Sunday, September 5, 2010

Lamentation

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Famine Memorial

Home now, reflecting on the experience of the last two weeks. Ireland has strong currents of both joy and sadness. These pictures illustrate the latter.

The top picture is the Famine Memorial, outside of the town of Westport. It is in the form of a "coffin ship," the vessels that carried desperate emigrants to the New World. A large portion of the country's population died during the failure of the potato crop of about 1845 - 1850, both from starvation and related diseases. The sculpture depicts skeletal people almost flying off the island in misery.

The images below are memorials to the deceased rich in Dublin's Anglican Christ Church Cathedral. The difference of expression is shocking.

Probably more pictures from Ireland for a bit. May have some stuff, though, from half-way around the world, since this weekend is St. Louis' big Japanese Festival.

By the way, I got a lot of pictures edited on the plane yesterday. The set is here. Still more work to do.

St Patrick's Cathedral 1

Christ Church Cathedral 4

Christ Church Cathedral 1

Christ Church Cathedral 2

5 comments:

Birdman said...

That 'death ship' image is amazing and those trips across were perilous.

cieldequimper said...

The difference IS shocking but I'm not sure there will ever be a 'Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité' day. Your shots are amazing.

Olivier said...

des beaux posts sur les cimetières, les sculptures sont magnifiques surtout celle des squelettes

molly said...

Those fat and pampered faces were the ones who caused the skeletons......

PJ said...

If there's one thing about the culture of Chrisitianity that irks me it's the notion of "the poor will always be with us". I wonder why. You've done something really special here.