Ireland’s Thin Places and the First Footing in the New Year
Thin places are those ‘in between’ sites where you feel neither quite in this world or in with the fairies, neither on earth or in heaven. Ireland, with its ancient myths so inextricably associated with actual locations in Ireland lends itself to having so many thin places. Also, we are in the twelve days of Christmas. While in many countries it may be business as usual, we enjoy many bank holidays, our local shops have shorter opening hours, and the world stills if not stops. This time of year is a ‘thin place.’
Some people call them ‘’liminal spaces.” This is just another way of calling thin places a threshold. A doorway is but one example of a potential thin place.
Celtic Spirituality – Ireland’s True Spiritual Heritage
Celtic Spirituality is not about doctrine but spiritual experience and was a way of life practiced by many everyday mystics for centuries. It is very much a part of Irish spiritual heritage and was practiced right up until the 7th century. It is said that those early Irish monks with their Celtic spiritual practices saved western civilization. While Rome was being sacked by barbarians and the great classical libraries of Alexandria burned, Irish monasteries were busy copying all the manuscripts in the known world. The people practiced a unique form of Christianity known in the 21st century as Celtic spirituality. Perhaps in our fast and furiously paced world we rediscover a heritage to help us encounter the divine. Celtic Spirituality created a culture for all, whether those lived in monasteries, villages and towns or beehive huts, could hope to have an everyday mystical encounter with God.
Seven Things To See in Ireland
It’s important when planning your dream trip to Ireland to make a list of things to see in Ireland. While personal research and preferences need to be taken into account, local knowledge can also be critical. So, as a friend once told me, do have your itinerary to hand but also if you get a nudge from the fairies to turn left, just do it! Over a series of articles I’ll guide you to some essential Ireland attractions. While you may want to concentrate on a particular region it’s important to have a broad category of things to see in Ireland and then find out how many may be found in the area you want to visit.
Having lived here in Ireland for a decade and spent thirty years traveling around Ireland I have to confess that this is a personal list of not to be missed things in Ireland.
Ireland at Winter Solstice
Midwinter marks the shortest day of the year and in Ireland winter solstice is a welcome signal that the days will lengthen. While we generally have mild winters what some visitors find surprising is just how short are the days. Sunrise at winter solstice this year is 9am. If it is overcast the twilight draws down the curtain by 3:30pm. While we generally have mild, rainy weather at winter solstice and during the twelve days of Christmas there have been exceptions. The period over winter solstice right through the holidays in 2009 and 2010 had record breaking low temperature and wide spread snowfall.
Real Fairy Ireland
I can proudly say that I have real fairies for my closest neighbours. While the fairies dispersed throughout Ireland, I feel that the real fairies live close to their homeplace. Real fairies were originally the Tuatha de Danaan, a race of immortals that mixed with mortal inhabitants in Bronze Age Ireland. They shared their godlike qualities but, as is the way, conflict occurred. The Tuatha de Danaan, the children of the goddess Danu, won the first bout. But they were vanquished at the Second Battle of Moytura. The real fairy folk, the Tuatha de Danaan, headed back to the place where they had originally landed in Ireland. It was here that they they ‘went to ground’ and became the earth spirits that then dispersed throughout Ireland. But at their home place their presence is particularly potent.
Celtic Spirituality and the Beautiful Ireland Countryside
December Sunrise, Cuilcagh Mountain, County Cavan
To understand Celtic Spirituality we must suspend the normal way of looking at the world and ‘sense’ the other worlds around us.”
– Donald McKinney, Celtic Spirituality for the 21st Century
If you live, as I do, deep in the beautiful Irish countryside, with only the moon lighting the lane and a wide night sky with Venus glimmering brightly, with wind and weather your close allies, there is a shift in perception. It is easy to believe, nay, know that the fairies are your close neighbours. Even in the depths of midwinter the beauty of the Irish landscape leaves me gasping. In this context it is relatively easy to shift one’s perception and open all the senses to apprehend Celtic Spirituality.
The Best Time of Year to Visit Ireland: Spring
Many people who are preparing a trip to Ireland worry about when is the best time of year to visit Ireland. In this series of articles I will tell you the positive points of each season; then you can decide for yourself what is the best time of the year to visit Ireland depending on what you want to focus on during your trip. Each part of the year has good points to consider. Using the Celtic Calendar we started with Samhain, or Winter. In this article I will focus on the reasons for you to consider Imbolc or Springtime as the best time of year to visit Ireland.
