On Monday, we went to Connemara to see Kylemore Abbey. It was amazing! We got on the wrong bus, because nothing seems to go quite as planned, but we still made it to the Abbey, and its picturesque beauty was well worth the three hour ride in the back of a van. Yes, a van. We were supposed to go with Galway Tour Company because I had a student discount card, but in our frantic haste to get on a bus on time, we just agreed to go with the First Lady holding a sign that said "Connemara." So, we bumped along in the back of the Healy van - at one point, the road was so bad, we were actually flying with every divet - until we finally rounded a corner and caught a glimpse of the dream. Growing up as a little girl who often referred to herself as Princess Ali (who are we kidding, i still do) I can honestly say that Kylemore Abbey is what I pictured as my dream home. In fact, Kylemore Abbey may be more breathtaking than my imagination's idea of a proper castle.
The story of the Abbey is an equally beautiful and heartbreaking tale of a man's love for his wife. In 1867 Mitchell Henry built a castle for his wife of 32 years, the mother of their 9 children. It was a grand estate, fit for a hundred people, resting at the base if the Connemara mountains. Sadly, only four years after its completion, mrs. Henry died. Distraught over his wife's death, Henry moved his family away, and the estate was eventually sold to a group of Benedictine nuns. It is still owned by the nuns, who now, rather than using the facilities as a girls' school, display it for tourists like me.
After Mrs. Henry died, her husband had a gothic church built on the property in her memory. Even in it's small stature, the church was just as incredible as the castle. It has all the flying buttresses and intricate piping details of your average gothic cathedral, but it's personal size. If this church were a pizza, it would be a personal sized shitaki mushroom and red onions - earthy ingredients with an element of class placed atop a mini-pie. The whole experience was great.
Then on Tuesday, I had a productive day, going to class and working on my looming psych paper, while Dani explored the Aran Islands. And today, we went to the Cliffs.
In my last post about the Cliffs of Moher, I talked about how infinite they seemed, how full of possibilities I felt they were. Today, was a totally different experience. Again, I felt the vastness of the infinite, but today, on a perfectly clear, sunny day, I couldn't help but feel the presence of God. When I see things like this, in their indescribable, natural beauty, I can't help but feel the love of God. How could I doubt the awesomeness of God (awesome of course in the original sense of the word, the awe inspiring witness of the sublime) while I'm sitting with my feet dangling over the edge of a 15 mile drop, looking out at the ocean that connects us with the US? How could I not feel the beauty of a God who loves me unconditionally as I look out at a bright blue ocean, resting under cliffs of immeasurable green? Of course I've seen beautiful things, but I swear I could feel the beauty of Ireland.
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