We lingered in Killarney a little this morning, mainly because the laundrette didn’t open until 9:30. So while we waited, we stopped by the Tourist Office, and then headed for the yarn store, which we’d found last night but wasn’t open.

It’s a tiny little place, not much bigger than the store in Trim, but the contrast here was that this place (Killarney Handicrafts) was well organized and clean and well-lit, and the place in Trim was kind of a scattered mess. And I finally found yarn! A 1kg bag of 100% Irish wool, in a deep purple wine color, which looks like it should be plenty to make a sweater. I suspect I’ll be pouring through my book of cables again sometime soon.

Next it was on to Ennis. Today the weather cleared up and so the drive was beautiful, since we could actually see out into the valleys (lots of sheep and cows). We’d originally planned to stop in Limerick to get lunch, but Limerick appears second only to Cork in complete confusion of streets, drivers, and all manner of other things guaranteed to make uninitiated drivers (and their passengers) nervous. In fact, at one point we passed a corner and there was a soldier standing in the middle of the street, complete with large gun. We’re not sure what’s in Limerick that’s so important it needs armed soldiers with guns, and we decided not to find out. So we somehow found a way out of the city and stopped at the first place we could saw to get lunch – a large restaurant that seemed as if it was built specifically to cater to tourists, but which offered huge portions at low prices, of good food.

Before reaching Ennis we took a slight detour and went off to Quin to see the ruins of Quin Abbey, and it was well worth it. First of all, it is completely free; second, it is the most well-preserved abbey in Ireland (actually it was a friary, and the guide there seemed a bit put out by the fact that the information signs out front had it wrong); third, the guide there was more than willing to answer any questions about the history of the place, and even took us off to see a few things, like the masonry mark on one of the stones, and the remains of what was apparently an extremely elaborate carving of Jesus on the cross. The cloisters in this friary are completely preserved so we could walk through them and really get a good sense of how it would have been when it was inhabited. Plus this particular location still had the second floor intact, so we were able to go up and wander through the dormitory areas that overlooked the cloister. There was a dark little crypt, and a door which appeared might lead into a tiny little mausoleum inside (peering through the holes we could see coffins) and as with so many of these sites, it was obvious from the gravestones that people are still being buried there.

The guide was a wealth of information, although I suspect that was partially driven by the fact that he was pretty bored with sitting in a tiny little booth all day. He gave us a nice broad overview of the Franciscans, and thanks to our chatting with him, we now know how to distinguish a Franciscan church from the others (it’s the ‘string lines’ that encircle the towers). We even managed to find a new (to him) carving above one of the doors. He thanked us when we were heading out, since he said that most people just wander in and out in just a few minutes and don’t seem to be willing to take the time to ask questions or get to know anything about the place.

Our next stop was to Craggaunowen, which was along the same road as to the friary, and which proports to be a recreation of various structures throughout Ireland’s history. I suspect if we had not gone to the Irish National Heritage Park outside Wexford we might have been impressed, but in comparison, Craggaunowen was definitely second rate (plus it was nearly twice as expensive).

We finally made it to Ennis, and found our B&B with no difficulty at all. We checked in, and then immediately headed into town, where the woman at the tourist office handed over a map, rattled off a number of locations to see, and then noted that since they were having their big music festival this weekend, there was a ceilidh this very evening and everyone was welcome to come. Talk about stumbling into a town at the right time!

We had a rather uninspiring dinner at a local pub and wandered around a bit until we tracked down an internet cafe. It’s a nice town and I think this may be one of my favorite stops so far (the fact that it has not one, but two grocery stores, one of which is open 24 hours, has nothing to do with it!) and we both wish we’d been able to schedule a longer visit here.

The ceilidh didn’t start until 10pm, but when we got there the room was packed, and it was nice to see a wide range in ages (we’d been afraid we were going to be either the youngest, or the oldest). Then the music started and so did the dancing and good grief, no wonder the Irish are in such great shape if they do this kind of thing on any sort of regular basis. I was pulled into the second set of dances and my very helpful partner gave me quick clues as to what was coming up each time things changed, before we would go spinning madly in circles until I was getting a bit dizzy. I intended to sit the next set out, and had come back toward the main dancing area only to try to get some pictures of Richard out there on the floor but they needed a woman in another set, so off we went again. And it is exhausting. Kind of embarrassing to see people twice my age and older dancing about and not even breathing hard and here I was, struggling to keep up.

