May 15 - Symbolic Immortality and Mortality

Goodbye Westcove Estate! This was a difficult departure for me because I was enjoying the Estate and just the trip in general. I loved this portion of the trip.

Cliffs of Moher

The Cliffs of Moher were just unbelievably stunning. It was difficult to grasp the size of them. A few of us were determined to make it to a castle in the distance but with every ridge we climbed there were three more between us and it. I was not able to make it before turning back to meet up with my van. Once again, I took the time here to break away from the group and just bask in the serenity of mindful contemplation. One thing that I had a difficult time getting out of my mind is how popular the location was for suicide. It made me think back to Glasinev Cemetery in Dublin, Daniel O'Connell's final resting place, "My body to Ireland, My heart to Rome, My soul to heaven".

I also found online a brief extract from O'Connell's Oration, "If we cannot have the blessing of religious unity so as ‘to be all of one mind’ we shall have ‘the next dearest blessing that heaven can give,’ the peace that comes from perfect religious liberty and equality, All this do we owe to the memory of the man we recall today and to the principles he taught us."

Cemetery

I noted a cemetery on our way through a smaller town just before reaching the Cliffs of Moher. I requested we make it a point to find it and stop. I am grateful I trusted that feeling and made the request. This cemetery amplified the feelings I was having at the Cliffs of Moher and now I was practically alone. The Serenity Prayer came to mind, "God, grant me to serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

Galway

Galway is a smaller college city and upon arriving to our Hostel I began inquiring with the locals to see if there were any activities that night. There was an event planned that evening to go on a bar crawl and I got invited to join them. I quickly requested some details and asked if I could bring the rest of my group once we all arrived, they were fine with that. This was an incredible experience and a very nice bonding experience for me with the majority of the group. There were some elders there doing some traditional Irish dancing. I asked if they could teach us and they just chuckled saying, "Oh! We've been doing this since we were wee lads!" I guess that meant probably not, haha! After a couple of dances one of the elderly ladies came over to me and said that this next dance they could teach us! I quickly rounded up a large group and it was a blast! We formed a circle and essentially did a line dance that we would break into pairs of a boy and a girl then after some steps join back into a circle with the girl on the other side of us then breaking back into pairs with the new girl that had been switched to the other side of the boy to our other side. We shuffled in and out of pairs and circles rotating partners each time. I had the opportunity to dance with a couple of the elderly ladies and they couldn't stop giggling at my attempts to imitate. I think we all had a really enjoyable time. I'm very grateful they were willing to include us.