Uisneach and Duleek

In addition to our first move to a new Airbnb, our main goal today was to tour the Hill of Uisneach. We packed up efficiently and after some photos outside the cottage, headed out on time at 10 am. I needed a coffee during the drive, and though it wasn't intentional, we stopped at the exact same Circle K. The same girl was working. I said to her "your Florida peeps are back."

First things first, Uisneach is pronounced like ISH-nuck. The centre of Ireland in so many ways, the Hill of Uisneach is one of the most sacred and historic sanctuaries in the world. For a small fee, a storyteller would guide us in the footsteps of High Kings, Gods & Goddesses. They don't normally give tours on Mondays, but Cristina sweet-talked them into giving us a private tour on a Monday. It's her superpower.

We got to Uisneach around 12:30 for our 1 pm tour and were met at the gate by Simon, our storyteller guide. He thought our tour was at noon, but since we were the only ones that day, it didn't matter. He was super nice and easy to talk with. We told him we planned on eating a picnic lunch before the tour, and he invited us up to the little visitor center amphitheater to eat, and he could start telling us some stuff while we ate.

Once we were fed and used the loo, we started on the walk around the hill. Simon's background is in IT (he worked UX design for Facebook before getting his Master's in mythology?) but his enthusiasm for the history and stories of the Uisneach area was infectious. A lesser guide would basically make it feel like a pretty meadow with some ancient history that you're supposed to be impressed by. But Simon had such a nice balance of history and mythology and folklore, and a refreshing acknowledgment of how those all get combined and confused through the millennia, that it made sense in a very satisfying way. The highlight for me was probably when we were sitting under a sacred Hawthorne tree and Simon told us the story of the god-king Lugh and his battle with Balor, an evil supernatural being with one large eye that can shoot fire (and inspired Tolkien's creation of Sauron). I wasn't familiar with the story and I was hooked.

The summit of the hill has panoramic views, from which hills in at least twenty counties can be seen.

The tour was supposed to be three hours, but we stayed for four. The tour culminated at a large, oddly-shaped limestone rock almost 6 meters (20 ft) tall and thought to weigh over 30 tons on the southwest side of the hill. In Irish it is called the Ail na Míreann ("stone of the divisions"), as it is said to have been where the borders of the provinces met. One of the most sacred spots in Ireland, the women had to go first and invite the men (something to do with the Celtic Goddess Brigid, I think).

After the tour concluded, we finished up at the visitor's center, where Simon served us tea and biscuits. He continued to tell us stories, which pleasantly delayed our departure even more. But he had to pick his parents up from the airport, so we finally did leave.

We finally arrived in Duleek, and got settled at Connell's house. The house was huge and beautiful. The original plan was for Steve and his family to join us here, but due to COVID, they had to bow out at the last minute. We let Bella have her room of choice. After McKeen's Meadow and its questionable plumbing, the bathrooms at Connell's house were glorious.

We ate dinner at a restaurant called Tribe, built in a converted church. We all got the Monday pasta/pizza specials (well, Jacoby got a chicken burger). We ate on the patio, so we had a view of the cemetery (it's a converted church but it still looks like a church on the outside). We figured that there was a store nearby because people kept walking the path through the cemetery with groceries in hand. 

Cristina's birthday treat

After the meal, Nico, the bar manager, gave us some coasters that his friend had laser-engraved for the restaurant. Also, hearing that Bella worked in a coffee shop, he invited her behind the counter and taught her how to use the big fancy espresso machine.

By this point it was 9:30 and Nico thought that the store on the other side of the cemetery closed at 10. But when we walked down there, it was closed already. Needing some breakfast stuff, we drove to a garage (gas station) called Applegreen, but they didn't have eggs. So they sent us to Tesco (a big grocery store) and we stocked up.

Back at home, we got to bed, you guessed it, after midnight, alarms set for 7 am. Tomorrow, Cristina's birthday.