Tuesday 20 April 2010

Derralossary

From Roundwood, take the Glendalough road. Drive for about 2kms and you will come to a left turn almost obscured by gorse bushes, and a church tower just visible at the top of the hill.

Drive up the lane to the church. Parking is by way of a convenient ditch.

Push open the rusty gate.

The church has no roof,

no windows.

But it has a view …

And in the corner is the the grave of Erskine Hamilton Childers, fourth President of Ireland.

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2 comments:

  1. Compulsive Cook20 April 2010 at 10:42

    Derralossary is also famous for having had a national school with a teacher but no pupils.
    The (oral tradition only) story goes that the mistress's husband beat her, so she missed school a lot. After a while, parents got fed up and moved their children to other schools, with the perverse effect that Derralossary NS became a safe haven for the abused wife, so she started to come to work regularly.
    The Parish Council did not have the authority to close the school in the middle of the school year, so she had at least a few months of peace and quiet.
    Supportive community how are ye?

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  2. Eithne20 April 2010 at 18:55

    I wonder what happened to her after that. Perhaps she tended the graveyard.

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