
I am not a morning person; never have been. While I work on it, I find that I fall into the category of a ‘slow mover’ in the morning. The idea of catching a sunrise, regardless of the country, isn’t something that I gravitate towards. But Tammy wanted that sunrise with the Rock of Cashel.
The night before I informed our hosts that while we would be leaving early in the morning, we would be back for breakfast. When I explained what the morning’s agenda was, I saw the one eyebrow raise in question. You do know that this is Ireland? Sunrise … Ireland? I smiled and simply responded that we were going to give it a try.
Jet lag and sunrises do not go together well … and in my case, not at all. I also discovered that Tammy and I had different definitions of ‘sunrise’. For me, it is the actual time that sun begins to show itself over the horizon. For Tammy, it means an hour or so earlier than that. And as I checked the weather app … cloud coverage. But when I woke up, she was ready to go.
Then we had the issue of location. I drove us around the Rock of Cashel trying to find the ‘right’ place and we ended up on Rock Lane. (I get it now … earlier allows you to find a location to park, etc.) We walked around a bit … okay, I strolled and Tammy disappeared, but it wasn’t quite happening for us. There is also the little issue of a car that pulled up as if to check on us. Security? Clarification … we weren’t trespassing. And … we still had clouds.

From there we hopped back in the car and headed back to the initial parking location … Hore Abbey. As we were beginning to park, the clouds also began to part. So, there we were, in a field of an 13th century ruin, using a 12th century ruin as a backdrop. It wasn’t the most spectacular sunrise, but we had the Rock of Cashel with the sun rising behind it. Objective accomplished!
Just as we were getting comfortable with the sun, the clouds moved back in. It was over. But it is a reminder, you never know when you are going to get that 15 minutes of sunlight, so you just need to be patient. Most days, it will drop by for a while.
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