LEABA CHOLMCILLE

The advanced classes went out for a walk along the Turas with Jimmy, the local historian and expert on St. ColmCille and the pilgrammage route around the valley. The pilgrammage can be done at any time but it is traditionally done by local people on July 9, the anniversary of ColmCille’s death. There are twenty four stops on the pilgrammage route and special prayers are said at each. It is usually done barefoot.
Jimmy, who is in his eighties, was very hard to understand. Ray MacManus did a kind of translation into intelligible Irish but it was still hard to follow.
We made our way up the mountainside to the holy well associated with St. ColmCille. Along the way we stopped at ColmCille’s Bed. Jmmy explained how to a stone is passed around the torso and a blessing said. When we got to the well he showed us how a stone is thrown onto the pile by each pilgram. He told us that he threw his first stone in 1945.
It was such a beautiful day. From high up on the mountainside you could look east down the valley as far as the Eaglais Gallda (what the locals refer to the Protestant church as) and beyond that to Glenish. To the west the deep blue of the Atlantic was caressing the feet of Malin Mór. Centuries hung in the air between them.