This was a tender port, and boy the tenders were jumping. Literally. We thought there was a lot of tender motion when we boarded. But after we got away from the ship, it got worse. Waves were cresting above the tender’s roof! Fortunately, we left the tender in protected waters, and the winds were down when we returned.

Our most interesting stop was St. Kevin’s monastery, which was started in the 6th century. This holy water basin was from the earliest days of the monastery.

From the 8th century

Many monasteries from that era had one of these round towers. That hole near the bottom is the only entrance. They used a rope ladder to access the tower. Nobody knows what the tower was for. It made a poor lookout. There were four floors inside accessed through wooden ladders. The interior was cold in the winter and offered little protection from the elements. Sometimes we simply don’t know.

Round Tower

St. Kevin was the main man for introducing Christianity to this part of Ireland. It is said that anybody who could wrap their hands all the way around St. Kevin’s grave marker would be forgiven of all their sins.

Danita was Unforgiven

This looks like a ho-hum old church building. Actually it uses a rare technique that locks the stones together. It is an engineering tour de force. I’ll take their word for it.

Tomorrow we’ll visit Glasgow, where I hope to be a Viking and storm a castle.