Kevin and Moya's 6-month ADVENTURE !!!

Sean and Gail arrived home on the Saturday and we spent the next couple of days quietly as they got over their jet lag.
On the Wednesday, the 4 of us drove north to the Boyne Valley to visit tomb sites that are older than the Pyramids by six centuries and Stonehenge by at least a thousand years. Although there are different sites, we visited Newgrange. This is a grass dome with white stone walls. It is a tomb dating from round 3200BC. Its passages align with the sun and on the shortest day the sun shines down the passage to light up the inner chamber. It was too much really. We next visited Monasterboice a derelict monastery, which boasts a number of spectacular crosses dating from the 6th century. We finally visited an early Cistercian Monastery, Mellafont Abbey which is also undergoing restoration. Another spectacular ruin. The caretaker told us that after the reformation and the sacking of the monasteries by Henry 8th that he only took the roofs of the English Monasteries but destroyed the Irish ones!!
On Thursday Sean took us both to the Chester Beatty Library which houses his collection of ancient scriptural texts and other ancient texts. It also housed an exhibition ‘Muraqqa’ a collection of Imperial Mughal paintings and texts. Most interesting.
Then on Friday we both spent time just wandering around the Temple Bar and shopping areas taking a few photos for our album. On Saturday, after watching the Aussies trash the Springboks, Sean and Kevin went to Croke Park to watch Gaelic football, and on Sunday we all went to the Hurling before boarding our plane for Liverpool on Monday.