Meeting of the Waters

One of the places loved in Ireland is here at the Meeting of the Waters  where the Avonmore and Beag Rivers come together and become the Avoca River.  The day was boiling hot and people were picnicking and relaxing by the cooling waters but two families

decided to set out on a mini-adventure.

 and cross to the other side.

I don't know why they took their trainer off and opted to go barefooted over the rocky bottom, ouch, but some managed better than others in navigating both the discomfort and currents

and reached the other side, of course they then had to gingerly return the same way.

The fame of the Meeting of the Waters is because of a poem of friendship and love written by Thomas Moore in the summer of 1807, later put to music. Moore would find the place very different today then when he was inspired by a place of tranquility

Meeting of the Waters, Vale of Avoca, postcard from the Library of Congress

but this old postcard from the 1890s might give a flavour.  It quotes the beginning of the poem/song:

There is not in this wide world and valley so sweet
As that vale in whose bosom the bright waters meet!
Oh the last days of feeling and life must depart
Ere the bloom of that valley shall fade from my heart.

I must admit the only Moore poem and song I was familiar with was The Last Rose of Summer but this confluence of the waters with their memorial to Thomas Moore introduced me to another one -
Here sung by ANÚNA, Ireland's National Choir and arranged by the soloist Michael McGlynn accompanied by the RTE National Symphony orchestra and Finnish violinist Linda Lampenius 

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet, this week sojourning at M here