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sunshine jen: Pink Platform Pumps on Nuns Island
One of Honey Bunny’s nieces is all into the fashion labels, and I depend on her seventeen year old wisdom to tell me what is in and what is out.
Not wanting to show favoritism to any of Honey Bunny’s seventeen nieces and nephews, I’m not going to write about the fashionista niece. Instead, I’m going to write about her shoes.
One evening, she and her mother showed up in fabulous shoes. The mother had leopard print pumps under jeans, and the niece also wore jeans and bright pink mary jane pumps with a one inch platform and two inch heels. Even though they were way too bubble-gum and would make me taller than a basketball player, I did appreciate them.
Okay, yes, I did fantasize about wearing them while standing on the stage of a club while belting out Gloria Gaynor’s I Will Survive to a hundred gay pretty boys swooning at my fabulousness.
I also thought of the pink pumps as we passed Nuns Island on Lough Ree on our Shannon River trip because if there was ever an island on Lough Ree where one should wear pink pumps and belt out I Will Survive, Nuns Island would be it.
Of course, there is a story about Nuns Island.
In 1642, on Christmas Eve no less, some rowdy British soldiers stationed in Athlone thought it would be fun to loot and burn down a convent which housed the order of Poor Clare nuns in Bethlehem not far from Lough Ree. I picture these soldiers as modern day frat boys with guns.
Fortunately, some locals helped all the nuns escape to Nuns Island before the convent was burned and looted. The sisters survived a cold winter night on the island because they were not just any nuns. They were kickass survivalist nuns, and they wore extra layers.
As for the British soldiers, they were all ambushed and killed by the locals. The nuns eventually made their way to Galway where the mayor granted them a small piece of land where the River Corrib divides.
But!
Those are not the nuns that gave Nuns Island its name. Going further back, way back, to the Middle Ages, the Black Nuns or the Canonesses of St. Augustine had a convent there. In fact, there are still church ruins on Nuns Island, and that’s probably where the survivalist nuns slept during their cold winter night.
So if you’re ever stranded on Nuns Island in the middle Lough Ree, just know that others have been there before you. When you start to lose hope, just think of the pink pumps because you will not crumble, you will not lay down and die. You will survive.
That's the best picture I got of Nuns Island because my fingers got cold (this was during the cold part of the trip).
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