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Monday 5 January 2009

Wot I saw on my holidays

Wot I saw on my holidays.
- by Po, age (inaudible mumblings).


Hills and mountains - many
Sheep - very many
ponies - many
Irish people - not very many
Polish people - very many
South African people - 6 (too many?)
Quiet Man tourist attractions - way too many
lucky four leaf clovers - none
polar bears - 3

It has been very cold in the IrEnglandish part of the world. The polar bears mingled amongst the sheep and blended in quite well.

It was not my first time in Ireland, but as usual the most wonderful thing about it for me is that it has space. It is relatively empty. You can go out in the country and see nothing and no one. In England space is hard to come by.

The most unusual thing I saw in Ireland was this:


A thingy. I don't know what it is called. The thingy in itself is not unusual, but this is what was written on it:



A quote by Desmond Tutu. In a deserted, windswept valley that looks like this (and when I say windswept I mean "wind that started in the Arctic and stopped by Alaska for an apprenticeship, then built up speed over Siberia and then called in to blow icicles in our faces - swept"):




Apparently this stone commemorates a yearly walk that remembers the Doolough tragedy of 1849, where 400 people, while walking through the mountains in search of food or work, got swept into the sea by the wind and drowned. What did I tell you about that wind? It seems the Archbishop participated in 1991. Um, does this mean he got blown into the sea?

Who would have thought you would find a Tutu inscription in the middle of Irish nowhereness? Pretty cool.

6 comments:

6000 said...

Ah... Dessie gets everywhere.

So this wind thing - like a cold Cape Doctor, was it?

Anonymous said...

Looks a bit like a Celtic cross. You saw an inscription about Desmond, but not little green elves? Go figure!

Love the pictures... and thanks for sending those icy winds our way! ;-)

Miss Caught Up said...

Hmmmm... looks pretty interesting! I want to go...

po said...

6000: cold is not the right word. icicular is the word (admittedly a word i just made up).

Ladyfi: ah yes, the thingy. And i think in terms of the winds, you sent them our way rather?

miss caught up: ireland is great. The accents are my favourite ever!

Medio Pomelo said...

Great pictures and i do agree with you about the space thing: it is great how there is so much of it in Ireland! Apart from the Poles didn't you also come across with half the population of Spain?

po said...

medio: not one spanish person, why, are they common in Ireland? some brazilians, yes