Over the past few weeks, I took a few trips to the Wicklow Mountains to visit the old monastic site of Glendalough. Glendalough means “valley between the two lakes” and the view from the large lake was absolutely phenomenal. The monastic site had large historical significance as the monks used to live in the monastic site and contained many religious artifacts that were hidden in the large round tower in the middle of the village.
Later in the week, I visited the old medieval capital of Ireland, Kilkenny, with large historical significance being surrounded by stone walls to keep the invasions of Vikings out of the city. The city today has a great history and is still today a busy little city.
In the week prior to last week I visited Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. Learning the mythology of how the Causeway was built and the purpose of it was very interesting and funny like the mythology of many Irish landmarks. When we crossed the border from Ireland into Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, there was no border which I found strange because all the countries I have visited in my life had phyiscla borders around them. Later in the trip, I stopped in Belfast and saw the main police station in Belfast which was fenced like a prison due to the violent nature of what happened in Belfast due to the IRA.
Next week is my last week of classes, then the remaining three weeks I have my exams spread over that time. Maynooth University does exam time much different than Rollins in the fact that they spread the exams over a much longer period of time.