*Picture taken by Mike Sullivan (my husband) near the Rock of Cashel. Road leads to Hore Abbey, an ruin of an old Abbey. (We didn't make it to this abbey on this trip)

My heart lies in Ireland.... in her hills and her castles.
I dream in vivid colors - of green so lush and rich that is hard to believe.
I dream of narrow roads, rock walls dividing farms and land...
rocky farms and sparse and spare mountains with monolithic graves on top

The beating of my heart throbs to drums that beat in the past....
...a past so close that you try to brush it away from your face, like a cobweb
Warriors and cheiftans of past kingdoms ride wearily by on their chargers
A rich history of turmoil, beauty, poetry and death

Clans hating each other and fighting for parcels of land
...killing one another for the future that belonged to the English
A famine that killed irish men, women and children.....indescriminate of whom it took....
not caring of the destruction and devastation of families and land

Land that wept as its children abandoned her for a new life across the sea...
leaving behind families, lovers and ghosts who drifted looking for their loved ones
Castles crumbled...lit by fire and legend and haunted by banshees
that cried out warnings to their clans of impending death and disaster



The mists of pearlized air that drift around the valleys and hills of
counties like Clare, Offaly, Kerry, Roscommon, Kilkenny and Cork....
mists that thrive in the atmosphere that is uniquely Ireland
These mists hid enemies and sparked legends and songs.

Abbies, Monesteries, Druids and Sacred Forests once thrived in the troubled land....
religious centers like Cashel and Tara are now crowned by broken chapels, empty hills
and long forgotten symbols that are no longer revered as they once were...
and traditions that still flame to life when they are remembered

My heart lies in Ireland.... in her hills and her castles.
I dream in vivid colors - of green so lush and rich that is hard to believe.
I dream of narrow roads, rock walls dividing farms and land...
rocky farms and sparse and spare mountains with monolithic graves on top.