This past Saturday the SMC girls and I went to Clonmachnoise and Castletown House. Clonmachnoise was a monastic settlement that was set up by St. Ciaran before the Viking invasion and settlement of Ireland. He put it in a very good spot, on one of the largest rivers in Ireland, the Shannon, and on the Escir Riada. The Escir Riada was the way that the Irish were able to get around their boggy land back then. It was raised land that was there after the last ice age and it was their way of being above the bog. Clonmachnoise was set at the crossroad of the river and the escir. It became a great place for trade and everything else because of its location. Not much of it is left though. It was bombed many many times and Oliver Cromwell's troops finally finished it off and carried off most of the loot from the site. The ruins of the churches still stand and the place is now a large cemetery. It is still a place though that some of the Irish come to as a Holy site. There are services held there every year. In Pope John Paul II's last tour to Ireland he gave mass at Clonmachnoise. The doorway to one of the churches is called the Whispering Door. Because of the way it was made, which successive grooves, a person can whisper into one side and have another person standing on the other side and the person can hear them like they are actually whispering into their ear. They made it this way because at one point leprosy was so prevalent that the priests didn't want to contract it, it was their way of hearing confession without having to be face to face with the person. We also went to Castletown House, well us spring girls did, the full year girls had already been. Castletown House is pretty much just a huge mansion. For the first time it wasn't owned by the Butler family, most of the places we have seen were. I don't really have as much information about that, I also don't have pictures of the inside because we weren't allowed to take pictures inside. There are pictures of Clonmachnoise though if you want to check them out! Love you all!