Saturday, 20th March, 2010: No visits this weekend. I had hoped to get out to see some places, especially with the equinox tomorrow. I was going to set off a tomb somewhere to see a solar alignment but illness has kept me at home. On the plus site I have prepared updates for the next few weeks which is good. Kildare will be up and running this weeks with all the updates coming from that county. I'm giving Kildare a kickstart and have chosen places with multiple subsites so that by the end of the week Kildare will have 20 site online. Also this week I will have over 100 places on this site. I know it's not much compared to other sites but it's a start. To me this was the first major hurdle to get over. The hit counter is steadily going up and people are leaving comments and contacting me which is fantastic and helps to keep this site going because if nobody read it then there would be no point keeping it going...so thank you. The plan is to just keep uploading sites and keep expanding into other counties. I've added two counties this year already and hope to add another one or two by the end of the year. I don't want to spread myself too thin so I will not add another county until I have at least 25 in every other county online. Galway and/or Kilkenny are likely counties to be added next. Meath and Wicklow are two other possibilities. With 32 counties to get to I have to add two or three a year just to get to them all within a decade...and to be honest I do see this sight going that long. This is a long term project and a long term database...and it is your continued support that keeps it going.
Tuesday, 16th March 2010: This weekend I went off to the Curragh in Kildare (Little Curragh to be precise) to see the barrow cemetery that is there. I saw about ten barrows in all, from barely visible ones to very large ones...all ring barrows. Really impressive site. I then moved on to see the high cross at Moone. At 5.5m high it is really massive! A wonderful cross and a great example of Irish ecclesiastical art. I saw some other various ruins which will end up on here soon. I hope to get some Kildare sites uploaded in the next few weeks.
Sunday, 7th March, 2010: Today was an interesting day and did not turn out how I had expected. We left for Greatheath so see some of the many barrows located here but there is only really one here to see as most are in people's gardens and on the golf course. It is a nice barrow however and worth the trip. Next we hit a brick wall...we couldn't get to see anything. Two failed castles later we arrived at Sleaty to see the two crosses here and the church. The smaller of the two crosses is very interesting as there is the faint hint of decoration on there. The larger is impressive because of its size and its shape which is very unusual. We had a quick look at Carlow castle before moving on to an impromptu visit to Castledermot in Kildare so I guess that Kildare is about to become part of the Standing Stone. At the start of today I had no planned this but it's a nice surprise. I couldn't get into the friary because it was locked but the nearby tower and crosses are absolutely fantastic...the site screams pre-Christian to me and I'm looking forward to putting Castledermot up onto the site. Lastly, we went back to Laois to see Killeshin church and it really was the finest Romanesque workmanship I have yet seen...great place and a great day.
