After Steven picked up our manual transmission rental car that we'd rented for almost the next four weeks, we got out of busy Dublin as quickly as possible and into the countryside south of the city. Steven's driven a manual before and driven on the left hand side before, but doing both was a new experience and took some getting used to as you might imagine for both driver and passenger!
A flyer laid out a walk that would take us to the various features in the gardens. This seemed like a good place to start!
One beloved dog was named Sun Yat Sen after the Chinese philosopher and first President of China.
A video in the Visitors' Center explained that free-standing crosses were one of the greatest symbols of Irish Christianity and were erected between the 8th and 12th centuries. Their function was to teach the scriptures, to serve as boundary markers and to evoke prayer.
On a small hill just above the church was the 10-foot tall St. Kevin's Cross carved from a single block of granite unlike most other famous Irish crosses that were carved of softer sandstone. That meant their carvers could more easily carve more ornate biblical stories.
The largest and most imposing of the buildings at Glendalough was the Cathedral that underwent several phases of construction and through the reuse of stones from previous structures. Its east window faced toward Jerusalem and the rising sun to remind worshipers of Christ rising from the dead.
Round towers were built at important church sites in Ireland from about the middle of the 10th century until the later 12th century. This type of tower is almost unique to Ireland with just three existing elsewhere, two on the east coast of Scotland and one on the Isle of Man. The Glendalough one is one of the tallest of the 80 still standing to survive at over 30 meters. Its pointed cap was rebuilt from fallen stones in 1876. The tower's walls were about one meter thick.
Carved into the sanctuary stone at knee level was a cross which meant anyone under threat entering the sacred inner monastic grounds would have been provided sanctuary. A refugee was able to live safely at Glendalough for 90 days; after that, he would have been thrown out to the waiting authorities unless he became a monk.
After the big Irish breakfasts we'd been enjoying, we definitely needed some exercise so we began exploring the lovely tree-shrouded Green Road which was really a trail through lovely forests toward both lakes after which Glendalough was named.
We are always big fans of touring gardens when we travel so going to the Powercourt Estate Gardens in the Wicklow Mountains south of Dublin sounded appealing especially since it was named one of the top three out of ten gardens in the world by National Geographic. The gardens covered 47 acres as part of a 700-acre estate.
The mansion was built in the 1730s but most of its interior burned down in a 1974 fire. More than seven million visitors have toured the Victorian-era Gardens since they opened to the public in the early 1970s.
The Italian Garden with the Sugarloaf Mountains in the background was described as the best view at Powerscourt and also one of the best views in Ireland. Yes, it was very attractive but to say more than that seemed a bit of a stretch to me! The terraces, designed in the 1840s, took 100 men over 12 years to build.
Jackie Kennedy planted this tree when she visited Powercourt in 1967.
The Pepperpot Tower was modeled on a favorite pepperpot from Lord Powerscourt's dining room table! It was a good vantage point to view the trees planted over the last two centuries in the Gardens.
We got a glimpse into a different world in the vast Japanese Garden which had azaleas, Japanese Maples and Chinese Fortune Palms.
The hint of fall was in the air with some of the trees already changing color.
With all sorts of secret pathways to explore, the Japanese Garden offered an air of 18th century intrigue!
The fountain in Triton Lake was based on the fountain in a piazza in Rome. The pair of life-sized winged horses that watched over the lake formed part of the coat of arms made in Berlin in 1869.
After the masses of beautiful hydrangeas we saw near where we stayed in Dublin, those we viewed at Powerscourt and in untold number of gardens in the week since then, I think Ireland should be known as the Land of Hydrangeas as they have been that plentiful!
If you've been reading the blogs or diaries of our travels over the last few years, you probably remember we've been to a good many fascinating cemeteries in many countries. Never, however, had we ever come across one for pets before coming to Powercourt! This, it turned out, was one of the largest pet cemeteries in Ireland.
Eugenie, a Jersey cow, died after having 17 calves and producing 100,000 gallons of milk in her day!
One beloved dog was named Sun Yat Sen after the Chinese philosopher and first President of China.
This marker honored two Shetland ponies, Tommy and his 'wife' Magic, who died in the 1920s. Cute that the two were 'married, don't you think?!
This marker simply stated Black Beauty died in 1910 but I wondered whether she was a horse like in Elizabeth Taylor's movie of the same name.
The sculpture in the Dolphin Pond was bought in Paris in the late 19th century. It was surrounded with a line of Japanese red cedars.
The Scottish thistles, the national flower of Scotland, were about five feet high!
The intricate ironwork in the English Gate with its rose, thistle and shamrock represented England, Scotland and Ireland respectively.
Beyond the gate was the Walled Garden, one of the oldest parts of the Powerscourt Gardens. Its herbaceous garden border was the longest in Ireland. We were lucky that so many flowers were still blooming at the end of August.
Not far away was the German Military Cemetery at minuscule Glencree built by the German War Graves Commission between 1959 and 1961. In agreement with the Irish government, it was located in this peaceful setting at an abandoned quarry by the Glencree River. The cemetery contained the remains of 134 Germans, 75 of whom were unidentified. The bodies had been exhumed and re-interred here from than 100 hundred sites in 15 counties throughout the Republic of Ireland.
