HX Report
Irishman in the Middle East
Weekly Photo Challenge – Happy Place
Posted on October 9, 2015
Regardless of life or work or travels, MB is always back home in HX for the Summer Solstice Festival. The home locality is always a happy place in the opinion of MB with its stunning green landscapes around ever corner, but during the festival weekend it is particularly so.
One of the festival events introduced in recent years is ‘The longest walk for the longest day‘. It entails a 2 to 3 hour guided walk around some section of the local lake or adjacent localities, on 21 June, the day of the Summer Solstice, the longest (daylight) day of the year. Regardless of weather, and it was a rainy wet evening on 21 June just past, there is a great sense of happiness & feel good during the event. The below photo was taken by MB when the walkers reached the summit of Knockfennel, the highest hill adjacent to the lake, and the happy smiley faces are a give-away.
For those who may be interested in gaining everlasting youth (everlasting youth – really MB?), the hill in the background of the photo (on the other side of the lake) is called Knackadoon. Knockadoon hides one of the four entrances to the fabled Irish Land of Everlasting Youth (a really happy place), called Tir Na N’Og in the Irish Gaelic language. Each of the four provinces of Ireland has one entrance, and the province of Munster has it’s entrance at the hill of Knockadoon at HX.
The tale of Tir Na N’Og is well known to every Irish schoolchild who reads of it during school years. Many believe that the story is just some old Irish mythology blarney. But HX locals know better. And if you ever caught sight of MB and his youthful looks, you would certainly agree that there must be some truth to the tale. MB is one of course one of a few village elders (even though MB is far from an elder) entrusted with the exact location. And only those most deserving, after a lifetime of good deeds and faithful HX service, are taken at dead of night and totally blindfolded to the entrance cave to arrest the ravages of declining years. But as ever in HX land, MB and the elders are sworn to secrecy. So very sorry dear followers that MB must cut this story short and move on.
The walkers on the Longest Walk For The Longest Day – 21 June 2015, at the top of Knockfennel:
Weekly Photo Challenge – Boundaries
Posted on October 2, 2015
Weekly Photo Challenge – Change
Posted on September 25, 2015
This week’s challenge is Change.
If you have ever traveled to Ireland you will know there is just no predicting the daily weather. Any of those 365 days per year can throw up any type of weather suddenly and without the slightest warning. And change dramatically again moments later.
Took this shot of the HX skyline last week when the opportunity appeared for a few moments. Moments later it was gone.
There were many occasions of sunshine & showers in the first days of MB’s trip. And when the sun appeared the rainbows painted their spectacular colours all over the damp grey skies.
This one is worth double-clicking on for a closer look!
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Weekly Photo Challenge – Grid
Posted on September 21, 2015
Driveway at HX – by MB
Taken on trip home last week.
Ok. So it’s not a great shot ‘grid-wise’ speaking. But it’s not a bad shot from a ‘brilliant photography’ perspective. As taken. No PS. Well done MB. Awesome. Thanks lads!
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Weekly Photo Challenge – Monochromatic
Posted on September 14, 2015
Weekly Photo Challenge – Connected
Posted on September 4, 2015
An old two-carriage train connects the village of Chamonix in the French Alps to a hill station next to the Montenvers glacier. The thirty-minute train journey through the mountains is followed by a short cable car ride that connects the hill station to the glacier at the bottom of the glacial valley, almost. A walk on foot down some 450 steps completes the journey. For the unfit, the walk back up later on can be a struggle.
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Weekly Photo Challenge – Today was a good day
Posted on August 22, 2015
A series of shots from a particularly good day.
MB has chosen some beach shots from April 2015, on a day he walked with family along one of the popular beaches in Goa, India.
He could have chosen many more shots on other days which would just as easily represent some of the things that Goa is famous for – Christian churches, Hindu temples, mad traffic and motorbikes, wandering cows, wild dogs, bars, casinos, tattoo joints, street markets, spice plantations, green forests, waterfalls, rivers, boat trips, numerous wild life species, food, and streets congested with thousands of locals.
But for this week’s challenge he will stick with the beach shots.
Weekly Photo Challenge – Creepy
Posted on August 14, 2015
This week Michelle wants something creepy. Something to give her the heebie-jeebies, as she said. Well, what about a dead human flesh eating fish spa at a Dubai 5 star hotel? Dare you to come over and give it a go!
Weekly Photo Challenge – Beneath Your Feet
Posted on August 7, 2015
Slightly off theme!
At the end of the day we all die. Sad, but what to do! And if you happened to live and die in Nepal, chances are you would end up like the robed dead body in the picture, taken at the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu.
Before a dead body is cremated it must first go through the ceremony of purification, which involves taking the body to the edge of the holy Bagmati River, dipping & washing the feet of the body in the water. Following purification, the body is then moved to the adjoining area of funeral pyres where the body is burnt and the ashes washed into the river on completion – onwards towards the next life and eventually (hopefully) reaching Nirvana.
You will notice the the feet of the body extend beyond the end of the timber/straw pyre. As the body burns, relatives will eventually manoeuvre the feet into the flames with bamboo or timber poles.
Weekly Photo Challenge – Inspiration
Posted on July 31, 2015
The natural beauty of MB’s homeland is always an inspiration every time he’s home to get out the camera and start clicking.
This shot is one of MBs from the New Year’s early morning mass by the frozen Lough Gur lake on 01.01.2010, which was a 10th anniversary celebration of a similar mass held to welcome the new millennium on 01.01.2000. MB attended that one also but alas did not have a camera. The priest inspires the flock on this particular morning with his sermon and all are inspired by the beauty of the surrounding nature.
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Weekly Photo Challenge – Half & Half
Posted on July 21, 2015
Half & Half.
A photo with 2 different halves.
The night breeze carries the spray from Geneva’s Jet d’Eau (fountain) to the right of photo, creating a 50/50 effect. Photo taken a few days back by MB on a trip to Switzerland.
Weekly Photo Challenge – Symbol
Posted on July 10, 2015
This weeks pic from MB indicates a holy well in MB’s HX homeland called St Patrick’s Well, the small cross over the small door symbolic of the holy water within. The well also gives its name to the immediate locality and nearby church.
Interestingly, the local people in years past did not refer to the water as ‘holy’ water, but rather by a old Gaelic word called ‘dineacht’ meaning ‘protection’. MB scooped a mouthful of the water into his mouth a few weeks back when he was home, so he is now fully protected again!
Weekly Photo Challenge – Doors (2)
Posted on July 3, 2015
A statue of Pope John XXIII stand outside one of the front entrance doors at St Anthony’s Church, Istanbul.
Weekly Photo Challenge – Doors
Posted on July 3, 2015
The round towers of Ireland were built between the 9th & 12th centuries, generally next to monasteries or other religious buildings. Some are up to 40M high. The doors were constructed in an elevated position to enable the monks or priest to take their chalices and other valuables to the safety of the tower by ladder when there was a threat from invaders. The ladder was then pulled up and the door locked securely. Once the invaders departed the monks would then reappear and resume normal duties.
Many of the towers survive to this day due to their aerodynamic curved shape which prevents storm damage. The tower featured below (on a foggy day) is in Lismore , County Waterford in Ireland’s south east.
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