Today we traveled, so there aren't too many exciting things to blog about. We left Dublin at 8:00 this morning (3:00 EST) and took the Bus Eireann (an Irish public transportation system) to Cork by way of Cashel. In Cashel we stopped to visit the Rock of Cashel, which is actually not a rock but a 1,000 year old castle turned monastery. Afterwards, we stopped at a local bakery for "lunch" (i.e. pastries), and headed on to Cork where we will spend four nights at the Garnish House B&B. Cork is a market town along the water, so not only is it very pretty, but it has a Charleston-esque feel to it. Our B&B is actually a quaint little house with three bedrooms and three bathrooms and a full kitchen. We are already planning the meals we want to cook with things you can buy at the market.
Our big "event" of the day (aka the only time I had to take pictures) was our trip to The Rock of Cashel. When Ireland was first beginning it was divided up into small kingdoms, which later combined into six large kingdoms autonomous from one another. Then in 990, Brian Boru, the High King of Munster, united all six kingdoms successfully. After the Norman invasion and throughout the Middle Ages, The Rock of Cashel became the seat of the Archbishop and later a Cistercian monastery and cathedral, with the seat of the Archbishop beside the cathedral. Because the Rock of Cashel has been occupied since the 400s AD, it goes through periods of renovation, which means we didn't get to see the whole thing. Still the parts that we did see were absolutely astonishing.
I have always been attracted to the idea of old, ruined castles, and I must say that though this was my first visit to something like this, it exceeded my expectations by leaps and bounds. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes, “Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.” When I saw the Rock of Cashel, it reminded me of this analogy. Even something in partial ruin is beautiful because it has been built for God and because God has abided in it. When people spend time and energy creating palaces and Cathedrals for the glory of God, they are beautiful and lasting testaments to God's grandeur, and that's certainly how I would describe the Rock.
Another important thing about the Rock of Cashel is its significance in light of the education in Ireland. Without the preservation of Christianity in Ireland in the early Middle Ages, Classical learning would have decreased to an abominable extent. The Irish monks had such a thirst for literature that they preserved important manuscripts that were otherwise ignored. Thomas Cahill writes in our textbook, "Wherever they went they brought their love of learning and their skills in bookmaking. In the bays and valleys of their exile, they reestablished literacy and breathed new life into the exhausted literary culture of Europe. And that is how the Irish saved civilization." The Rock of Cashel contributed to this.
After our stop at Cashel we went on to the B&B in Cork where we rested and chatted for a few hours before we went to the English market. Though we went at 6:00 and a lot of the shops were closed, we were still able to have enough ingredients to make a lovely dinner of trout, roasted veggies, and salad. We will spend the morning again at the market talking to vendors and sampling food before we head out to Blarney Castle in the afternoon.
That is a good looking group!
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