Off to Wicklow and Kilkenny

Day 4 Kavanagh, Wicklow and Kilkenny

The weekend brought another glorious day of sunshine, not a cloud in the sky. We met at school where Jack Topham posted our previous blog, and we set out for the Wicklow Mountains and Glendalough, the site of St. Kevin’s 6th century monastic settlement. After a prayer on the bus, we got underway, stopping on the way out of town at a memorial to the important 20th century poet Patrick Kavanagh. While recuperating from surgery late in his life, Kavanagh would walk from his hospital to the nearby Grand Canal and sit on a bench by its “leafy-with-love banks” next to the “stilly, greeny waters.” The bench where he sat has been dedicated to Kavanagh, and there is a bronze statue of the poet nearby. We read two of Kavanagh’s poems listening to the water cascade “niagarously” nearby over a lock and seeing the barges tied up in the canal that in older times bought “mythologies” from “far-flung towns.” As we listened to Kavanagh’s words celebrating his new-found appreciation of life, we were struck by the new life everywhere around us – ducklings on the banks of the canal and later, lambs gamboling among the gravestones at Glendalough.

Getting to Glendalough can be trying on the best of days, being so high in the Wicklow Mountains. On Saturday, our driver, Simon had to contend with a bicycle race strung out over much of our route that necessitated a change in plans later in the day. We walked the monastic site at St. Kevin’s with Tom Doyle from Belvedere. The site is beautiful, with its beautiful round tower and church ruins. We worked in some time here journaling.

After a hearty lunch at a carvery nearby in Laragh, we drove up beyond the lakes because the bike race had closed off the route to our hiking site. Instead of the route we had planned, we hiked up over boggy ground to a reservoir above the Glendalough lakes .

Everyone made it back, albeit soggier and a lot more tired. We finished the day with the long, scenic ride through the counties of Wicklow and Carlow to the town of Kilkenny. Tom Doyle, our main guide from Belvedere comes from this area, so he was able to tell us a great deal about what we saw during the ride.

After arriving at the Newpark Hotel at 8:30 or so, we all walked down to “Eddie Rocket’s” for burgers and fries to cap off the evening and head off to bed – and in many cases, to wash our socks - tired, but satisfied with an adventure-filled day.