really old rocks

31812

day tour day, a ive never been drastically effected by jetlag, but considering we went to sleep so early, and have taken subsequent many naps, ive been falling asleep early, and waking even earlier. anyways, i woke up at 430, took a shower and then we headed out for the bus tour which started at 8, so we had a while to wander around the bleary eyed Dublin.

the tour consisted of about a dozen people, a gaggle of aussies, a super hawt belgian girl, an older lady from Sao Paulo, and a couple from New Jersey here for the football game. first the tour took us to Trim, to see Trim Castle ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trim_Castle ) it was a pretty kewl old castle, the beginning dating back a good 900 years. as most castles started this one was only a series of rings and basic wood palisades, and then it just kinda organically grew into a large stone castle, with further skirt walls and whatnot. this castle was actually used during Braveheart, the town of York, where he was put on "trial" and then drawn and quartered. it as built up a lil bit with period buildings and populace too.

after that we went to the Hill of Tara ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill_of_Tara ). the Hill was capitol of the ancient celtic peoples, at the time it was built up with palisades and buildings n whatnot. the First wave migration showed up round the stone age, and they settled around the hill. later on in the iron age some more celts showed up, and were integrated into, the older preexisting settlements.

The high king of Ireland (the thing is there were always 4 kings one for each province, and one of em, the biggest, baddest ass was the high king) lived here in Tara until 600. Around that time is when Christianity rolled in and took over.

When the anglo-normans showed up by 1200, the high king was abolished. And Tara fell out of favor

after this we made our way to to a really big hill, upon which the 5500 year old Loughcrew Cairn was ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loughcrew ). now burial cairns are mounds where they toss bodies, and practice druidic nature magick stuff. from what it sounds like all of these things date back to the stone age, people of note, the duids and clan leaders and whatnot, would be interred here for a mourning like period. and then theyd be pulled out, burned and have their ashes put in there in a clay pot permanantly. not only was this a burial chamber but it was a sort of spiritual focal point, the druids would come here during astrologically pertinent times (solstices, eclipses stuff like that).

as i said, this was on top of a big hill, and it was rainy, so it was pretty traditionally irish, what with the stone age piles of stone, the green grass, the rain, and the sheep. there were sheeps all over the place, and they werent all that concerned about people coming through. it was pretty cool, those sheep were prolly descendants of the sheeps that were there when the Hill was in use.

next was lunch, which was at a restaurant who our tour guide was "good friends with" of course. the food wasnt particularly special, so ill skip to the next bit of our tour. we went to the town of Drogheda, which was pretty unimpressive, except for the relic bits. this guy, Oliver Plunkett, this guy was from a rich Irish family, joined the church, became a catholic big wig, being trained in Rome n everything and was ultimately caught by the English, and hung drawn and quartered cause you know, he wasn't bout no renunciatin. But his head was snatched by his followers and returned to Ireland, and ultimately ent up as a relic here in a cathedral.

that right there is the documents validating that

that is indeed his head. other than the church (which was rebuilt in the 1920s, so it was lame, and i actually didnt take any pics of it) the only other thing of note in the town was

St peters cathedral, the cathedral where many catholics took refuge when cromwel was Rampaging through the area, however it proved not to work, he locked them in, and burned the place down. It was rebuilt, and ultimately sold to the episcopalian church.

after this we went back to our guesthouse, napped more, and eat some Italian foods, and went back to sleep.