The beech trees are greening from bottom up and I'm sure the crows will be glad of it, camouflage and shelter are always useful. 
Took a turn around the teeny tiny Millennium garden near Killina, Rahan today while I was waiting for C1 to finish up. It's hard to believe that Rahan was nearly every bit as important as Clonmacnoise, that a busy cultural, financial and religious centre was centred where sheep and cattle plod about now. I'll talk about Rahan churches another time, for today I'll just mention the garden, a pet project of the late Fr. Seamus Dunican and Rahan Development association. Fr Dunican was parish priest in Rahan and a keen historian and champion for the restoration of Rahan churches. He took enormous pride in Rahan's monastic past and the creation of this small garden around a Mass rock was part of his hope that people might be drawn to Rahan for spirtual reasons.
For those who may not be familiar with the term, a Mass rock was a large stone, usually taken from a church ruin or holy site and brought to an isolated, rural spot to mark a secret location where priests celebrated Catholic mass during the mid-seventeenth century, when celebrating mass was outlawed by the Penal laws of 1695. Word of mouth spread the time and day that mass might occur at a mass rock, and priests and congregation alike risked much to attend. A bullaun stone from Rahan made it's way to Killlina.
The garden is a small walled in affair, with stones carved with historical points in Irish history. It's peaceful and pretty, a relaxing spot to visit when the day is fine and there's some time to kill between school pickups. The mass rock itself has some very old initals carved in which I must get C2 to take rubbings of at some stage. 
Small discoveries for my spring visit included a broken egg shell
and a pretty shot of blackthorn blossom:
and the reason I don't trust myself with mycology.. they may look a bit like mushrooms, but those white gills would suggest otherwise.
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