8/31: Kilkenny Cloisters, Ros Tapestry, JFK Homestead & Hook Lighthouse!

We took a very roundabout way of getting to Waterford, our final destination at the end of the day, wanting to take advantage of the beautiful scenery and almost empty back roads that Ireland is so famous for. Kells Priory, which locals claim is the largest monastic complex in Europe, seemed to arise out of nowhere just beyond a one-lane bridge near the tiny village or hamlet of Stoneyford.

The Priory was founded by Norman soldiers of fortune and Augustinian monks in tow in 1193. It succeeded an earlier church which was dedicated to St. Mary, the Blessed Virgin, and served as parish church to the nearby village of Kells. During its first century and a half, the priory was attacked and burned on three occasions. The walls and fortifications likely dated to this period of unrest. When the dissolution of Kells Priory and other Catholic monastic sites was ordered by King Henry VIII in March 1540, the priory's church and property were surrendered to James Butler, 9th Earl of Ormonde, whose holdings included the Kilkenny Castle, located fewer than nine miles away. 

We obviously didn't enter the 'regular way' as we trod over fields full of sheep who didn't look kindly at us as we invaded their territory!

With its collection of medieval tower houses spaced at intervals along and within walls of the three-acre site, the priory looked more like a fortress than a place of worship. It therefore made sense it also went by its local name of 'Seven Castles of Kells.'

As there were no guides or signs telling us what was what at the Priory, we simply walked around the medieval site and admired the buildings. I would so much more have appreciated some signage at least to bring the place to life so we could have gotten a better appreciation of what we were looking at. As it was, Kells Priory was simply a collection of ruins for us, albeit very photogenic ones, and therefore sadly lacking.

When archaeological digs were carried out from 1972-75 and also in 1980, about 1,600 fragments of colored glass were found which allowed historians to recreate possible window patterns. Also discovered were over 3,700 tile fragments from what would have been the church floor.

I red that just inside the front doors of several towers were 'murder holes' so that if intruders gained entry past the initial entrance, the holes were the second line of defense. Another means of defense were arrow slits in which arrows could be shot out through the narrow slits as we'd also seen in the Kilkenny Castle the previous day. But, I didn't see any narrow slits at the Priory!

At a junction near the Priory en route to Jerpoint Abbey was this statue honoring Mary. It was the first of several we've seen on rural roads here in Ireland. 

When planning our trip to Ireland, we soon realized that the country was dotted with abbey ruins. Few, though, were as notable apparently as Jerpoint Abbey which was founded in 1180 by the Cistercian or 'white monks' who came to Ireland from France in the 12th century. Known as devoted reformers they saw their holy mission was to bring the "wild Irish Christian church which had evolved, unsupervised, for centuries on the European fringe, back in line with Rome."

The preexisting form of Celtic Christianity that had flourished in the Dark Ages gave way to the Cistercians and their austere life of prayer and hard work.

Thanks to a helpful booklet we purchased and a few signs, we were able to figure out what was what at Jerpoint. This was the North Transept which had two vaulted side chapels and tombs from about 1500. 

One panel showed a group of saints called 'weepers' carved by the O'Tunney family, famous 15th and 16th century stone sculptors from Callan.

The Chancel was the oldest part of the church but its window 'only' dated from the 14th century. 

There were three tomb niches and, above those, faint traces of wall paintings which depicted heraldic shields. 

The South Transept also had two vaulted side chapels.

An unusual slab had two mail-clad 13th century knights incised in stone, known as The Brethren. 

The austere rule of the early Cistercians forbade the building of a stone tower so the Crossing Tower at Jerpoint, as at many Cistercian abbeys, was added in the 15th century. 

When I climbed the narrow staircase by the North Transept, I had an adorable view of Steven who was patiently waiting and relaxing in the sun in the lovely cloisters while it lasted!

This shot gives you a sense of perspective as the South Transept was on the left and the North, obviously, was on the right but hidden by the wall. Where I was standing there would have been dormitory rooms for the monks.

A view of the Tower and the North Transept from the cloisters on the south side:

Since our time in Spain last fall where we saw a gazillion churches, Steven and I have been intrigued by cloisters so coming across this very special one at Jerpoint reminded us of Spain. One of the most outstanding features of Jerpoint was the cloister arcade that was partially reconstructed in 1953. I had a hoot looking at the carvings that ranged from human figures such as a bishop, a knight or his lady to small unexpected ones in corners.

I felt like a kid at Christmas wondering what sight I might come upon at the next opening! Sometimes, I was disappointed when openings had been left empty.

