Ireland

So Facebook has deterred me for quite a while, but I realized that Amee's friends wantto know what we are up to as well so here we go. We had an awesome 2008. Our last post was all about our vacation to Prince Edward Island. Since last summer we have had two major events. This post is about our trip to Ireland. We are invited to join a group of clergy from our diocese to visit our companion diocese of Down and Dromore in Northern Ireland.
This really was a trip of a lifetime. We began our visit with good friends of ours Tom and Kathleen trees and left a few days before we were supposed to be at our first engagemnet and went to Dublin for two days. really one afternoon and one whole day. So the first evening we went to a local pub for dinner and guiness. The next day we bought tickets for a hop on hop off bus that did guded tours around the city center. We saw such sights as the guiness brewerey, the Jameson distillery, the Claremont hotel (Owned and operated by U2), a couple castles, Trinity college, the he'pennery bridge, O'Connell street, and a very touristy dinner with music and Irish Dancing.
Then we meet with our group and began our tour of the diocese. Amee and I stayed with a clergy family in a little suberb of Belfast called Carrowdore. We visited the Palace at Armagh (the traditional home of the Arch Bishop of Ireland.) we visited the church at Saul where St. Patrick started his first church in Ireland and then went on to the cathedral of Downpatrick where it is believed that St. patrick buried along with St. Brigid and St. Columba.
We finished the trip with a four day conference in the northwest beach town of Donegal. Donegal is famous for its wool and tweed. Amee bought a skeen of Donegal wool to make a baby blanket. We had an awesmoe 12 day trip, just look at the photos.