Drogheda - St Oliver Plunkett

Had a nice easy day today, because I'll be on the move tomorrow.

I wanted to say thank you to Mary and Nicky for allowing me to stay with them for the past few days, so I asked Mary where her favourite place was in Ireland. She said Drogheda (pronounced with a silent "g" - Dro-heda). Some of us of the older generation may remember that was the name of the homestead in the Thornbirds. Drogheda is about 50 kms north of Dublin along the coast.

Drogheda has another claim to fame though - it is the resting place of the head of St Oliver Plunkett. One of my early teaching appointments in Melbourne was at BOP's - Blessed Oliver Plunket's in Pascoe Vale. He was canonised just after I left - maybe there was a connection...???

Anyway, I also wanted to see Ollie's head one more time, so I offered to take them there and take them out for lunch, which we did.

St Peter's Church, Drogheda

St Oliver is a favourite Irish saint, and has the usual grisly end... hung drawn and quartered by the British for having the temerity to stick up for his faith.
Here's a bit from Wikipedia about Ollie
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Plunkett

Saint Oliver Plunkett (1 November 1629 – 1 July 1681) was the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. He maintained his duties in Ireland in the face of English persecution and was eventually arrested and tried for treason at a kangaroo court after lawful courts had failed to convict him. He was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn on 1 July 1681, and became the last Catholic martyr to die in England. Oliver Plunkett was beatified in 1920 and canonised in 1975, the first new Irish saint for almost seven hundred years.

Mary and I out the front of St Peter's Church, Drogheda

We started off by having a lovely lunch at the cafe near the Church... Nice soup and soda bread and Nicky had egg, beans and chips. I wasn't going anywhere near those beans!

Mary and Nicky having lunch

Then we went into the Church. It was really hard to take a pic of the head because it was inside a big gold steeple like case, and the head was a bit black! Let's just say you would have to see it in the flesh to really get the visual impression.

I lit a candle and said a prayer for all my friends in Australia, especially for the children and staff of St Oliver's where I taught.
The Church itself was beautiful...



On the way back we went through Balbriggan, which is where my maternal grandfather came from. The plan was to stop and have a coffee and take some pics, but it was getting dark and it was raining and there was no parking. So we drove straight through Balbriggan. My cousin John had tried to track down the genealogy of this part of the family, but apparently the Church was burnt down at some stage and all the Parish records with it, so we don't have any access to my Grandfather's lineage. All we know is that he moved across the water to Liverpool, and met my Grandmother who came from Leicester, and they migrated shortly before my Mum was born. She was born in Australia, but her older brothers and sisters were born in England.

So now I'm demolishing my last can of Fosters as I prepare for the daunting task of re-packing my case so that it can fit on the Aer Lingus flight to Paris tomorrow. I actually went down to the Post Office today and posted home some of the books I have collected along the journey.
That cost me 38 Euros, but I'm sure my case would've been overweight, so I might was well do it first!


So, tonight it's good bye to Ireland - a place where I have felt so much at home, and somewhere that I hope to return to. Onwards to the next stage of the journey - to Pareee..... I've enjoyed doing my own thing for a week or so.. it's been nice just to draw breath and go at my own pace for a while.

So.....

Slarn agus dirguit (Goodbye and God bless) from Ireland.