The Wicklow Mountains, while only 15 miles south of Dublin, feel remote – enough so to have provided a handy refuge for opponents to English rule. Rebels who took part in the 1798 Irish Rebellion hid out here. The area became more accessible in 1800, when the frustrated British built a military road to help flush out the rebels. Today, this same road – now R-115 – takes you through the Wicklow area to Glendalough at its south end.
Glendalough – The steep wooded slopes of Glendalough (Glen-da-lock, “Valley of the Two Lakes”), at the south end of Wicklow’s old military road, hide Ireland’s most impressive monastic settlement. Founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century, the monastery flourished (despite repeated Viking raids) throughout the Age of Saints and Scholars until the English destroyed it in 1398. A few hardy holy men continued to live here until it was finally abandoned during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. But pilgrims kept coming, especially on St. Kevin’s Day, June 3. This might have something to do with the fact that a pope said seven visits to Glendalough had the same indulgence – or forgiveness from sins – value as one visit to Rome. While much restoration was done in the 1870s, most of the buildings date from the 10th to 12th century.
In an Ireland without cities, these monastic communities were mainstays of civilization. At such remote outposts, ascetics (with a taste for scenic settings, but abstaining from worldly pleasures) gathered to commune with God. in the 12th century, with the arrival of grander monastic orders such as the Cistercians, Benedictines, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Dominicans, and with the growth of cities, these monastic communities were eclipsed. Today, Ireland is dotted with the reminders of this age: illuminated manuscripts, simple churches, carved crosses, and about 100 round towers.
The valley sights are split between the two lakes. The smaller, lower lake is just beyond the visitors center and nearer the best remaining ruins. The upper lake has scant ruins and feels like a state park, with a grassy lakeside picnic area and school groups. Walkers and hikers will enjoy a choice of nine trails of varying lengths through the lush Wicklow countryside.
The Glendalough Visitors Centers provides a 15-minute video that is a good thumbnail on monastic society in medieval Ireland. The adjacent museum room features this monastic settlement, with a model that recreates the fortified village of the year 1050.
Interactive exhibits show the contributions these monks made to intellectual life in early medieval Europe (such as illuminated manuscripts and Irish minuscule, a more compact alphabet developed in the seventh century).
From the stone gateway, you enter the sacred inner-monastic grounds that provided sanctuary for anyone under threat.
A refugee had 90 days to live safely within the walls.. unless be became a monk (in which case he could live there indefinitely, no matter what his crime.
The graceful round tower rises form an evocative tangle of tombstones. Easily the best ruins of Glendalough gather within 100 yards of this famous 110-foot-tall tower. Towers like this (usually 60-110 feet tall with windows facing the four cardinal compass points) were standard features in such monastic settlements.
They functioned as bell towers, storage lofts, beacons for pilgrims, and last-resort refuges during Viking raids. (But given enough warning, monks were safer hiding in the surrounding forest). The towers had a high door with a pull-up ladder – both for safety and because a door at ground level would have weakened the tower’s foundation. Several ruined churches (10th-12th century) lurk nearby…
The cathedral is the largest and most central of all the ruins. It evolved over time with various expansions and through the reuse of stones from previous structures. The larger nave came first, and the chancel (up the couple of stairs where the altar later stood) was an addition. The east window faces towards Jerusalem and the rising sun, symbolic of Christ rising from the dead.
Under the southern window is a small wall cupboard with a built-in basin. The holy vessels used during Mass were rinsed here so that the holy sacramental water would drain directly into the ground, avoiding any contamination.
Nearby is St. Kevin’s Cross. At 10 feet tall and carved from a single block of granite, this cross was a statement of utter devotion. Most other famous Irish high crosses were carved of softer sandstone, allowing their carvers to create more ornate depictions of biblical stories than we see here. According to legend, if you hug this cross and can reach your hands around to touch your fingers on the other side, you’ll have your wish granted. St. Kevin: the patron saint of dislocated shoulders. 🙂
We pass the tiny priests’ house, which was completely reconstructed (using the original stones) form a 1779 sketch. It might have originally acted as a kind of treasury, housing the relics of St. Kevin.
Perhaps the prettiest structure surviving on the site is St. Kevin’s “kitchen” (actually a church). Its short round tower appeared to earlier visitors to be a chimney, but its function was always as a belfry. The steeply stacked stone roof conceals a croft (upper story) perhaps used as a scriptorium for copying holy manuscripts. A small choir group was using the church and was so beautiful as they sang.
Nearby is the less impressive stone footprint of St. Kieran’s Church, possibly dedicated to the saint and contemporary of St. Kevin who founded Clonmacnoise Monastery – another scenic sanctuary, on the banks of the River Shannon south of the town of Athlone.
The Green Road is a lovely tree-shrouded lane that leads past the lower lake for a half-mile to the upper lake as a part of a pleasant one-mile loop.