22 Miles and One Big Ol' Mountain Later...

Well, we made it through our 22 mile hike and it was quite an experience! We started in a church called Balllintubber Abbey, where St. Patrick used a local well to baptize the inhabitants of the town. We then began our pilgrimage, following the Tochar Phadraig (Patrick's Causeway), to the mountain with about 50 other people. The Tochar went through farmers fields, ancient groves, and along the stones of the ancient causeway. We started our hike at 9am and at noon we stopped at the small village of Aghagower to have lunch. We then continued our hike, in the company of a great new friend named Tony, all the way to the base of the mountain. We reached the back side of the mountain at about 4pm and began the ascent. At first, we hiked through the bogs that covered the bottom of the mountain. But then we reached the the "shoulder" of the mountain and joined the thousands of pilgrims who had come to climb the mountain and that was the hard part. The path was very steep and covered in scree type rock. It was hard going, but I can't imagine what it was like for the people who climbed the mountain barefoot! But after 45 minutes we made it to the top. We've been told that the view from the top of Croagh Patrick is amazing, but unfortunately we were enshrouded in fog for the last couple hours of our hike and so we couldn't see much from the top. But it still felt like an awesome accomplishment! We then began the hike down, and by about 6:30 pm we had made it down to the other side of the mountain to finish our pilgrimage. That night we then proceeded to go into the town of Castlebar where we stayed and order two extra large pizzas :) The next morning, our new friend Tony invited us to meet for coffee and sent us on our way with some great memories and an amazing Irish breakfast! We then drove north through Sligo, where W.B. Yeats was born and then made our way to the town of Bundoran where we stayed the night. The next day, we drove farther north, into County Donegal, and drove around some really pretty coastline and saw some cool cliffs and mountains. After that, we drove into Northern Ireland to the city of Derry (or Londonderry if you're a unionist). Derry was a really cool city and we could just feel the history of it as we were walking around. Derry is the town where Irish nationalists opposed British rule and where the Bloody Sunday massacre occurred. We walked through the area where the protesters were gunned down and it was a pretty powerful experience. We then went into the city proper and walked around the walls that surround the city. The next day we drove north to the coast and saw the Giant's Causeway. This is a formation of rocks that legend says the Irish giant, Finn McCool built all the way to Scotland. It doesn't quite stretch that far anymore but it is a really cool sight. We then drove along the Northern Ireland coast until we reached Belfast, which is where we're staying for a couple of nights. Today we're going to take a tour of the city and then tomorrow we're headed to Downpatrick, where the graves of St. Patrick and St. Brigid are located and then we'll be staying the night in the town of Drogheda for the night. Well, that's all for now, my next post will have all of the pictures from the past few days in it.