Bangor Abbey and Beyond!
May 14, 2025 We left for Newark Liberty Airport around 1:00pm for a 5:30 flight to Dublin, Ireland.
Conrad drove us for free, saying it was his donation to our trip. The four us leaving were Ann, Kathleen, Tom and myself,
Aer Lingus was a great trip. I watched “A Complete Unknown”, the docudrama about Bob Dylan. And actually arrived an hour earlier, touching down at 5:30am Dublin time. The flight took 6 and 1/2 hours. The flight was uneventful, except that we three women were so excited about this prayer journey that we never slept.
Conrad drove us for free, saying it was his donation to our trip. The four us leaving were Ann, Kathleen, Tom and myself,
Aer Lingus was a great trip. I watched “A Complete Unknown”, the docudrama about Bob Dylan. And actually arrived an hour earlier, touching down at 5:30am Dublin time. The flight took 6 and 1/2 hours. The flight was uneventful, except that we three women were so excited about this prayer journey that we never slept.
Darlene, Richard and Latoya arrived from Dulles Airport shortly after we did so we picked up our luggage and headed for the car rental agency. We used Alamo. (This is important to remember in a future post.)
Tom, my hubs, had said that he would drive. He was the only one who had driven on the left side of the road. But that had been 30 years ago. I was going to be his navigator until we turned onto the first road. Then I involuntarily threw up my hands to cover my eyes and screamed, “Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!” That was the last time I sat in the front seat. Richard took over as navigator. Still, from my back row seat I kept my hands over my eyes all the time that day.
We went immediately to our first spot on our list, The Hill of Slaine, in the Republic of Ireland. On this site, round about 400 AD St Patrick lit the first Easter bonfire in defiance of the high king of Ireland. The hight king had made an edict that no one could light bonfires on the holiday of Beltian before he lit the first one.Beltian was a high holy day in the pagan calendar. But Easter fell on that day and St. Patrick lit his bonfire before the king’s Beltian fire was lit. It was the beginning of a long and rocky relationship.
We went immediately to our first spot on our list, The Hill of Slaine, in the Republic of Ireland. On this site, round about 400 AD St Patrick lit the first Easter bonfire in defiance of the high king of Ireland. The hight king had made an edict that no one could light bonfires on the holiday of Beltian before he lit the first one.Beltian was a high holy day in the pagan calendar. But Easter fell on that day and St. Patrick lit his bonfire before the king’s Beltian fire was lit. It was the beginning of a long and rocky relationship.
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This castle and church are not as old as that but date to the mid 1100s. That’s mighty old!
I was asked to pull out my Baby Martin and lead a song. The one I chose was, “I Belong.” It’s about how we can live free of the worries of life because Jesus paid for each of us to be free. Unfortunately, the bronchitis that I was dealing with robbed me of my singing voice and because of the of the persistent cough I was not asked to lead in song for the rest of the journey.
The purpose of this prayer journey was to visit sites around Great Britain; Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England as well as the Republic of Ireland. We would visit sites of revival, pray and pick up and deposit seeds of revival. We would drop seeds of revival from the USA and pick up seeds to bring back to the USA. I wanted to bring physical seeds with me to deposit at each site but quickly learned that seeds of any kind are difficult to bring to foreign countries, so that was cancelled.
The purpose of this prayer journey was to visit sites around Great Britain; Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England as well as the Republic of Ireland. We would visit sites of revival, pray and pick up and deposit seeds of revival. We would drop seeds of revival from the USA and pick up seeds to bring back to the USA. I wanted to bring physical seeds with me to deposit at each site but quickly learned that seeds of any kind are difficult to bring to foreign countries, so that was cancelled.
Then, at the Hill of Slain, the Lord told me to find a fluffy dandelion and blow the seeds in the prophetic act of planting seeds of revival wherever I went. And there, in the shade of an ivy hedge, I found my first dandelion!
Having prayed, walked and praised the Lord, we got back in the van and drove to our first B&B, the Shelleven House, in the seaside village of Bangor, Northern Ireland. It’s an inviting place with a touch of class. The breakfast that was
provided was perfect! And I had a piece of black pudding.
Having prayed, walked and praised the Lord, we got back in the van and drove to our first B&B, the Shelleven House, in the seaside village of Bangor, Northern Ireland. It’s an inviting place with a touch of class. The breakfast that was
provided was perfect! And I had a piece of black pudding.
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We drove to the harbor and sat along a stone wall, watching the sunset and a band of children playing in the tidal pools. We also watched the sailing many boats. There seemed to be race going on, or it might have been a class.
We ordered Fish and Chips and they were excellent! And we ate them while sitting on the stone wall and watched the sun go down.
We ordered Fish and Chips and they were excellent! And we ate them while sitting on the stone wall and watched the sun go down.
One pretty negative thing that we discovered was that we couldn’t use our cell phones. We had been assured that we would be able to.
It turned out to be pretty frustrating as we used other’s phones to keep in touch with our daughter who was holding down the fort at home. Oh well. What are ya gunna do?
It turned out to be pretty frustrating as we used other’s phones to keep in touch with our daughter who was holding down the fort at home. Oh well. What are ya gunna do?