Ireland – ScriptureIreland.com

Ireland

Healing: Exodus 15:26

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”.

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.

Stills from the permanent display inside the cottage in Connemara

New Years Day Site Launch, Jan. 2021: 2 Cor 4:8-9

A genuine rainbow, captured at the coastal village of Dundrum, County Down

The beginning of a New Year is a good time to look back, and also to look forward. It’s likely that many of us who reflect on the past year – the year of Coronavirus – will identity with some of the descriptions from the apostle Paul in today’s verse, 2 Corinthians 4: 8-9. “We were hard pressed on every side”… “Perplexed”… “struck down”…

Some of us have suffered serious loss in 2020; it has been a painful year for many. What Paul faced was also by no means trivial. ‘Hard pressed’ is translated, ‘afflicted.’ Perplexed means ‘to be at a loss.’ It’s also likely that ‘struck down’ is a reference to Paul’s time in Lystra, when he was stoned by a mob and literally, left for dead. But look at how Paul reacted to the circumstances he faced. “But not crushed,” “Not in despair,” “Not abandoned,” “Not destroyed.”

As we look forward to 2021, may we be encouraged by Paul to have gratitude that we haven’t been destroyed, that God hasn’t abandoned us, and that He will bring us through every challenge we may face in 2021.