A day out with Chas

Way behind!
A big day out with the Cork Historical & Archaeological Society today and my first outing with them as I made my way to Glenville in North Cork. We gathered  at the old handball alley, itself an historical monument (handball an indigenous Irish sport!) and then proceeded towards Doonpeter - a marvellous ecclesiastical site on top of a hill. There was a holy well, an old church, a graveyard, bullauns and a cilleen (burial ground for the unbaptised), plus the grave of a landowner who had converted to Catholicism and ended up with his tenants rather than in the Protestant graveyard (visited later on) with his family.
We then did a challenging 2km walk down the hill, through woodland, head-high bracken and open moorland following the river towards a mass rock. At one point we all teetered over this ingenious bridge made out of an old railway sleeper. A bit later on Aoife whipped out her fiddle and played a lament for the path was a famine road, constructed by the starving in exchange for pittance. Over 40 men and women died in its construction, buried on the same site as the Catholic convert.
The mass rock is an extraordinary thing found down by the river,  candles alight on its ledge along with two joss sticks wafting out their incense. Even more extraordinary was the grotto - it sprouted up during Covid and is now rich in offerings and other paraphernalia. 
Fuelled with a picnic, we then went on the the big house  where the Catholic convert had been brought up - that's his bust, but I don't think he can have claimed the shoes. The house was incredible - a massive pile of faded grandeur - the main rooms full of 19c wallpapers, ornate cornices, golden pelmets, Venetian chandeliers, bold colours and a whiff of dog. I loved taking sneaky peeks down the many little corridors leading to who knows where. It is still lived in by a daughter of the family, kept afloat by airbnb and letting the place out as a film location.
A great day but a lot of driving - Himself had supper ready which was followed by  a very relaxing bath!