As I was driving this afternoon from Limerick to Dublin, the road took me through the Wicklow Mountains. After several miles of gentle uphill, I finally reached the pass (Wicklow Gap) and as I turned the corner, the view was one of those that takes your breath away (I feel like I've written that once or twice...). I suppose objectively speaking, it was a visually interesting area: I was in the "saddle" between two mountains, with views of valleys in front and behind me, with peaks on my left and right. But in addition to that, the scene had a calming ambiance about it, with a cool breeze that at once kept me in the present and gave me the sensation of soaring above the earth.
I noticed a little path marker with an insignia I'd seen elsewhere in Ireland, and upon reading the plaque on the side of the road (always read the plaque!) I learned that it was St. Kevin's Path. It leads across Ireland to Glendalough, the site of St. Kevin's monastery settlement.
St. Kevin was an ascetic monk who--like the monks of Skellig Michael--sought to test his faith and serve God by living as a hermit. However, it after some time, he was discovered (actually, the story of his discovery is fun: a local farmer's cow produced twice as much milk as his other cows, and the farmer followed the cow to see what its secret was. He found it licking the feet of a sleeping St. Kevin, who was resting in his lakeside cave!) and he developed a following around 540 AD. This group grew and eventually became a monastery settlement, a community of both religious and working folk.
At the time in Ireland, there were really no cities or even towns, and these monastery settlements--independent in nature (not Cistercian, Benedictine, etc)--provided the benefits of communal living. Over the next few centuries, people would pilgrimage to Glendalough, especially pregnant women for prenatal blessings, and the Catholic Church considered seven trips to Glendalough equivalent in indulgence to one pilgrimage to Rome. Pretty convenient if you lived around the corner!
However, the settlement (like most Irish monastery settlements) started to decline at the turn of the 13th century due to the rise of Dublin, the invasion of the Normans, and the increasing pressure and influence of Continental religious orders.
Unlike my experiences elsewhere, like St. Bridget's Well, I didn't notice any pilgrims there. I did notice that there was a stall selling trinkets and a few ice cream stands... perhaps to tie in with the cow that had a fondness for St. Kevin's feet?
A non-rhetorical question I have is: why did religious devotees feel like living life as a hermit would be the best way to fulfill their devotion to God? I mean, I can't blame the monks for choosing Glendalough and Skellig Michael (among others) as gorgeous places to settle, but what was the motivation for wanting to leave "the world"? I would think that, like many other people of faith, they would want to serve God by serving others. Perhaps the seclusion allowed them to ponder God's majesty and test their resolve. I have a sneaking feeling that my questions would be answered if I checked out Wikipedia's hermitage entry...
Anyway, it turned out that the many monastery settlements in Ireland, most of which grew out of the secluded religious community movement, were instrumental in keeping the "torch of civilization"alive during the Dark Ages; after the fall of Rome, when Western Civilization was crumbling away on the European mainland, secluded monks were hunched over manuscripts and parchments, pondering and duplicating religious texts (like the Book of Kells). This preserved Western culture and purportedly made the Renaissance possible.
I noticed a little path marker with an insignia I'd seen elsewhere in Ireland, and upon reading the plaque on the side of the road (always read the plaque!) I learned that it was St. Kevin's Path. It leads across Ireland to Glendalough, the site of St. Kevin's monastery settlement.
St. Kevin was an ascetic monk who--like the monks of Skellig Michael--sought to test his faith and serve God by living as a hermit. However, it after some time, he was discovered (actually, the story of his discovery is fun: a local farmer's cow produced twice as much milk as his other cows, and the farmer followed the cow to see what its secret was. He found it licking the feet of a sleeping St. Kevin, who was resting in his lakeside cave!) and he developed a following around 540 AD. This group grew and eventually became a monastery settlement, a community of both religious and working folk.
At the time in Ireland, there were really no cities or even towns, and these monastery settlements--independent in nature (not Cistercian, Benedictine, etc)--provided the benefits of communal living. Over the next few centuries, people would pilgrimage to Glendalough, especially pregnant women for prenatal blessings, and the Catholic Church considered seven trips to Glendalough equivalent in indulgence to one pilgrimage to Rome. Pretty convenient if you lived around the corner!
However, the settlement (like most Irish monastery settlements) started to decline at the turn of the 13th century due to the rise of Dublin, the invasion of the Normans, and the increasing pressure and influence of Continental religious orders.
Unlike my experiences elsewhere, like St. Bridget's Well, I didn't notice any pilgrims there. I did notice that there was a stall selling trinkets and a few ice cream stands... perhaps to tie in with the cow that had a fondness for St. Kevin's feet?
A non-rhetorical question I have is: why did religious devotees feel like living life as a hermit would be the best way to fulfill their devotion to God? I mean, I can't blame the monks for choosing Glendalough and Skellig Michael (among others) as gorgeous places to settle, but what was the motivation for wanting to leave "the world"? I would think that, like many other people of faith, they would want to serve God by serving others. Perhaps the seclusion allowed them to ponder God's majesty and test their resolve. I have a sneaking feeling that my questions would be answered if I checked out Wikipedia's hermitage entry...
Anyway, it turned out that the many monastery settlements in Ireland, most of which grew out of the secluded religious community movement, were instrumental in keeping the "torch of civilization"alive during the Dark Ages; after the fall of Rome, when Western Civilization was crumbling away on the European mainland, secluded monks were hunched over manuscripts and parchments, pondering and duplicating religious texts (like the Book of Kells). This preserved Western culture and purportedly made the Renaissance possible.
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