Geo: 52.5187, -7.88797Today I saw some more of that fine Irish weather. The rain was off and on all day so it made for a good day stay inside. No I did not spend the day in the pub....have a little faith. To start with I headed to Thurles, Liam had suggested I go there to search the archives for family records. On the way I came across Holy Cross abbey in the town of....Holy Cross. Back int the 1200's the monks in the abbey received a piece of the true cross and their little abbey became a place of pilgrimage. The abbey was disbanded by Henry VIII and fell into ruin. It has now been refurbished and is both a tourist attraction and the local church. As I walked into the church they were in ... read more

Geo: 52.5166, -7.88591A new day and time for a new town and today I was off to Cashel in county Tipperary, on the hunt for family history. The first stop was Lismore castle. Slight issue along the way. On the road was a lovely little town called Cappoquin which has this beautiful old stone bridge across the river. It was so lovely I had to stop and take a photo, I found a little grassy park around the bend I could safely park the car and take a couple of shots. While there I had a smoke, put my camera on the roof of the car and took in the serenity. How's the serenity? Too bloody good, I jumped in the car and took off leaving my camera on the roof of the car. I realised ... read more

Geo: 53.3454, -6.27573So today I saw the true side of Dublin - rain, rain and more rain. Well it is October I started the day Dublinia, a museum dedicated to the Viking era and middle ages. It was actually the Vikings from Norway that built the first settlement in Dublin. Initially it was a winter camp, then it became a base for staging raids. Eventually they figured out that trade was more profitable than raiding so they set up a trading port. They traded everything from wool and cotton to silver and slaves. Interesting fact, a majority of the slaves traded in Europe were the slavic people, which is where the word slave comes from. The Vikings had written words in the form of runes, but because they had no paper their words were carved on ... read more

Geo: 53.9636, -1.08518My first call today was on the York Minster, to see the interior this time. Admission includes a free guided tour, which is quite good because for 10 quid I'd want something a little more than the standard information pamphlet. Our guide was another lovely older lady and the tour was really very good, more churches should do these. However she did mention the Minster had 200 employees and 450 unpaid volunteers. It would not survive without the efforts of the volunteers. The current York Minster is actually its fifth incarnation. The first was a wooden structure, built for the baptism of the King of Northumberland, King Edwin. It was a condition of his marriage that he become a christian, so his wife (who's name I forget) and her chaplain traveled to York so ... read more

Geo: 51.3814, -2.35745Today I started off by ducking down to the train station to get my tickets for tomorrow and Friday. On the way back from the station I spied the local catholic church and decided to pop in for a quick look. It was a church...I really gotta stop visiting them, it's just not working for me anymore. That being said I went to Bath Abbey after seeing the church, it does dominate the town center, I could hardly avoid it. It was another one of those churches which has graves under the floor, so I was walking around on the inscriptions. So many of these are worn completely down. All that money they paid to be remembered for an eternity, and their stones are as worn as if they were out in the open ... read more