Richard’s asthma decided that being in a large, crowded room with poor air circulation wasn’t the best thing, and by then I was pretty exhausted myself, so we took it as the perfect excuse to go. Walking back to the B&B in the light sprinkling of rain was lovely, since the cool air really felt good after going through such a workout. We decided to put the ‘open 24 hours’ to the test and stopped by the grocery store on the way to pick up some traveling snacks, and then came back to the room to collapse.

If we come back to Ireland again (and I really hope we do) Ennis is definitely going onto our itinerary, and for more than a night. And if we can schedule it for the weekend of their music festival again, so much the better – although maybe next time Richard and I will have to do a bit of practicing before we attempt that kind of dancing again.

Pictures from Killarney, Quin ,Craggaunowen, and Ennis.

We decided to try to get onto the road as soon as possible this morning, since the guidebooks warned that going either early or really late was the best way to avoid getting stuck behind buses on the Ring of Kerry. I’m not sure if we were successful in that; we did end up getting stuck behind a few from time to time, but either we missed the majority of them, or there just weren’t that many on the road to begin with; either way, it wasn’t really a problem.

We weren’t the only ones wanting an early start, as evidenced by the fact that every guest in the B&B showed up for breakfast as early as we did. We ended up sitting with a mother and daughter traveling together, so the four of us had fun talking about getting lost on the roads traveling around Ireland.

The route along the Ring is gorgeous, of course – all rocky hills and lakes and the occasional ruin of a stone building here and there. The more open areas looked almost desolate at times – only a house here and there, amid the lines of the crumbling stone walls, but then you’d round a corner and be confronted with bright splashes of color, making it clear you were entering a town well used to the traffic of tourists. Pastel paints for the buildings along the main streets of the towns along the Ring were the norm.

We followed the Ring for the most part down the northernmost leg of the route, stopping very briefly in the first town to get some coffee (since my sinuses decided that ten days without a flare-up was more than long enough and decided to attack with a vengeance. Alas, their plans to ruin my day were thwarted, since I came prepared with plenty of sinus meds, but I needed something to wash the pill down). That particular stop was a bit interesting. We stopped at a tiny little combination gas station / grocery store, and I asked if they had a restroom I could use. The guy I was talking to hesitated and looked meaningfully at a man and his daughter who were just leaving the store; only when they were out of earshot did he tell me that they were having to screen who they allowed to use the store’s restrooms. I didn’t quite follow the whole explanation, due to the heavy accent, but Richard got more out of them later. It turns out that a caravan of gypsies had moved into town the night before (we passed their campers as we drove out of town) and they didn’t want them to be coming in and milling about in the back where the restrooms were located. This also explained why it was that as we drove into town, a number of the parking lots had cars parked so that they blocked the entrance. I assume this was to prevent the gypsies from deciding to move camp into those lots (they’d set up camp in parking lots across from the store where we stopped).

We took a few detours away from the main route fo the ring on the advice of the guidebook, and weren’t disappointed either time. The first was a detour toward Portmagee, to go to the Skellig Information Center, which included some displays about the lighthouses in the area, and a short film on the tiny little monastery established in the 600’s by Saint Finnian on Skellig Michael. The skelligs themselves are tiny little islands not really meant to be inhabited by humans, since they’re steep and extremely rocky and mostly serve as habitats for birds and a few species of extremely tenacious plants. But they’re isolated and inhospitable and thus must have been completely irresistible to the monks, since at that time monks were big into that kind of thing. So they established a tiny little colony on the top of the largest one, which still stands, many structures still intact even though it was eventually abandoned by the 12th century. There are tiny little stone huts, and fences, and of course a little chapel, and through sheer determination and who knows how many years of hard work they also constructed hundreds of steps out of stone up to their little rocky perch.

We next followed the Ring of Skellig through Portmagee and up an extremely steep and narrow little road to what one of the guides at the Information Center told us was the highest point one could get in Ireland by car. He also noted rather apologetically that the views were gorgeous from up there, when it wasn’t raining. Ah well. As we came down the other side of the hill we could see a full view of that area of the peninsula, and off in the distance, barely visible through the mists, were the skelligs.

One of the reasons for taking this particular detour off the main Ring road was to visit the Skellig Chocolate Factory, which is just a bit south of Ballinskellig. It’s a tiny little white building that looks nothing at all like a factory, but inside, there was the heavenly aroma of chocolate, and behind the counter there were four or five women all busy with various phases of chocolate production. One stopped when she saw us and proceeded to lay out samples of their entire line of truffles and brittles and then rattled off a string of items and prices. The chocolates were delicious – not too sweet (a big plus for me since I prefer dark chocolate to milk) and the flavors all subtle enough to not overwhelm. So naturally we had to buy a tin of assorted truffles, because one does not pass up on handmade chocolates, especially at those prices. Yum!

