Bective Abbey is the last virtual stop of my pinhole tour through Ireland. Like the other ruins we visited, it was awesome. In the truest definition of the word. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. We don’t have this here. We have nothing that can remotely compare to this. So being able to climb around on these historical artifacts is a huge treat for me.

I am not sure if I am alone in this, but I think if I lived in a place with such a vivid history, staring me in the face constantly in the form of ruins, I would be quietly freaking out inside all of the time. When I visit places like this it’s really hard for me to not think about what was here before and all of the stories. It’s truly amazing. We spent a good hour  wandering around the grounds here shooting photos. Our hosts gave us a history of the place as we drove up but it didn’t really sink in until I came home from the trip and started thinking about my blog posts about these places. This particular place, according to Wikipedia, was founded in 1147. Let that sink in for a moment. 11 fucking 47. We were climbing on ruins that were almost a thousand years old. It stopped being used in the 15oos. It was 500 years old when they stopped using this place. Is there even a building that is 500 years old in the whole United States?* (see how easy it is for me to freak the fuck out about stuff like this?!?)

Here are some pinhole photos:

I can’t be sure but I think this might be a ghost? Because I have no idea what could be going on here. I took an iphone photo while this was exposing. You can see it here.

I made friends with some cows.

And here is a tree that I enjoyed staring at for a few moments while I took this photo.

So yes, Bective Abbey! Go visit if you are in Ireland. Here is a blog post Brendan wrote on Pinhole Obscura with more info and more pinhole photos!

And here is an interesting blog I just now ran across of things found on the site.

*Wikipedia tells me that, indeed, there are a few! I perhaps will need to visit them!