Day 10 Donegal, Drumcliff, The Knock: September 8

There's an old movie about a bus tour across Europe called "If it's Tuesday, This Must be Belgium." I thought of that movie often during this trip! Today, for us, "If it's Tuesday, it must be ... another castle!" Donegal Castle today as well as some more cool stops, destination Galway.

Once more, we were up and on the road by 8:00 a.m. headed toward Donegal. By this point in our tour this farm girl had gotten obsessed with getting pictures of the small farms we were seeing on our travels. They all looked so similar: a small home, one barn with a rounded roof, one or two small outbuildings and, either sheep or cows, often pastured in what we would think of as lawns. Each farm seemed to have one tractor - small relative to U.S. farm standards - and, nearly all farms seemed to own one cute little excavator. My extremely uneducated guesses for the excavator: a) to dig peat, or, b) to drain water laden fields. I'll do more research on that another time. Unfortunately, not many of my dozens of pictures of farms and animals came out very good. I have to keep reminding myself: this is for memories, not photographic quality!

When we reached Donegal, we went straight to the castle for a tour.  I'm sure there are a lot of castles to visit in both Ireland and Scotland. The person who chooses the itinerary for this tour obviously picked those with exhibits and restorations at different historical periods. I've always been fascinated by the amount of hard labor that went into building structures many centuries ago. This castle had three foot deep walls - imagine the physical effort! More about the history of Donegal Castle, and the families who owned it, here.

Donegal Castle

Donegal Castle lower level: three foot deep walls, cobblestone floors.

Next stop: Creevykeel, a burial monument dating back to around 4000-2500 B.C.  It felt a bit mystical walking past trees with fabric scraps tied to them (see explanation below), onto a hill covered with stones and rocks in the pattern of burial chambers from so very long ago. The weather was beautiful as well, with incredible views across the countryside and sea which added to the experience.

This was the first time we had seen one of these "rag," or "clootie," trees even though they are common throughout Scotland as well. People most often tie a fabric scrap to a tree, commonly a Hawthorne tree or bush, as a ritual for healing or making a wish. This ritual is one that has become tradition handed down over generations with different explanations.
Read more about it here and here. 

On to Drumcliff,  St. Columba's Parish Church, and the grave of William Butler Yeats. My memories of this day are sketchy, but I seem to remember it being a "grab and go lunch" day. The shop and restroom area was very crowded with only one register for both food and gifts. I had found souvenirs I wanted, so, to save time, Bob ran off to take pictures while I waited in line. At this site, remains of a monastery from the 9th - 11th centuries include a "high cross" and a round tower. All of this is nestled beneath BenBulben mountain.

Left to right clockwise: Yeats grave, starkly simple as he requested, small tower dating from
the 10th or 11th century, the church, two views of the high cross dating from the 9th century.

On to Knock Shrine, where an apparition of Mary, Joseph, John and a lamb (the lamb of God) appeared on August 21, 1879. Around 1.5 million visitors come to Knock each year to visit this shrine. The Apparition Chapel, a place of quiet contemplation and prayer, has an aura difficult to describe. The grounds are lovely, and, we actually had time to shop here, but, as a non-Catholic I had little interest in the gifts that were available.

Surprises/Cool Stuff:

• Of course, when I'm visiting a world-wide famous shrine, I get interested in the rocks. We did ask our bus driver/tour guide about these but he didn't know what we were talking about! Some quick Internet research tells me these are limestone rocks that came from a nearby lake, Lough Mask, and this website does have pictures that could validate that fact.
  
• Farming in Ireland is managed by the government, in this case the European Union. Our tour guide referred to the government as "Brussels," much as we would refer to "Washington" as our government. Of course, I will need to do a post devoted entirely to farming to make use of some of the pictures that DID come out okay to share!
• Peat bogs can be as shallow as one foot or as deep as 25 feet. More on this during the Connemara post. However, I will share that the smell of burning peat became quite familiar to me as we stopped at various places throughout our trip. 
• I think this was the day we stopped at a woolen spinning exhibition, perhaps in Donegal after our castle tour? We were served Irish Coffee, which I did like, and then given our promised "shopping trip" which lasted only 1/2 hour. One look at necklaces priced at over $900 and I no longer "shopped." I have trouble making decisions on $50 items in 1/2 hour; I would never consider making a nearly $1000 purchase in that little bit of time! The woolen garments were beautiful, handmade from sheep to garment by a family owned business, and, considering the quality, not overly priced, but neither I nor my family members wear wool.