We rejoined the Ring at Waterville, where we also stopped to get lunch (or rather, a snack) at a cute little shop that seemed as if it had been set up in someone’s living room. The shop served a variety of scones and cakes, as well as coffee and tea, so we had coffee and cake and enjoyed the chance to just sit somewhere that wasn’t in a moving vehicle.

We took one more detour on our drive around the Ring; this one to see Staigue Fort. It’s an old Ringfort that was built more than 2000 years ago, which is kind of awe-inspiring right there, to walk into something that’s been around such a long time. It’s only reachable up an extremely windy and narrow road- perhaps the narrowest road we’ve been on, since it really was only wide enough for one car, yet was meant for two-way traffic. It was easy enough to find, though, and while the sign on the gate said we were to pay a ‘trespassing’ fee, we couldn’t figure out where, or to whom, we were supposed to offer money, so we just gave up and went in. We were met by an extremely talkative sheep, who followed us to the entrance to the fort, and then proceeded to share his opinion with us pretty much the entire time we were inside.

The fort itself consists of just the outer stone wall; any dwellings inside would have obviously long ago disappeared. But it’s an amazing thing to see, if only because the entire thing was built using the dry wall method – stones piled on top of each other, and no mortar at all. The walls at their highest stood about 6 meters tall and were about 4 meters thick, plus they’d worked in stairways and platforms all around the inner side, obviously meant so that people could climb up and look out (sentries, or soldiers, perhaps).

After the fort we rejoined the Ring once again and continued along it back to Killarney. The road passes through Killarney National Park, and there were some places to stop and enjoy the amazing views of the lakes and valleys, but by this time we had realized that both of us were in desperate need of getting some laundry done, and if we went directly back to Killarney we might still have a shot at getting to a place before they closed. So we zipped back into the B&B, got directions from the owner for the closest location, which turned out to be a dry cleaners, but they pointed us somewhere else, and after circling through the main part of town a few times, we eventually tracked it down and I dashed inside and dropped off bags of laundry while Richard stayed in the car and pretended he was a taxi (we had to park in the taxi queue). We won’t be able to pick it up again until tomorrow morning, but the timing still works out so that it shouldn’t cause too many delays on our way north.

So now it’s off to dinner, and to some more wandering around Killarney. Rumor has it that there are actually more than one stores in town where I might find yarn, and Richard’s on the lookout for some books, so as long as the rain doesn’t get any worse than it is, I think we’ll have fun.

Pictures are uploaded (not very many today) from our tour of the Ring of Kerry.

It was kind of a relief to leave Cork this morning, especially since we could do it without having to actually go through the town center again. We headed south at first, toward the coast, and just past Kinsale we found Charles Fort. It’s a star-shaped fort that was built right on the edge of a cliff in the 16th century, but it’s in amazingly good shape because it was actually in use until the early 1900’s, when it was torched during the civil war in Ireland.

It started raining pretty hard when we got there, so our tour guide spent quite a bit of time going over the history of the fort, as well as the history of some of the politics of Ireland, back to the whole skirmish between William of Orange and James the First. It was quite interesting, although I couldn’t even begin to remember all the details of the whole history, but the important thing is that the whole schism between the Protestants and the Catholics, all leading up to the civil war in the early 1900’s and the continuing skirmishes are all finally making sense, especially considering that there are hundreds of years of history involved in their making.

Our guide had a dry, quiet sense of humor, and was quite entertaining to listen to. He led us around the fort a bit once the rain had subsided to just a drizzle and walked us through the building where they kept the gunpowder, the barracks, the officer’s quarters, and even the hospital, which had a maternity wing that was birthing babies up until 1922.

We ended up spending pretty much all morning there, but it was definitely worth it. There was an interactive exhibit about how the fort was designed and built, and also how it was defeated. We also got to wander around the fort quite a bit on our own, finding dark, damp storerooms and sallyports and climbing up on the bastions to look out over the water below.

