Glendalough

One of reasons we bought a car was so that we could see the Irish countryside. Today we made our first excursion outside of Dublin, to Glendalough, one of the most famous monastic ruins in Ireland. Glendalough (glen-da-lock) was a monastic settlement established in the 6th century by St. Kevin. Here are some photos.

Glendalough sits among the Wicklow mountains, offering some great hikes. We did a short one today, with plans for many more. This is definitely one of the places we will be taking visitors.

And I don't want to be alarmist or anything, but we noticed these growing on a tree limb. I'm almost positive I saw something like this in a science fiction movie. Can anyone tell me what these are???