 

We visited Sligo on our first Saturday in Ireland. Leaving at 7 am was not ideal, but I cannot lie that it was so worth it. Sligo is located in Northwest Ireland, just south of County Donegal, west of County Leitrim, and east of County Mayo. It was breath-taking. We visited Carrowmore, a historical site of a thousand year old open passage tombs. There were about a dozen smaller, open-passage tombs facing this one big one (you can see parts of the large tomb and the smaller surrounding tombs in the pictures below). Passage tombs, with these complex inner chambers, are the most extravagant of the Irish megalithic monuments. The tombs stood as complex monuments linked to a religion with its own ideology and rituals. Historians don't know much of what the religion consisted of, but from the structures of the passage tombs, they have been able to infer strict rules governing the building and placing on monuments. The large tomb at Carrowmore, for example is built so that on a very clear morning on Halloween, the sun will rise between these two peaks in the mountain range not far away and shine a direct path into the inner tomb of the large exterior. The sun shines directly through the entry path seen in the last photo and hits the inner tomb where the top rock sits on the back two rocks of the smaller inner tomb. It was very eery how exact the ancient Irish were when building these tombs.

After Carrowmore, we visited one of the numerous Holy Wells in the country. The one we went to was famous for it's statue of Mary. The statue has been known to float through the gardens of the Holy Well and has been witnessed doing so in front of hundreds of thousands of people. It was a beautiful sight to see. After our quick pit stop at the well, we set off to climb Knocknarea and Queen Medb's tomb. It was a good 30 minute trek up the mountain, but the views were impeccable. From one side of the mountain, you could see the rolling hills and farms of Ireland to the south; from the other, you could see the Atlantic and Sligo Bay, and the hills of Donegal.

Our day ended with a trip to a pub in Strandhill, where the Saint Mary's girls were seated under the most appropriate sign, as seen in the photo above. After a quick sprint down to the beach to put our feet in the water and climb around on the rocks, we returned home to prepare for our mission for Sunday. Roberta challenged us to get ourselves to Dublin and explore 3 of it's historical OPW sites without her as a guide. Needless to say, we rose to the occasion and successfully got ourselves to the train station, all around Dublin, and back.

The exterior of the largest tomb
at Carrowmore 

The inner, actual tomb at Carrowmore.
The top rock only touches three of the
supporting rocks directly. 

A smaller open passage tomb with
Knocknarea in the background to the left

The entrance to the largest
tomb at Carrowmore

The smaller tombs were
still big enough for us
to climb in. 

The entrance to the Holy Well

The view of the top of Knocknarea overlooking the Atlantic
and parts of Donegal. I love this view.