We Stand and Watch the World Sail By.

My friend and I went for a Sunday stroll not too far from home, and on the way we passed an old ruin of a church, it’s called Templebreedy Church, or the Church of Bridget.   This church was built about 1779, and was used for about 150 years, and there had been a church on this site previously, for maybe another 100 years!

This was the view looking out one of the windows, sadly now without glass or window frame, and slowly returning to the earth.    In the foreground of the view is an old Celtic cross gravestone, probably at least 100 years old, and across the mouth of the harbour you can see Roches Point Lighthouse.   This lighthouse stands at the entrance to Cork Harbour, and a lighthouse was first established in this spot almost 200 years ago.

Just imagine, the people looking out this window would have seen many ships sailing to and from the Port of Cork and from Queenstown, later called Cobh.   Cobh was the last stop on the maiden voyage of the Titanic in 1912, before she set sail for New York, and was also the place where the survivors of the Lusitania were brought to in May 1915, when the ship was sunk by a German torpedo not far from here during the First World War.

Let’s hope there were happier times too for the watchers at the window, like the little boats below that were out for a sailing lesson in the shelter of the harbour this morning!

Learning to sail in the calm waters