Past villains, present spirits

On a misty, foggy day (a "soft day" to the Irish), I took my group to a castle on the coast that had been destroyed by Oliver Cromwell's boys in 1650. It's near a holy well so we were double dipping. (I'm sure Ollie's guys did their best to destroy the well also, but it didn't work.)

Below the castle there is a "storm beach" -- a beach where huge boulders are washed ashore, only to be taken out to sea by the next storm, and then returned again by the next one, sometimes even blocking the road. Someone, the Good People* no doubt, had been having a bit of fun with the stones and left us quite a little display of their mastery of the problems of balance and precision. The more you look at it the more you wonder about how they did it. There were many, many of these little wonders besides the ones pictured here.

I'm reminded of the comment of an old Irish gentleman: "The faeires? I don't believe in them myself, of course. But they exist nevertheless."

* Never refer to Irish faeries as "The Little People." It annoys them.