Hook Peninsula

Before I move on to today’s adventure, two photos from yesterday. From the top of Enniscorthy Castle, I liked the look of the rooftops below.

The dot on the hill in the distance is the Norman tower atop Vinegar Hill:

I should also mention that we saw the film Loving Vincent last night and listened to a Q&A with one of the 125 artists who slaved away on the film for two years. Twelve paintings were created for each SECOND in the film. Hard to conceive. It was brilliant and what a wonderful offering for a group of artists (and hangers on like me).
So today I struck out for Hook Peninsula. On the way, I passed an interesting cemetery near Wellingtonbridge.

Across the lake behind the cemetery, I noticed a ruin, which I used my not-so-great telescope feature to photograph:

There are quite a lot of ruins in County Wexford. My first stop was Tintern Abbey, like all abbeys, it was closed during the Cromwellian era.

I couldn’t get a photo of the front of the abbey because there was a row of cars and equipment parked right up against it. Ireland just doesn’t quite get how to make the most of its historic properties. I came to the abbey to see its 2.5 acre walled garden.


It has been restored by volunteers over the past decade.

It has 10 heirloom apple varieties, including Transparent Jean and Drummers Pippin. Also plum and pear trees.




I stepped into another barley field to watch the wind play with the seed heads.

Then I had lunch right next to the abbey:

To the Lighthouse!

Hook Lighthouse is 846 years old! Incredible. Its lantern was kept lit by Cistercian monks from Tintern Abbey for a few hundred years. They carried coal up the 115 steps to light the beacon at the top. Then whale oil, then paraffin oil, then gas, then electricity.

From Wiki: "Hook Lighthouse is one of the most fascinating examples of medieval architecture in Ireland. The tower stands four stories high with walls up to 4m thick. The tower itself consists of three rib-vaulted chambers in the lower tier.” Below is one of the rib vaults, built by laying stones on top of a wooden arch then dropping a keystone into the top of the stone arch and removing the wooden scaffold. Brilliant.


The view from the top:

At this point, my camera died. The rest of the trip photos were on my phone. Here’s me on top of the world.

These are the last set of stairs to the beacon, which we didn’t visit.

And this is the view heading back down.

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