Ah the River Slaney, what a great river. This photo was taken on a very cloudy day down at Ferrycarrig down in Wexford.
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Communities
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Lesson 4 from the Irish National heritage park brings us to some very early dwellings known as a crannog. A crannóg is an ancient artificial island or natural island in Ireland, used for a settlement. The name may also refer to a wooden platform erected on shallow lough floors, but understandably few remains of this sort have been found. The name crannóg derives from crannoge, from Middle Irish crannóc, from Old Irish, from crann, tree.
The choice of an island as a home is thought to have been for defence and for the availability of food in the form of fish nearby. The crannog could be reached from the nearest shore by means of a causeway built up with stones, or a wooden gangway built atop raised piles.
I have one or two more pictures to put up from this fantastic visitor attraction, but I shall try not to continue giving lessons and let you enjoy the pictures instead.
Oh by the way that is Paula and Rebecca exiting the crannog after going in for a snooze.
All the above historical facts taken from Wikipedia.
History lesson number 3. This my dear visitors is a dolmen in the Irish National Heritage Park.
this quote from Wikipedia explains all.
A Dolmen is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of three or more upright stones (megaliths) supporting a large flat horizontal capstone (table). Most date from the early Neolithic period (4000 BC to 3000 BC). Dolmens were usually covered with earth or smaller stones to form a barrow, though in many cases that covering has weathered away, leaving only the stone ’skeleton’ of the burial mound intact.
The largest dolmen in Europe is the Browneshill Dolmen in County Carlow, Ireland. It’s capstone weighs about 150 tonnes.
For lesson 4 tomorrow I shall be teaching you all about Crannogs.
A lone chair sits in the middle the Irish National Heritage Park, its from the ikea era I think. More history tomorrow.
Yippee I am back from my holidays, how happy am I!
Well the trip to Enniscorthy in Wexford was excellent and very relaxing but more on that in later posts. On Wednesday we went to the Irish National Heritage Park in Ferrycarrig, and I have to say what a fantastic place to go to.
A quote from their website explains all “From campsite to Ringfort, from mill to
Fulacht Fiadh, from Crannog to Viking house, every activity is an unexpected adventure into 9000 years. The world you enter is an authentic recreation of Ireland’s heritage. Homesteads, places of ritual, burial modes and long forgotten remains will enlighten the casual visitor and interest the scholar.”
This is an image of the Church at the Early Christian Monastery. From around 550 AD a major change took place in the Irish Church, with the arrival of Monasticism. This form of Christianity originated in the Egyptian desert and spread quickly across Europe. Its ideals of seclusion and prayer seemed to appeal greatly to the Irish people, and Monastic Settlements were very quickly established throughout the country.
During this period, some of Ireland’s greatest works of art were produced, such as the
Book of Kells and the Ardagh Chalice, and Ireland became known abroad as the “Island
of Saints and Scholars”.
The monastery in the Heritage Park consists of the Church, a Monk’s cell, a scriptorium,
a refectory and garden.
So I have another Monastery to add to my collection of places visited and I have plenty more images from the park to put up over the next few days.