Catch-up (Part III)

Class was held in our cottage the next morning. All twenty students crowded into our living room, and Connie presided by the fireplace. I should explain that our cottages were probably more spacious than what you might imagine them to be. Upstairs was a triple with a bathroom (shower/toilet) attached, and downstairs housed a living room/dining room, which connected to the other bedrooms via a very small kitchen. There were two doubles on the ground floor as well as another bathroom, this one with a toilet and a bathtub. Because energy in Europe is not cheap, Europeans are much more energy conscious than we are – each outlet can be turned on and off, so that even when something’s plugged into it, it can be turned off to stop the electrical current from flowing and being wasted. Our cottage’s heat and hot water had to be turned on individually, and because the shower’s water was either scalding or freezing, many of us resorted to taking actual baths, which was quite a change for me.

Anyway, back to class. We all crowded into our living room and discussed the first three stories of “Dubliners” for two hours. I don’t think I really want to talk about that, and I’m sure nobody wants to hear about it. If you’re really interested in James Joyce’s theory of paralysis in early twentieth-century Dublin as demonstrated through these short stories, feel free to email me. I’m not expecting anything, however.

After class, Connie decided that since the weather was not overtly rainy and didn’t seem too threatening, it might be a nice day to climb Croagh Patrick, the mountain from which St. Patrick was said to have banished all the snakes from Ireland. Mind you, Connie did not climb it herself on this particular day, nor was it explained to us that although this is a popular pilgrimage site, it is a fully functional mountain and climbing it was not going to be a simple stroll up a pretty green hill.

When we were dropped off at the mountain (we were taxied there by Connie and by a big red van-taxi that seated 14), we were warned to turn back if it started raining, as the rocks might be slippery. Little did we know, early on in our climb, how very true that warning was.

I don’t know if I can properly convey the experience that was Croagh Patrick. We had no idea what we were getting into, and throughout the climb we kept wondering just how high the mountain was and how much longer we had to go. The peak, you see, was obscured by a stormy cloud, so our confusion was justified.

Basically, the Croagh Patrick climb was misery itself, but it was the rewarding kind of misery that makes for an experience you’ll never ever forget. I’m going to quote from the email I sent to my friends wherein I described the climb: “The climb started out fairly innocuously, with greenery and sheep and prettiness. But soon we were laboring up a mountainside in quickly-increasing mist and rain and rapidly decreasing temperatures. We had no idea how far it was to the peak but Esther, Bonnie and I refused to give up. When we finally made it after about two hours, including a harrowing 30 minute scramble over rocks in vision-obscuring rain towards the end, it was so damn foggy and cold and wet that we could not even seen the allegedly beautiful view from the top. Then we had to go down.”

Hopefully that gets the picture across. The way down was much better, even though I couldn’t see for the first third of it. But my legs weren’t burning and I wasn’t forced to stop every ten minutes “to enjoy the scenery” (read: give my poor, out-of-shape muscles a break), so I was willing to trade in my vision for that luxury. Once we made it down the hill, nobody was around to bring us back, so a big group of us stood around, sopping wet and freezing, while we waited for the taxi-van to return. Needless to say, we didn’t do too much that evening, and I slept more soundly that night than I have ever done in recent years… no lie. Oh, and I ought to add that I was REALLY GLAD that Mom and I had found and purchased my windbreaker before I left, because that baby saved me from a whole lot of misery. I would've been completely soaked through if I hadn't been wearing it.

On Tuesday, I forgot my camera, so my memories of that day are a bit foggy as I don’t have any visual aid to prompt it. We had another full day, with three stops. The first was Aghagower, which was basically another graveyard and round tower combination, although this round tower wasn’t nearly as impressive as the one at Meelick. We could go inside this one because it had an entrance at ground level, but it was also missing its top half. Aghagower also housed the ruins of an old stone abbey, which was fairly picturesque, as those sorts of things usually tend to be.

Next we went to Ballintubber Abbey, built by King Cathal O’Conor sometime during the 13th century. The Abbey has been used on and off ever since then, and is still in really beautiful shape after undergoing a restoration not too long ago. We were also given a tour of the grounds, which included some strange things, including this little hobbit-hole like place with a representation of Jesus’ birth and the story of the robin who burned his breast while trying to keep the baby Jesus warm. I enjoyed this stop because although it was yet another church and graveyard, it had a unique personality and history.

Finally, we visited Knock, where Our Lady, Saint Joseph, and Saint John the Evangelist appeared to a group of peasants in the late 1800s. The site quickly became a hot spot for pilgrimages, and Pope John Paul II even graced the Shrine with his presence in 1979. Although it had a good story, the whole place seems to have become rather commercialized, and I found a lot of the stores really tacky. I think it’s sad when such a meaningful religious experience is overshadowed by rampant commercialism in such a tasteless way.

In summation: Tuesday = churches and graveyards and commercialism, oh my!