This one would give a poor child nightmares!

I am so glad that Steven took on the job as the driver and left me to simply navigate as Steven commented it has meant his not being able to take his eyes off the incredibly narrow two-lane roads where he's faced with one blind curve after another, with no separate lane or space for walkers and cyclists.  Of course, there are rarely any lane markings either. They wouldn't be much good as you literally couldn't fit two cars side by side on the roads as they were, and continue to be, too narrow.

Consider all those factors and then add in a speed limit of normally 55 mph, and the lanes are for cars, farm vehicles, huge tour buses, etc! I can't tell you the number of times when we've seen a car coming toward us which meant Steven and the other driver both have to pass with just inches to spare and each scratching the sides of the cars as we're so close to the hedgerows. Never before have I seen walkers wearing safety vests as so many do in the narrow lanes here in Ireland.

I felt badly that Steven couldn't enjoy the bucolic pastoral scenes like these as I could as he was focused on his driving. 

From Jerpoint we headed south toward the market town of New Ross just over from County Kilkenny in County Wexford, the south easternmost county in the Irish Republic. We added the town to our itinerary as it had the famous collection of fifteen tapestries that tell the story of the Normans' arrival during the medieval era in southeast Ireland made by over 150 local women and a couple of men beginning twenty years ago. 

I'm not an embroiderer but have loved to knit for more decades than I care to tell you so I was interested in seeing how such a major undertaking got started and what the Ros Tapestry: A Tale Told in Thread looked like. Claire, the guide and one of the contributors, mentioned that the project came about when the clergyman at St. Mary's Church in New Ross thought having a tapestry history would be wonderful to hang in his church. Little did he realize, I'm sure, how that wish evolved into such a massive project!

Claire told us that each prospective contributor was asked to provide a sample piece to ascertain the quality of her work and command of the necessary stitches. Hers was on the pillow in the photo below. Fourteen of the fifteen panels have been completed and were on show in the gallery as it was finally decided that the finished tapestries wouldn't fare well in the church as was intended. 

The design, vision thoughts and interpretation of the projects were all through the eyes of Irish artist Reiltin Murphy. While in the upstairs workshop where most of the work is done, Claire mentioned that only women started the project initially but that changed when Josh, an emigre from Ghana, offered to help when he wasn't allowed to work. He had learned to embroider from his mother back home, Claire said. 

After the Norman tapestries were almost completed, the women decided to work on another one called Threads of Friendship: Coming Home indicating the close ties between the people of Ireland and the United States. Another one is also in the works called Threads of Friendship: Unity about Ireland and the European Union diaspora as about 2,500 Europeans have emigrated to Ireland each year.  For the European tapestry, the setting was two women in a garden playing an old game called Cat's Cradle with the image translated as Erin and Europa. The border contains each flag with its flower or emblem.

Another one was also in the works called Threads of Friendship: Coming Home indicating the close ties between the people of Ireland and the United States. The Coming Home tapestry also had two main figures in a garden setting with the border containing state flags and their emblems. The Irish woman is older than her female relative Coming Home from the United States to symbolize that Ireland is the country of origin. The American woman was accompanied by her husband and their small child. Associated with the women were images of their common ancestors as seen in the framed image of one of them that shared family facial features. 

You an see the White House tucked in here. 

The scale of the Ros Tapestry was unparalleled in Europe with so many participants in the community embroidery art project. Extensive historical research by the artist ensured the panels were "an important and vital resource for an increased understanding of the development of culture, trade, language and warfare in early medieval Ireland. 

After learning from Claire about the intriguing background of the Ros Tapestry, we were ready to finally view the panels as you might imagine. I took umpteen photos of the history depicted in each panel with the initial thought of providing a summary here but I don't have the time and I suspect many of you won't have the interest in the history shown in each panel. Therefore, I will let the tremendous artwork speak for itself. 

Of course, just like the tapestry designs we'd seen in the workshop, each inch of the borders told their own story in these panels, too. 

Because of the tremendous cost entailed in producing the tapestries, most of the panels had been underwritten by corporate sponsors. 

The ninth panel showed Hook Head Lighthouse, an enduring legacy of the Normans since 1200, and where we were headed later that day. I am going to get ahead of myself here and state Hook Head claims to be the oldest operating lighthouse in Europe and that it was crucial to shipping and trade routes as it replaced the bonfires kept by monks for centuries. 

