‘Emergency calls only’ flashes across my mobile phone screen as the wind whipped up across the open expanses of Mount Melleray during a recent visit.
That one can fail to receive full phone coverage just 20 minutes from Dungarvan while someone can call the ice-clad settlement of Point Barrow in Alaska on a mobile from London is oddly comforting. It’s good to embrace the silence.
In an age when many of us have become slaves to technology, one doesn’t need to venture to the world’s end to get away from it all. There are many havens of calm throughout County Waterford and once in a while, it’s good to remind yourself of just how beautiful and tranquil a place home is.
In 1831, 64 monks fled France to seek asylum in Ireland under the leadership of Waterford native Father Vincent Ryan. These men would go on to establish the beautiful Cistercian abbey that stands amidst a 600-acre site situated in the foothills of the Knockmealdown Mountains today.
