But, wait ....

What you see below is the ruins of an ancient church in the hills just above the sea, to the north and west of the village of Tully, Galway County, Ireland. This building is more than a thousand years old. The wall on the right is cut into the hillside. The wall at the rear and the wall on the left are freestanding. There is a small cemetery just a few yards away that overlooks the sea. In that cemetery is the grave of a Spanish Sailor who washed ashore after a storm. He was a member of the Spanish Armada that Admiral Nelson defeated. Some of those Spanish ships sailed up the English Channel and around the British Isles to the west, hoping to make it back to Spain. The storms they met sank many of their ships sending some of their sailors to the bottom and stranding yet others in a strange land among strange people.

Thus the source of many of the black haired, dark eyed, white skinned Irish.

 

The GRAVESTONE visible in the center of the church is from the 1800's. It was put there a long, long, time after the building itself was a ruin. I guess this one couldn't get space in one of the 'better' ruins - perhaps there was no association with the church which might have earned him a place in an abbey floor. For whatever reason, this lonely grave is the only one in the floor of this church. The altar is still there - you see it peeking around the edge of the gravestone. And the distinctive window of a church rises in the back wall above the altar. This building more than likely had a roof of thatch. the wood for that roof has long ago been taken away for a fire. Or perhaps to build a table. Or a bed. Somehow it seems right that the substance of this building, which brought such spiritual comfort to its members as a church, would serve to bring some sort of physical comfort to people in its demise.

Ndinombethe.