Since the moment I had seen a picture of the Rock of Cashel, I knew that I had to go there. It was a trek to Cashel, but well worth it. Atop a hill in the middle of town, sat a ruined cathedral and round tower – a relic of two pasts – and from the top we could see green pasture for miles around.
The Rock of Cashel was full of ravens. The huge black birds, who oddly enough frequented almost every cemetery or monastic ruin that I visited, swarmed around this particular place. At one point, a loud noise startled them, and hundreds of them took flight and circled the Rock again and again until they settled back down.
This is one of the places in Ireland that I freaked out a little with the magic of it all – I lost myself in the bricks, the crows, the open sky.
The Rock of Cashel, a set of monastic ruins, sit on top of a hill overlooking the entire valley. We actually walked all the way out to those ruins (through the very muddy grass) to find some graffiti and beer cans. More memorable, however, was how free we were to wander about the ruins. We were completely alone and could do whatever we wanted to. Gorgeous.
The piece on the left used to be a giant Celtic cross, the top of which has since fallen and lies between the base and the wall surrounding the entire hill on which the ruins sit.