A Vacation in Ruins

Ireland and Scotland are green. And moist (sorry if that word triggers you, but it’s true). And beautiful.

They are also filled with ruins. Everywhere we drive, major or minor stone buildings are in varying states of disarray, amidst well-kept farms, towns, cities and islands. One hollowed-out castle is part of a park with a small lake, a playground, and a sculpture walk. When we wandered into the “inside” of the castle walls, a man was throwing a ball to his dog, a child was climbing the walls, and a family was spreading a blanket for a picnic in the grassy center. It’s just part of the city.

Our first night was in a hotel called Castle Kilronan, which was more of a big manor house than a castle. Still an amazing place. It had to be completely restored because the last family that lived there couldn’t afford it, didn’t want to pay taxes on it, and so they removed the roof. If there’s no roof, it’s not technically a building for tax purposes. But even lovely restorations require maintenance. This was somewhere between Downton Abbey and Miss Havisham’s dilapidated mansion. Beautiful old furnishings, lovely rooms, fraying upholstery, stained carpet, cobwebs here and there. The attached spa had different pools, half of which had features that didn’t work. Between Covid losses of tourism and the same labor shortages we are experiencing at home, it’s pretty hard to keep it all up!

We visited the Boyle Abbey, a Cistercian abbey that is—you guessed it—in ruins. Originally built on land gifted to the monks by the McDermott clan, who enjoyed the prestige of having an abbey on their lands, it came to a sad end when Henry VIII started his new church so he could divorce one of his wives, and in the process he took over all property of the Catholic church. Eventually King James handed it over to an English nobleman who made it his home. Then that nobleman wanted a more amazing house, so he took much of the stone from the Abbey and moved it to a new site to construct his new home.

We’ve walked the edge of the misty and majestic Cliffs of Moher, we’ve traversed the island of Staffa searching for puffins, and we’ve hiked on the Isle of Skye, where rock formations are circled by green, green grass and masses of wildflowers. Rocky coastlines and, in Ireland, miles of stone walls are home to sheep, horses, cows and donkeys. The land gives way to low mountains, giving valleys a miniature Alpine feel.

Along the way, farms had new buildings built up next to the crumbling stone barns and houses of the past. Empty castles and old churches dot the landscape, any of which, if found in the U.S., would attract tourists, restoration dollars, and national park rangers. Many of them are left to decay in peace.

We visited Kylemore Abbey in Ireland, which includes a gorgeous house, church, Victorian walled gardens, all in the stunning setting of lakes and small mountains. It was built by a British man who married the daughter of an extremely wealthy and generous American. The young couple built an unbelievably grand estate and hired all the experts and used only the best materials, and guess what? He eventually lost his fortune and the house began to fall apart. A group of Benedictine nuns left Europe after their monastery burned down in World War I, bought the Abbey and tried to restore it. It’s a continuing process. They need new living quarters, but from the looks of it that particular project has been stalled for some time.

In Scotland we saw the Eilean Donan castle, which was originally built to fend off the Vikings. It lay in ruins for centuries until a man named John MacRae, who had married the daughter of a rich British family. He purchased it in 1911, at about the same time he was arguing with another member of his clan over which of them was the chief. He worked at reconstructing it over the course of 20 years. It’s a beautiful place in a dramatic setting, and his family spent some important moments of their life together there. However, he died 5 years after it was completed.

We’ve been building monuments to ourselves since the Tower of Babel, and probably before that. They leave some beautiful remains, intact or not.

Meanwhile, the limestone formations in Ireland shine on, and the water sparkles everywhere. The clouds and sun vie for control over the mountains of Scotland, and the ocean and islands teem with dolphins, whales, seals, puffins and many more creatures.

Today we toured Iona, an island that is a sacred spot for many Christians, dating back to the 7^th century. George Macleod, founder of the Iona Community in 1938, said that Iona is “a thin place where only tissue paper separates the material from the spiritual.” I understand that feeling, though I don’t experience it myself in an ancient abbey. For me, I usually find the thin space out in God’s creation, where so much of what I see was created almost entirely for the Lord’s own delight. I also find it in certain communal events or even cityscapes that bring me joy. It’s a reminder that you and I, also, are his delight, the results of his joy and creativity.