Cashel - Day 2

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Geo: 52.5166, -7.88591

Today I started at the Rock of Cashel, which is an old castle/cathedral, now an impressive ruin. I wanted to see this place because it is where Uncle Miler McGrath was the Anglican Archbishop in the 1500's. I learned more about him today, what a sneaky bugger he was. He apparently got in trouble with queen Elizabeth (the first one) for administering the last rights in both the Catholic and Church of England tradition. Well he was a bishop for both! And he was polite about it, he would ask the dying which they preferred before administering the last rites. Additionally he was married not once but twice and had nine children. Probably more, but there are nine on record. As he had acquired quite a lot of enemies over his life, he became worried about what they might do to his grave after his death. So he had his monument prepared ahead of time, when he passed his family buried him in secret. The epitaph on his tomb has a cryptic poem,

Patrick, the glory of our Isle and gown
First sat a bishop in the See of Down
I wish that I, succeeding in place
as Bishop, had an equal share of Grace.
I served thee, England, fifty years in Jars,
And pleas'd thy Princes in the midst of Wars;
Here where I'm plac'd I'm not; and thus the Case is
I'm not in both, yet am in both the places
He that judgeth me is the Lord. 1. Cor. 4. 1621
Let him who stands, take care lest he fall

So essentially, yeah I was a double agent, but I served the people and crown. If you want to "judge" me, be careful you are without sin. And a little challenge, I might be here, I might not!. If his enemies were not sure if it was his final resting place, they may not be inclined to desecrate his grave. His little ruse worked, as his grave remains intact while the tomb of his successor, Hamilton (who was equally loved) has been chiseled away.

About the rock itself, originally it was a place of worship for the stone age people. The rock was said to be the seat of the kings of Ireland, including Brian Boru, the first high king of Ireland....probably the only high king of Ireland as far as I can tell. The buildings that are there now date from the 12th and 13th centuries. They were originally built up as a defensive castles, but as the monarchy started loosing their power to the church, they figured it might be beneficial to donate the castle to the church. This "generous" donation meant the castle could not be invaded by a rival king. King Muircheartach O'Brien, descended from Brian Boru, donated the castle to the church. This ensured two things, 1) the McCarthy family (the "other" kings of Ireland) could not attack the castle and 2) he got to be bishop and stay in his castle anyway.

After seeing the rock I walked down the road to Hore's abbey. It's another ruin just down the road and is visible from the rock....well everything in Cashel is visible from the rock. I don't know much about the abbey except that it was dissolved in 1540, during Lizzie 1's reign.

From the Abbey I had a bit of a walk back into town to collect my car and then I was off to Golden. This is the little town where great great grandpa was born. As it is only a little town I didn't think it would take long to visit, but I spent hours out there. First stop was the Church. I figured if there were any dead ancestors to be found they'd be in the cemetery. The owner of my B&B mentioned there were a couple of churches in Golden so it was going to be a bit of guess work to find the Catholic one. As I drove into to town I saw a sign for "Golden church" that was my starting point. Lucky for me I found the catholic church first go. As I walked into the church yard, there were two people tending to the grave yard, and they confirmed that it was the catholic church, they were really helpful, when I explained why I was there they helped me look for McGrath & Quirke graves. We only found one grave of a Bridget McGrath, also lived at Mantlehill, same neighborhood as Great Great Grandpa. My two helpers pointed out where Mantlehill was and gave me directions. They thought there may still be McGrath's living there. So I was off to cruise the old neighborhood.

On my way around Mantlehill I came across an old guy walking along the road. I stopped to ask him if he knew of any McGrath's still living in the neighborhood. He said that yes they were two farm houses back. When he knew my story, (everyone here want's to know if you have Irish blood) he told me that up until 70 years ago there were only tenet farmers in the area and all the land was owned by the earl. So I guess GG Grandpa was a tenet farmer back in the day. He would have been up close and personal with the great potato famine. I did go back to the farmhouse but no-one was around and I wasn't quite game enough to knock on the door.

After touring Mantlehill I headed back into to town, parked the car and went for a walk. There is a really old bridge here over the river Suir, and standing on one side is the remains of an old tower. I took lots of photos. There was another church there that my two helpers from the cemetery had pointed out. This was "the old church" and it certainly looked like it was from the right era. "The new church" is very definitely modern. However the old church yard is walled off and the gates locked so I couldn't get in to check it out.

Across the bridge I came to an Agriculture and heritage museum. It wasn't really what I was looking for but I thought why not take a look. I'm so glad that I did. The owners Liam and Maria, were just wonderful. Liam showed me around and told me all about his collections. That's really what the museum was, a collection of old stuff, machinery, household goods, bar equipment, lots of stuff. I sat down and had a coffee with them and chatted about lots of things, some of the history of the place, the economy, the church. Liam wrote out a list of things for me to check out over the next few days. The Irish really are the friendliest people.

So from there it was in to Tipperary...it wasn't a long way. Liam had recommended I take a drive to the Glen of Aherlow. It was up another windy road but the view of the Galtee mountains was awesome. I wound my way down the other side of the hill, drove for a while until I realised that road was not going to take me back to Tipp, I turned around and went back up the big hill again. I stopped in Tipp for a bite to eat as it was now past four and I hadn't had lunch. Then I headed back to Cashel. I turned off in Golden to look for Athassal abbey. This is another abandoned abbey, they really have a lot of them here. I'm guessing that was Henry VIII's influence.

The sun was getting very low in the sky when I found the abbey. I thought great, sunset over the ruins will make for some good photo's. The abbey is in the middle of a paddock but there was no climbing the fence because it was a hedge. I found the gate contemplated climbing over it, but a few feet into the paddock the farmer had run a hot wire across it. I don't know if that was to keep tourists out or the cows in. Either way I was not going to crawl in the mud to get under the damn thing and I'm not silly enough to try to go over it. So I went back to the road and took my photos from a distance and no sunset.

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Photos

Rock of Cashel
I couldnt see Miler's actual grave as they are doing restorative works on it. But here's a picture