All but six of the bodies were from WW II. Among them were 80 airmen and sailors who either died in aircraft crashes or who washed up on the Irish shoreline. At the beginning of WW II, the British authorities detained all German and Italian nationals living in Great Britain. Some of the detainees were sent to internment camps in Canada.
In a sad twist of fate, on July 2, 1940, a contingent of German and Italian detainees were on the SS Arandora Star from Liverpool, England, when the ship was torpedoed off the coast of County Donegal by a German submarine with a loss of over 800 lives. 46 of the many bodies that washed ashore were positively identified as German and were given a final resting place here in peaceful Glencree.
Take a moment to read this emotional poem written by an Irishman in honor of those who died.
The stone crosses spread throughout were symbolic memorial crosses and not related to specific graves.
From a hill high above the cemetery, we had a lovely view of this place of final rest for both German combatants and civilians. I could certainly get my head around this cemetery rather than the one for the likes of Bessie and Black Beauty!
Driving through the Wicklow Mountains was an easy way to get acclimated to driving on the left side of the road as there was hardly anyone else on the road, be it human or animal! Rebels who participated in the 1798 Irish uprising against British rule hid out in the mountains for years. The area only became more accessible in 1800 when the frustrated British built this Old Military Road to help flush out the rebels, according to travel writer Rick Steves. Though the mountains were only 15 miles from the capital city of Dublin, they felt so remote and so far away from civilization.
Though it was a pretty dreary day with gray skies, the views of the heather covering the hillsides as far as we could see were spectacular.
Here by Sally Gap we'd expected, and frankly hoped, to see freshly cut peat bricks drying in the wind by the bogs but there were none we spotted that day. I wasn't surprised as I'd always thought it was only in the 'good old days' when homes were heated with peat bricks.
I guess photos of cute sheep would have to suffice in lieu of the peat bricks! Each sheep had been marked a certain color so farmers know which ones belonged to whom in case one got astray. I 'warn' you that upcoming posts will have lots more photos of sheep as they have been about the only animals we've seen two weeks into our vacation and they are so darned cute, too!
This glacial lake, Lough Tay, was nicknamed by locals as "Guinness Lake" because the water resembled Ireland's favorite dark brown ale and its beach was akin to the head or foam atop a glass of beer! BTW - 'lough' means lake in Ireland and is pronounced 'lock.'
At the south end of the Old Military Road was Glendalough which meant 'Valley of the Two Lakes' and was the location of Ireland's "most impressive monastic settlement," again according to Steves. The monastery was founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century and continued to flourish through constant Viking raids until it was destroyed by the English in 1398. It continued as a church of local importance and a place of pilgrimage, particularly every June 3rd, St. Kevin's Feast Day. Most of the buildings dated from the 10th to the 12th centuries although restoration was undertaken in the 1870s.
Early Irish monastic traditions were influenced by hermits who lived in the Egyptian desert in the 4th century like Paul of Thebes and St. Anthony. St. Kevin's time of solitude was short lived as he was soon joined by other monks and a small settlement developed. Over the ensuing centuries, Glendalough would grow into a bustling ecclesiastical community and a major center of trade and learning. Glendalough was named as one of the four most important pilgrim sites in Ireland and it was claimed that four pilgrimages here were the equivalent of one to Rome!
Our first and very picturesque sighting of Glendalough and its Round Tower in the distance meant that we entered the monastery from the rear but we didn't realize that until later!
This pretty stone-roofed building was called St. Kevin's Kitchen but it was actually a church. Earlier visitors thought its short round tower was a chimney but it was always intended to be a belfry. Hidden under the steep stone roof was a second story which may have been used to copy holy manuscripts. Unfortunately, the 'kitchen' was closed.
The early buildings at Glendalough were made of perishable materials but by the 10th century there was a move toward building stone churches, likely due to the repeated raids on the settlement.
The Priest's House was a small 12th century building with a decorative arch at one end. It got its name from the practice of interring priests there in the 18th and 19th centuries. It may also have been a sort of treasury, housing relics of St. Kevin.
I hope it wasn't bad karma but we walked under the tilting tombstones!
After walking through the entire site, we finally found the original stone Gateway which we should have entered through initially! The gateway was originally two stories high and had two granite arches.
After the big Irish breakfasts we'd been enjoying, we definitely needed some exercise so we began exploring the lovely tree-shrouded Green Road which was really a trail through lovely forests toward both lakes after which Glendalough was named.
Yours truly at Glendalough Upper Lake. Steven and I both later commented a little bit later on our drive toward the town of Kilkenny what a wonderful 'first' day this had been touring the fabulous Irish countryside.
Next post: Rock of Cashel and getting our 'Ireland castle fix' in at Kilkenny Castle!
Posted on September 10th, 2019, from Dingle on Ireland's southwest coast.
Loved the hydrangeas (my favourite flower) and the pet cemetery (the fertile cow and the loving couple of Shetland ponies :)) xo
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