Lá Fhéile Fursa!

Calloo callay,
St Fursey's Day

Same as every year, the 16th of January is the Feast of St Fursey, a second tier Irish saint, whose cult I am propagandizing.  2022 - 2023. We have weather in Ireland rather than climate, so the cloud-cover on any day in January is a crap-shoot. But if the previous night has been really cold, that's because there was no heat-retaining cloud cover and it's good odds that the sky will be clear at 08:27 local time, whc is when the sun rises behind Clorogue More. And it was so:

The mental distortion which makes the sun-at-the-horizon look so boiling big is nixxed by the cold logical eye of the camera. You'll have to take my word for it that sunrise between two bands of low-lying stratus was bloomin' marvellous this morning. I am sorry that there was only me to share the traditional feast-day foods of barley bannocks, honey and a horn of mead laid out on The Giant's Table aka St. Fursey's Altar. About 170m lower down, close to the lane that snakes across the heathland, the sceagh-of-the-forest remains after the conifers were clear felled behind it:

 

In the distant past we used to decorate this tree with little wrapped Celebrations candy on St Stephen's Day 24/Dec because we knew a family that was in the habit of walking off Christmas Dinner up our hill. Cripes, the youngest of those kids is now in college. Poor tree is going clean now and looks better for being unlittered. 

For the record: a yomp of 1700m horizontal and 170 vertical takes [me] a brisk 35 minutes. So next year, we really need to leave the house by 07:45.