a wrong turn

 

Driving.

I miss a turn and end up in the town of Castledermot.

Mouthing curses I exit my car for a look around.

There's a church.

I go in.

People are praying the rosary.

They are praying the sorrowful mysteries.

I join them.

A half hour later I wander back into the street.

I walk down a tree lined avenue and find myself beside the round tower of Castledermot.

It's an historical thing dating supposedly from 750 AD.

Round towers were built during a period when Vikings on tour from Scandinavia regularly raided the countryside of Ireland.

Monks would retreat into the towers and be safe-ish.

This one is quite famous and near enough to where I live but I've never seen it before.

There is a locked church beside it under the joint management of Protestant Christians and the Irish government's Office Of Public Works.

The church at Castledermot would have passed to the Protestants during English King Henry the Eighth's time, maybe a little after 1533 when Henry broke with the Catholic Church.

In the grounds are two high crosses, supposedly more than a thousand years old, sculpted from stone and inlaid with images from the Bible.

Nearby is a gravemarker slab incised with runic signs, which is claimed to be the only known Viking burial slab of its type ever found in Ireland.

One of the raiders vack in 750 must have had a heart attack or something.

The whole place is pure historical treasure.

I wander to the rear of the locked up church.

Beside a modern grave I find a plastic package.

I pick it up.

It is a pregnancy test kit.

There is a door at the rear of the church covered in vulgar grafitti, swear words, phone numbers offers of sex, etc etc.

I think to myself: "If I was a Protestant Vicar in this church or an employee of the Office Of Public Works, that door would be repainted five minutes after I arrived here."

Then another thought strikes me.

Why not repaint it anyway?