i have discovered that the trouble with efficiency is that it takes quite a lot of energy: hence, no post of My Favourite Things, which i have been planning in my head for several days. what i have actually been doing is plugging away at chapter two. wordsworth and coleridge somewhat intimidate me, even now: they have such large minds! but perhaps st. patrick will give me a blessing for it today.
on our honeymoon, we spent a morning wandering around derrynane house, in caherdaniel, co. kerry, home of the "Irish Liberator," daniel o'connell, who won freedom for irish catholics in the early 1800s. the house itself wasn't open when we arrived, so we wandered around derrynane beach and explored st. finian's abbey--a ruin of a thing that is now used as a graveyard. daniel o'connell had a replica of the ruined abbey church built at his house, and two popes attached all kinds of indulgences to it. of course, it is no longer used, now that it is in state control . . . so sad! the rest of the grounds are hugely extenseive, with all sorts of exotic gardens, a ruin of an ancient cashel, and what appeared to be the ruin of a look-out tower--but who knows. maybe it was just an old storage building. but here is a speech of daniel o'connell's. i maintain that, in a way, it is relevant now, for us. overall, he seems to have been a wise, holy, good man: a worthy inheritor of st. patrick's mission.
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