The Best Time of Year to Visit Ireland: Winter
Many people who are preparing a trip to Ireland worry about when is the best time of year to visit Ireland. In this series of articles I will tell you the positive points of each season; then you can decide for yourself what is the best time of the year to visit Ireland depending on what you want to focus on during your trip. Each part of the year has good points to consider. Using the Celtic Calendar we will start with winter, which starts at Samhain, the Irish name for the month of November.
Align Your Vision: Visiting Spiritual Places in Ireland
For travellers interested in living a spiritual life there are many spiritual places in Ireland to visit to make your vacation a true holy day ( or holiday as we call our vacations in Ireland.) I will introduce you to a few lesser known spiritual places in Ireland over a series of articles. But first off, I invite you to alight your vision so you may wholly live your one wild and precious life. Our first stop is the Sculpture Park on the shores of Lough MacNean in County Cavan.
Imagine standing before a sculpture that is a series of three pillars or standing stones. Celtic spirituality is fond of trinities so it is in keeping with this tradition that this sculpture fits into the landscape in this spiritual place in Ireland. Each stone has a circular hole drilled through it close to eye level. In order to see into the distant horizon one has to align ones’ sight to look through all three holes at the same time. The sculpture asks us to align physically so that we can see the shore on the opposite side of the lake in Northern Ireland.
You stand before these holy trinity of standing stones, which I often feel are the embodiment of prayer. I offer a silent prayer of intention as I do as a practice when I visit spiritual places in Ireland. The sculpture faces north. It allows me to look out across the lake where there is a border between the north and south of Ireland. When you align your vision you can see that in reality there is no border, only the border that is in the mind that creates labels and develops an attachment to labels.
There is an inscription on this rock sculpture by Louise Walsh, which is entitled “Imagine.”
Imagine
an island where people live in peace
Make it Real
That is a real vision that this beautiful sculpture invites us all to envisage and to come into alignment. This is a true work of art because its intention is to invite the connection to the eye of the heart rather than the myopic idea of the separate sense of self.
One of the ways to embody your vision is to connect to a physical representation like this sculpture and other great works of art. You stand before them and they invite you into a presence that exists beyond time and space. They invite you to connect with a vision that is more universal than the limited time space identity that one calls me, my or mine. These spiritual places in Ireland can take you into that kind of presence. They are also sometimes called ‘thin places.’
This writer and storyteller is blessed to live nearby to this beautiful sculpture. I stand in silent and prayerful attention before it. I look through the three holes in the hope to bring my vision into alignment as the other shore comes into view. This is the shore of sacred unity. It is an inward shore, too, that can be reflected in the outer world. This is a practical visionary endeavour.
Come and see for yourself. Visit this and other spiritual places in Ireland and align your vision. It will be a souvenir to last a lifetime.
Fairies Prefer Gold Wrapped Hershey Kisses
It’s taken me a while to figure out why fairies prefer the gold wrapped Hershey Kisses, but I think I’ve cracked the conundrum. Fairies like offerings. They also like bright shiny things for gifts. Some people leave them quartz crystals but me? I call Hershey kisses, especially the gold-wrapped Hershey kisses, fairy food.
I live in Ireland now in a part of the world where it is a perfectly rational position to believe in fairies. But I also grew up in Pennsylvania and Hershey was practically local. I had the tour of the Hershey chocolate factory with my Girl Scout troop. I swooned from the chocolate scent that pervaded the town. I was delighted to see that the street lamps were in the shape of Hershey kisses.
Image via Wikipedia
Now forty years on I am doing a last shop before I get the plane back to my life in rural Ireland amongst red squirrel, long eared bats, badgers, foxes, pine martins, dragon and damsel flies…and fairies. My last official act is to get to a drugstore and buy up ‘Fairy Food’. For that is what I call Hershey kisses now.
The traditional silver wrap is acceptable to the fairies. They not only like shiny thing; they seem to have yen for chocolate. Whenever I leave the ‘fairy food’ out it always disappears. Our ‘luck’ has also improved.
However, the gold-wrapped Hershey kisses seem to be even more popular. While the silver is like the moon shine, I finally decided that they like the gold-wrapped Hershey kisses because they reflect back whatever weak and watery Irish sunshine we do get. They appreciate that little extra glamour and glister.
So now when I am back in the States I have to go hunting around for the preferred food for fairies, the gold-wrapped Hershey Kiss. It’s all about the love and it’s also all about the giving, the offering. Fairies always play fair that way.
Follow Us!