Let's Climb Croagh Patrick!

We left Friday morning from the hotel at 8:30am.  This weekend's adventure was to County Mayo.  Mayo is also in the mountainous region of Connemara but has another culture all its own.  Our first stop of the day was at the Ballintubber Abbey.  Another beautiful church!  A few of the guys were teasing that they were going to ask a Galway girl to marry them in the Ballintubber Abbey.  Apparently Pierce Brosnan was married there...  Anyway, the reason this church is so special is because this is where the pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick starts.  Saint Patrick started his journey from this church, walked 22 miles to the mountain, and then climbed it.  Each year when people gather to make this same pilgrimage they start at this church and walk to the mountain.  I got a nice picture of where it starts (will be on facebook).  Most of the church was destroyed by the army of Oliver Cromwell, but even the remains are cool.  The next stop of the day was the Foxford Woolen Mills.  Here we got to actually go through their factory and see blankets being made.  Then we watched a short video about the history of it.  It was actually really cool to see.  The third stop of the day was at the Hennigan's Heritage Center.  Basically it was a museum type thing dedicated to the peasants and rural people of Ireland back in the day.  We started in the house that they guy who runs the Center (Tom) lived during his childhood.  The house was tiny and jam packed with all the necessary items, the family, and the animals.  It was hard to imagine everything and everyone fitting in there.  We were told many stories about what life was like for the poor in Ireland and how they made it day to day.  Tom also gave us his perspective on the great famine.  Basically saying that it really shouldn't be called a "famine" because a famine is a shortage of food.  Apparently there wasn't a shortage of food.  What happened was England took away all of their rights (fishing for example) and food options.  They exported it out of Ireland in order to punish them.  This is why the people of Ireland had to depend on the potato for their bulk of their food, that was all that they had left that they could depend on.  This is also the reason why it was such a disaster when the potatoes were infected with blight.  Anyway, I digress...  We spent that night in the town of Westport at a really nice hostel that we had all to ourselves.  I ended up having a double bed and it was glorious.  That night in Westport they had some kind of culture night where all of the art galleries were open for viewing until like 11pm.  So we decided to culture ourselves and so we went to a gallery where we received a free glass of wine and got to look at and interpret the paintings.  It was a really nice change of pace after being busy all day and just being able to relax.  

We left the hostel this morning (Saturday) at 8:30am.  From here we started our journey to climb Croagh Patrick.  This mountain is the famous one that Saint Patrick himself climbed, fasted for 40 days, and then banished the snakes from Ireland.  Also, on "Reek Sunday" which is the last Sunday in July 15,000 pilgrims climb that mountain every year.  The day before the climb I thought that I would just climb it a little and then head back down, thinking that I would take it easy.  This morning, however, I decided that I would try to scale the whole thing.  When we got off the bus we were told that the average climbs up to the top in 2 hours and climbs back down in an hour and a half.  I took a couple pics of the mountain and then began my journey up.  I made it to the top in an hour and a half!  It was a hard climb but it was totally worth it!  At the top of the mountain it was very misty...everyone looked like they had just stepped out of the shower.  The wind was also incredibly strong.  The group of us met at the top and basked in the fact that we had made it!  It really was a great experience!  At the top we talked to an older couple that had climbed up there.  The man told us that it was his 7th trip up there that year!  Its unbelievable that people hike up there sometimes on a regular basis.  On the way back down I passed by a family that was hiking up and the little girl asked me if it was much farther.  I unfortunately had to tell her that there was still a ways to go.  The scenery coming down was absolutely gorgeous and I paused several times to just enjoy it (and enjoy the fact that I was going down and not up!).  We had other things planned to do that day after the climb but our director saw how tired we were and we pretty much just headed back to our cottages near Spiddal.  Oh!  So the "tradition" is for pilgrims to climb Croagh Patrick barefoot.  I'm amazed to report that 3 of the guys on my trip actually did the entire climb barefoot!!  I think it's just absolutely amazing that they did this.  One of the guys names was even Patrick.  On the way down they did put their shoes back on because it was actually really slippery and quite difficult.  Another thing that we did before we climbed back down the mountain was that we all made a circle and said a prayer.  Again, it was an amazing experience and I'm so glad that I put in the effort and made it to the top!