If you like, you may view more of our photos here with notes (just pass your mouse over the picture to bring up the notes, or you can view as a slideshow). I managed to cut 800 pics down to 450!We visited for 10 days, and stayed mostly in the North this time. Our main purpose was to visit St. Ignatius parish in Belfast and join a group with Fr. Ireneaus Du Plessis on pilgrimage to ancient Christian sites in Ireland. Everything went quite smoothly, and we had a lovely time staying with our friends Andy & Harmony in Belfast.
St. Ignatius is a four-year-old mission parish, the only Orthodox church in Northern Ireland, and the only Antiochian one in all of Ireland. Fr. Ireneaus hopes to make the pilgrimages a yearly affair in hopes of spreading to the Orthodox world the rich Christian heritage that lies deep in the heart of Ireland. The group is led by Deacon John Musther of Keswick in the Lake Dist. in England who is finishing a 25 yr. project of compiling a database of all the ancient Christian sites in Ireland (never before done). There were about ten in the group, all from the States. Todd and I joined them for the first leg of the tour, mostly in the North, and they continued without us for the second week in the South of Ireland. We're so thankful to have shared such a special time with them, and to finally have met those who attend St. Ignatius Church.
I was also surprised to grow so fond of the Belfast area in such a short time. Dublin was extremely changed, some for better, some for worse. There is much economic growth throughout the island (due to the "Celtic Tiger") and that was very apparent on our trip. Ireland may look very different the next time we visit.
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