A preserved head and a candlestick

The start of my Irish tour started in somewhat of a more noticeable fashion than previous bus tours. The first stop was Drogheda and the church at the top of the hill that has on display the head of Saint Oliver Plunkett. Hung, drawn and quartered in England in 1681 for being a Roman Catholic Archbishop. Being the first stop on the tour when not many people knew each other and being in a place of quiet place of worship, the group lined up silently in respect to take turns viewing the head. It was a tough morning for me, operating on about 3 hours sleep after the final Dublin all night bash, I could be forgiven for being lethargic and uncoordinated. Just to the left of the Plunkett memorial was one of those usual church tables where you can purchase a little candle to place in the rack and light. Now after viewing the head, I turned around to move out of the way for the others, however I forgot that I was wearing a backpack (hadn’t worn one for several months). My backpack conveniently knocked a candle holder off its perch and its potential energy was released. Being lethargic my trusty reflexes were a little slow and off. The candle holder was therefore free to proceed on its journey to the ground, but on the way it decided it would be fun to make a bit of noise by hitting the table, step and floor on the way down before rolling along the church floor for several metres. Not hard to guess, that such a noise in a peaceful location would attract the attention of pretty much everyone including the line-up of people on my tour. Oh well, at least it made it easy to introduce myself to people on the trip later… ‘Hey, remember the guy that knocked the candle off at the church, well …’