Impressions from the Wild Atlantic Way

One of my most pleasant experiences in 2016 was a two-week driving tour of southern Ireland. My wife and I had dutifully packed the obligatory foul-weather gear, but only opened our umbrellas one time—on the walk home from dinner in the beautiful town of Kenmare.

Falling asleep one night, exhausted after another long day of driving and walking, I was rewinding the scenes of the day and was struck by the prevalence of stone in every view—they were everywhere!  Then I fell asleep to the oddest thought: 

Perhaps eons ago when God was finished creating Britain, he had a lot of leftover rocks. He piled them up forming a barrier island to protect the western coast of Britain from the ravages of the Atlantic.
    
Various groups of people landed on this pile of rocks over the centuries since and set about trying to gather these rocks. They stacked them into rows, clearing the land to permit the raising of cows and sheep, which in turn yielded prodigious amounts of milk, cheese and stew.
    
For some reason, God must have been displeased by this re-arrangement of his rocks as He visited this now gridded island with various plagues--of insects, rodents, famine and Englishmen-- to punish this industriousness. For a long while their Catholic piety seemed unrewarded. The people of this rocky island fought among themselves, shedding much blood.  

At the end, the land and rock were divided, with a sliver of the north surrendered to those who wished to follow the English version of His church. The rest of the inhabitants aligned themselves with the continent, adopted a wise tax policy and embraced peace and greenness