Quotes
Look at things: Wayne Dyer
Dusk at Lisburn and Castlereagh Civic Offices, Island Centre, Lisburn, County Antrim
Good: John Wesley
Bective Abbey: A Cistercian abbey founded in 1147 on the River Boyne in Bective, County Meath. These ruins primarily date to the 15th century.
Invention: Thomas Edison
Replica of the cottage used in the filming of The Quiet Man in Connemara, County Galway.
In 2013, The Quiet Man (1952), directed by John Ford and starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.Â
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The film won the Academy Award for Best Director and for Best Cinematography. Part of the film’s appeal was the lush Irish countryside captured by cameraman, Winton Hoch. Nearly seventy years later, the film still has popular appeal and the Connemara cottage pictured above, remains a popular tourist attraction.
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Stills from the permanent display inside the cottage in Connemara
Snow: Sir Edmund Hillary
Dromore Motte and Bailey, County Down
This Motte and Bailey is situated at Mount Street, on the outskirts of Dromore – a small market town in County Down. It dates from the 13th Century and was constructed by a famous Knight, John De Courcy, after the Norman conquest .
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Motte and Bailey defences were common in the Middle Ages. The French word “motte” means “mound.” They usually consisted of an earthen mound on which knights would build a defensive building, often a tower built from wood or stone. This would then serve as a lookout and provide a vantage point from where archers could fire arrows at any enemies that might be approaching.
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This Dromore mound is a good example of a surviving  Motte and Bailey. It would have been constructed with wood, around forty feet high with a rectangular bailey 100 feet wide. Little remains of the original fortifications, but it is nevertheless an imposing landmark which can be accessed by the public.
