I have been writing down all the quotes I underlined in "North and South" by Glaskill and putting them in my journal and decided to put some of them up here on this post even though they have nothing at all to do with Ireland.  Eti said to me once as we were taking a walk, he was holding my hand and kicking at the fallen leaves and said "I have two things to tell you Mom and they don't match" So that is this blog, it doesn't make sense putting it all up on one post, but here it is just the same..

I have had on a slip of paper since I came back from ireland "Look up Grace O' Malley"  Wait let me back up a bit, Steve and I were on some tiny little road coming back from Connemara and we see a very small almost hidden sign that said Aughnanure Castle and Steve yanks the wheel and now we were on an even smaller, if that's possible, dirt road until we came upon the castle. 

We had not read about it in any of the tour guides which made it more special to us,  we had discovered it on the "path less traveled".  The castle was closed and we were disappointed because I was all about the Abbeys and steve wanted so badly to really tour an old castle that was not touristy.  So we decided to some back the following morning.

It was a little rushed in the sense that it was the morning of Niamh's wedding'  I will never say again in all my life that I toured a castle before heading on to the wedding I was about to shoot.

We had the place mostly to ourselves, well there was the one American tourist who was standing in one of the towers saying "hello" over and over again to hear his echo.

One of the most notable people attached to this castle was Grace O' Malley there was very little written about her on the pamphlet they hand out except that she was a pirate.  When she was Six she wanted to go on the boat with her father but he wouldn't let her because of her being a girl, so she cut her hair and snuck on and from there on proved herself to be fierce and strong.  She married in to the O'Flaherty family who built this castle in the 1500's.

I knelt in the yard of the castle looking for a four leaf clover for my Sister Juls, could not find any and had to settle for taking a shot to prove to her that I tried.

"I surely am mistress enough of myself to control this wild, strange, miserable feeling." (pg 299)

" Come! Poor little heart!  Be cheery and brave!" (pg 304)

I did not know Steve had the point and shoot out, we were leaving the castle and about to tour the grounds when he called me, and took this photo above. 

"We have all of us one human heart" (quoting Wordsworth) (pg 380)

"Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra"  "Do what you should do, come what may."

Inside the castle it was not furnished but you could tour every room, there were trap doors and secret chambers, and a very large fireplace in most of the rooms.  Articles and poetry have been written about the bats in this castle, they are famous. There are so many of them you can hear them in the walls.  I was hoping to see some, mostly so I could tell my boys.  I aimed the camera inside the fireplace with the flash but could not see anything and no flood of bats came pouring down on me.

The fashion at the wedding was really different than what we wear in the states and so much fun to see, I picked out a few pictures I took to show my friends what I was trying to describe.

The lady below is named Attracta after a  5th century patron saint of Co. Sligo Ireland.    There are myths circulating about this saint as having slayed a dragon to protect the local farmers.  She is most known for the hostels she started and the kindness she showed to the poor, some of the hostels remained open until the 1500's.  The Attracta I met was poised, feminine, and carried the name well.

"On some such night as this she remembered promising to herself to live as brave and noble a life as any heroine she had ever read.. a life sans peur et sans reproche." (without fear and without reproach) (Pg 373)

"Edith's life seemed like the the deep vault of the blue sky above her, free utterly free." (pg 62)

I love how the boyfriend is looking over at her and the way he is holding her hand, I did not pose him he just naturally followed her around with his eyes.