Today was going to be a lot of driving, so I brought some required reading, but with the bumpy, twisty roads that are so prevalent in Ireland I couldn't get much done. Our first stop was at a waterfall called Glen-Car. Earlier in the week we were assigned to groups to analyze one of W. B. Yeats' poems and my group went first since the waterfall was important to Yeats and mentioned in our poem. I read the poem and someone else in the group analyzed it for the whole group. We walked around the waterfall and then another group presented their poem. Next, we went to the grave sight of Yeats.
His last wishes as stated in one of his poem's was to be buried under Ben Bulben, which is a part of a mountain that juts out. On his gravestone is, "Cast a cold Eye on life, on Death Horseman, pass by!" also found in one of his poems. He was originally buried in France, but they moved his body to the grave sight at a church which is located fairly close to under Ben Bulben. Some think they may have gotten the wrong body, woops! We looked inside the wee church a bit, all of the churches are starting to run together now. It was really cold that day so we were sorta rushing to get inside. We ate a packed lunch and then went to the Belleek Pottery Visitors Center, where they make really fine porcelain. You know its good if you can see your finger through it when you hold it up to the light- this was that good.
We were given a tour through the factory where it is all made. It was like a sweat shop, those jobs looked awful. People sitting in the same spot making small flowers or smoothing out bowls allll dayyy looong, they looked tired too. It was cool to see the process, no wonder that stuff is so expensive. The tour was a lot shorter than our crystal tour, but it was interesting at least. We had tea in the shop and then went to the Belleek Parish Church where a new piece of stained glass has just been put in (costing the church 25,000 pounds and only 12 families are members because it is a Protistant church in a Catholic area).
Our professor Niel Ward did a stained glass training with the artist so he knew a lot about it. I liked it because it was modern, not dark and busy like so many other pieces. The Reverend talked to us about the meaning behind the glass, so it made it more meaningful. We then drove to Boa Island, drove up to a farm, and walked to an overgrown cemetery called Caldragh where the Janus Stone was just sitting out there in the open. It is the oldest carving found in Ireland and dates back to a
long time ago in the BC era. It is not behind glass, it is just out there in the open to be touched and take pictures of. On our way to get fish and chips we stopped at a famine graveyard where many were buried during the potato famine in the 1800s.
There is only one stone marking the site because no one could afford headstones. We got fish and chips for dinner and ate it sitting on the side of the street, which I guess isn't so off because Irish people like to eat take-away in their cars. So then we followed the GPS home, which took us all over Ireland (like it likes to do) and Hadden told Neil to shut up the wee lady up front who is giving directions.
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