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Day 5

Glendalough - Reagan

We spent night 4 in the only real hotel of the trip, a Ramamda in Bray, a resort community just south of Dublin. After a night of relaxing in the lobby, uploading photos, and playing with stray cats at the hotel, we woke up fairly early and set off for a big day of travel.

Today was the only real day of rain on the entire trip. It had threatened the day before but Dublin was dry, if overcast. Our first stop was the forge where my great-great-grandfather learned to be a blacksmith. I'll leave a description of this experience to someone else, but I will say that the rain made it harder to stand and just appreciate the forge for what it is.

We decided to forego Powerscourt Gardens because of the rain and head to Glendalough, a very old monastic settlement. Founded by St. Kevin, one of the earliest Irish saints, the site was used from about the 500s until it was destroyed by the English in 1398. The round tower there was built sometime around 1000. Besides being so rich in history, the site has a special connection to our family. My grandfather, on one of his trips to Ireland with my grandmother, climbed a low wall there to get a better picture of the roof of St. Kevin's church. He fell, cutting his leg, and providing us with yet another story ending with him in a hospital.

Enniskerry - Mike

The forge featured in the pictures is where my great grandfather, John William Kelly, learned his trade as a blacksmith and farrier. I have visited it every time I have been in Ireland. It is uncanny to be able to have a physical connection like that even though it has not operated for many years. This visit was marked by pretty heavy rain (the only rain we saw during the whole trip) but we were really only stopping for some pictures.

Glendalough & Cashel - Mike

We did not originally plan to visit Glendalough but our planned visit to Powerscourt gardens was rained out. Glendalough is an old monastic site situated in the Wicklow hills. It has a family history as well. On his first visit in 1990, my dad fell on the one wall while trying to take a picture and ended up in an Irish hospital for stitches. It made for a good story for many years. Cashel was the site of the ruling Munster kings until it became an ecclesiastical settlement. To be around things that date so far back in history is incredible. Here in America, we think something that is 100 years old is old but some of these date back about 1000 years. It is humbling to think that our "great accomplishments" here are only infants in comparison.

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