(no subject)
MAY 24
Bog walk in Knockatallon. We climbed many giant fucking hills, then tromped around in wet, mossy, beautiful land. I know bog trotter is supposed to be an insult, but I love the bogs. I love the hills, I love the squishy ground, I love the bog cotton, I love the black snails, and I love the way the whole ground moves when someone five feet away from you jumps. It's fantastic. Our tour guide was pretty awesome, and kept on saying "So it is," and "So it isn't" and "So it was" and "So it wasn't" and every variation you could think of before, after, and during each sentence.
These little guys were EVERYwhere. They were pretty large and pretty impressive dudes. I wouldn't mess with them.
This is a site where they harvest turf for fires and whatnot. According to all those millions of farming surveys I've read, farmers cut off the top 3 cm or so of living material, then cut down a few feet into blocks. They lean the chunks of turf against each other, called footing, to let the natural bog water drain out of them. Finally they bag them up and store them in their shed or barn or what have you.
Following the bog, we took a short drive to a local Mass Rock. Back in the day it was illegal to be a practicing Catholic unless you swore an oath to the Protestant king of England, which very very few did. Instead, they snuck off to what they call Mass Rocks to pray and practice. They went sporadically, because it was illegal and they could only find out how to go by word of mouth.
It was so amazing to think of how hard these people worked in order to go to Catholic mass. Their religion was so important to them that they risked death by British troops just to celebrate their religion, something that Americans take for granted and more often than not ignore. No wonder Enda doesn't like organized religion but still practices. The Irish have fought so hard and long to gain the right for Catholics to be able to publicly practice without getting shot and interned, that they fucking better well take advantage of it.
Speaking of getting shot for your religion, this is a memorial erected in the 1930's (very shortly after Ireland won their independence) for Father McKenna, who got shot walking back from the above Mass Rock after saying Christmas Mass. (Otherwise known as the Penal Cross.) Can you imagine? How could you live with yourself after shooting a holy man, no matter what religion they are, after coming back from CHRISTMAS MASS. I don't understand how the Brits could give orders like that. It's too awful.
After we got home, we had some dinner and pretty much took a shower, did some reading, and crashed. As much as I loved the bog, I didn't really want to smell like one.
MONDAY, MAY 25
(Monaghan Education Centre)
Back at work! The databases are long, long finished and now it's just a simple matter of plugging them in. I met with Seamus and Carole to talk about my project. Seamus is pretty pumped about what I've done so far. We were talking about smuggling on the way there (they used to smuggle a LOT of things across the border back and forth), and he pointed out a store called The Smuggler's Warehouse. HUR HUR HUR. I need to get a picture of that place before I go home.
Anyway, the project. I shared some of the stuff I've noticed so far, like for example the fact that black cats are good luck here as opposed to, obviously, not in America. I love my project so much. I'm learning so much about Ireland, like about ceiles (Irish ho-downs, pretty much), Ring in Breac (which Seamus explained to me earlier; it's hiding a ring in a fruit cake at Hallowe'en), why magpies are bad luck (Vikings released them when they were invading Ireland, so when magpies showed up, youse gonna get pillaged, dawg), and so much more. It's such a thought-provoking project. I even find myself checking the cows outside to see if they're moving up the hill (sign of good weather) or down hill (sign of bad weather), or seeing if the sheep are near the hedge (sign of rain) or not. I know it's all tosh, but I can't help it. I have an old timey brain, okay?
It's making me have such an appreciation for my own grandmother. I totally want to take some of the surveys back and make my grandma do it. Recording history of the generation before you is so important, and my grandma has a lot of good stuff on the Great Depression that I'd like to get in ink.