A Semester Abroad in the Emerald Isles: Limerick

Wow! It has been quite the busy past couple of days! This is the first time I have even turned my computer on since last week! This past weekend we had our first over night excursion in Limerick! We left early Saturday morning accompanied by our theology professor Bro. Coleman. Bro. Coleman is probably by far one of my favorite proffesor here! He is always cracking jokes and is so smart- different than a lot of the monks I have met before. We first stopped at Kilmacduagh which is a medieval monastic site associated with Saint Coleman Macduagh. There is a cemetery there with over 30,000 bodies buried at the site since the 7th century! As we walked through looking at graves, Bro. Coleman was collecting bones! Since there have been so many people buried there, lots of bone fragments get turned up in the soil which is weird/creepy to think about! In the center of the grave yard, there was also a huge tower which was used by the monks to escape from viking attacks. The tower is only implanted 16in. into the ground, and is leaning 5 feet to the left so it is crazy to think that it is still standing after so many centuries! We then made our way to the Burren National Park which is the site of a 12th century hermitage spot. We had to walk quite a ways into the mountain but eventually made our way to the most peaceful spot ever! No wonder monks would go on hermitage! There was a little waterfall stream and trees covered with bright green moss that people will come to tie notes to the trees. We then went to the Paulnabrone Portal tomb which is a neolithic burial chamber that dates back to 3,800- 3,600 BC. Its hard to wrap your mind around looking at history that is still standing after thousands of years! From there, we had lunch at a cute little restaurant and then were off to another site! Our last stop of the day was to Templecronan which was an early christian site dating back to the 12th century. Surrounding the church, there were these things called slab shrines which were basically old tombs with the top exposed. In one of the tombs, we could see a whole femur bone! Its so nice to be able to see such cool sites that normal tourists would never think to have gone to. Definitely one of the many perks of our wonderful program!
After a full day of seeing sites, we drove to our hostel for the night, the "Jamaica Inn." There was not much to do at the hostel as they had no internet or anything, so we went out to check out the pubs. Although this excursion was called "Limerick," we never actually were in Limerick as our hostel was in "Sevenmilebridge Town," and we were out in the country while seeing the sites. Sevenmilebridge was a very small town that consisted of one street! We found a cute little old pub however in which the locals were hosting a surprise 40th birthday party for a friend. They encouraged us to stay and help them celebrate, so we all waited for the birthday girl to arrive. The Irish sure do know how to throw a party as it was one of the most fun nights we have had in Ireland thus far! We danced the whole night and the birthday girl bought us drinks!
After our crazy night, we woke up early again to go to Bro. Colemans monastery "Glenstal Abbey." We went to mass and it was Very different than any service I have ever been to! Half of the service was in Latin/Irish, and when it was time for communion, it was just one mad dash to be first. All of us from CSB/SJU just sat in our pews not knowing what to do! After mass, we had lunch with Brother Coleman and then toured the woods which the Abbey is situated on. After a couple hours, we were all ready to go home, but stopped in a small town to watch Galway vs. Kilkenny in the hurling finals. This is the first time in seven years that Galway has made it to the finals, but unfortunately the match ended in a tie and we will have to wait another 2 weeks until a rematch is scheduled.
Arriving back at the Park Lodge on Sunday evening was the best feeling ever! We have all made Park Lodge our home and although we love going on excursions, we cant wait to get back to our pink floral bed sheets!