Sorry, I can't stop myself here! The tenth panel showed the building of St. Mary's Church and the town of New Ross founded by Isabel de Clare, the heiress of the vast Pembroke estates in Ireland, England, Wales and France, and William Marshal, her husband, a knight. As a result of learning so much about the church through these tapestries, we detoured there after seeing the Ros Tapestry. 

Isabel was shown poring over the plans for the church while her husband was being shown them astride his horse. 

Even our interest petered out after listening to the audio guide describe about a dozen panels in minute detail so that I couldn't even finish listening to it. That says something as I normally thrive on that much detail! The long and short of it is, if you ever find yourself near New Ross in southeast Ireland, I urge you to stop and see the one of a kind Ros Tapestry. It'll be worth however long you decide to spend at this very different type of history museum!

Directly across from the Ros Tapestry Gallery was the JFK Memorial as here in the 1840s, thousands waved goodbye to their old lives and opened a new, more hopeful chapter. One of them was 26-year-old Patrick Kennedy, the great grandfather of JFK, who emigrated from Dunganstown just three miles way as he had no prospects as the third son of a small farmer when the Great Potato Famine hit Ireland in the 1840s. 

He sailed on the Washington Irving whose conditions and abusive crew finally caught the attention of the British government in 1849. Conditions on the ships transporting the Irish seeking a better life in America was so horrific they became known as 'coffin ships.'

Views of the very picturesque New Ross waterfront: 

We'd planned to tour the permanently moored Dunbrody Famine Ship, a full-scale reconstruction of a three-masted bark built in Quebec, that sailed to the US full of countless hungry Irish emigrants but we ran out of time.

Just by the ship was the very poignant Emigrant Flame that was first lit with fire taken from the Eternal Flame at the graveside of JFK in Arlington. On June 22, 2013, exactly 50 years after JFK's visit to the hometown of his forefathers, his sister, daughter and distant Irish relative together lit the flame. "The flame burns permanently to remember all emigrants throughout the world."

St. Mary's Church, built in the early 1200s by Isabel de Clare and her husband, the founders of the town of New Ross, was the largest church built in that century.

A short drive away was the Kennedy Homestead that distant relatives of JFK and his siblings had turned into a museum cum shrine for Kennedy fans and history buffs. There was an extensive exhibition in the Visitors Center about their Irish heritage, JFK's visit here a few months before his tragic death, and then its  aftermath.

At the JFK Memorial in town, it stated that Patrick Kennedy sailed on the Washington Irving but the information at the Homestead indicated he sailed on the Dunbrody.

JFK was the only Catholic President, the only one to win the Pulitzer Prize, and the only one to sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. He established the Peace Corps and promised to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade and that dream was, of course, achieved by Neil Armstrong in July of 1969.

As James Reston wrote, "What was killed in Dallas was not only the President but the promise. The heart of the Kennedy legend is what might have been."

When the President visited the homestead, JFK met with his distant cousin, Mary Ryan, outside this home. Her grandson still lived there. A few feet away was a barn with knickknacks and photos of his visit at one end and what it may have looked like when his great grandfather, Patrick, lived there before he emigrated. 

I can't tell you how eerie it was to see the actual wreath JFK placed at the tomb of one of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising just a few months before he, too, was executed. 

I thought the museum did a masterful job honoring not only JFK but the entire Kennedy clan showing their dedication to public service and the personal tolls that resulted. 

Our last stop of the day was the Hook Head Lighthouse which was constructed 800 plus years ago by the Normans who first landed five miles up the coast. The original building was not only still intact but still in operation! It has been automated since 1996 and was built following a plan inspired by the lighthouse in Alexandria, Egypt!

As we learned in the Ros Tapestry, Cistercian monks tended the coal-burning beacons for the Normans before the lighthouse was constructed!

As we walked closer, we noticed the former guard houses and the armory.

The weather that entire day was as picture perfect as you could hope for, especially for the end of summer in Ireland! That was why we decided to go for a walk along the coastline behind the lighthouse although that was strongly recommended against by lighthouse officials because of safety concerns.

We'd started the day in Kilkenny and, as I mentioned at the top of the post, we were taking a very circuitous route to Waterford - if we'd gone directly, it would have been about a 45-minute drive. But we made it there after about 10 hours, heading north to Kells Priory, south to Jerpoint Abbey, east to New Ross, etc, etc! But, wow, did we have a fun day, full of a dose of religion, culture, politics and nature.

Next post: The famous Waterford crystal - oh my, oh my!

Posted at an ungodly hour of the morning on September 12th, 2019, from Galway on Ireland's west coast!