We headed back north, toward Blarney, figuring that since we were going that way we might as well swing by the castle and see what all the fuss is about. It’s privately owned, so not covered by our handy Heritage cards, and while it’s a nice big tower of a castle and the grounds were pretty, we were actually a bit disappointed because the whole focus seems to be on climbing to the top in order to kiss that ridiculous stone (we didn’t kiss it, in case that wasn’t obvious). There was a cave and some dungeons open to go into, but they weren’t lit, so anyone without a flashlight was out of luck (that included us, unfortunately), and there were no guided tours, so we didn’t get any sense of history or background about the place at all, unlike at the other castles we’ve seen. Ah well.

So after that we just headed straight for Killarney, where we managed to find our B&B with a minimum of trouble. Killarney is obviously a tourist town, since most of the stores in the town center were open even by the time we got there, which was after 7pm. We ate dinner at a place recommended by one of our guidebooks, and I had a boxty, which is sort of like a thick crepe made from grated potatoes, stuffed with chicken and veggies, and then sticky toffee pudding cake, because this is the first place I’ve seen it and I was really curious to see if the one I made for our impromptu Saint Patrick’s day dinner back in March was anything like the ‘real thing’. If taste and appearance is anything to go by, the recipe I used was the real deal. Yay for me!

Pictures are available from Charles Fort and from Blarney.

This morning when I went to go wash my face, I discovered that there was only a dribble of water coming out of the tap. At first I assumed that it was just that their pressure was bad, since there were likely other guests using the showers at that time, but when we mentioned it to one of our hostesses at breakfast she noted that actually it wasn’t just our room; it was the whole town. And the way she talked about it, it sounded as if this was not the first time this sort of thing has happened, since they’d been prepared with a huge container of water for a back-up (to at least have enough for coffee and tea). Luckily we weren’t in need of water, so it wasn’t anything more than a slightly amusing little diversion, but I got the impression that a few of the other guests weren’t so lucky (or understanding).

We headed south again, this time to Cork, or rather, to slightly west of Cork, to the Fota Wildlife Park, which is located on the former grounds of the Fota estate. I knew it was the sort of place where the animals were free to roam at will, but I’d expected, somehow, for it to be a drive-through kind of park. It is actually a walk-through sort of park, even though yes, some of the animals are allowed to just roam about the park at will. They do a lot of conservation and species restoration work there, apparently; hence the presence of both white and black swans, about a dozen cheetahs, a huge herd of giraffe, the European bison, and too many varieties of duck and other waterfowl to count. Most of the waterfowl were allowed to just roam free, but the park also had peacocks, some kind of shaggy llama-type equines (guanaco), various deer, several little kangaroo families, and a whole herd of these strange little critters that looks like a cross between a rabbit and a deer (and which turned out later to be a mara, which is some kind of giant guinea pig relation from South America). But the very best thing of all they had roaming free, and the reason why I was so determined for us to go there in the first place, were the ring-tailed lemurs.

It is important at this point that I note that lemurs are some of my very favorite animals (second only to cats, of course) and that the highlight of every trip we take to the San Francisco zoo is the lemur island, and that if I could have a chance to interact with any other critter in the world (besides, of course, cats), it would be lemurs. So naturally I was a bit excited about the chance to see lemurs up close, maybe swinging right over our heads or curled up just out of reach beside the path. When we finally spotted a little cluster of ring-tailed lemurs they were, in fact, hanging out in special little perches quite obviously designed just for them, and they were only a few feet away so I was quite happy to be able to just get some good shots of them. But then. Then! Across the path another ring-tailed lemur came scampering, directly at us. It paused, pondered our feet for a moment, and then stretched up and leaned one tiny little paw very lightly against my leg for just a moment, staring right up at me. I know exactly why it did this – earlier we’d run into someone who had been to the park before and recounted a tale of lemurs making off with parts of people’s lunches, so obviously this little guy was hoping I might be carrying something tasty I would be willing to share. But I really didn’t care *why* the lemur decided to come over and pat me on the leg; I only care that it did! A lemur! I’ve been a bit giddy about it ever since.

We got to see a tiny family of squirrel monkeys come skittering past us on the fence rail, which was pretty amazing, since they came within about two feet of where we were standing. They have such a high-pitched squeak of voice, and they’re really adorable. We also got to see a number of the cheetahs. They were caged, and not roaming free (go figure) but still obviously comfortable enough around people that they were perfectly willing to hang out near the front of their enclosure. In fact the first enclosure we passed, there were four of them, all piled on top of each other, taking a nap.

After the zoo we had a quick lunch at the little lunch counter in the Fota House (and I think it may have been the smallest lunch we’ve had in Ireland yet – portions here tend to be huge), then took a leisurely stroll around the gardens. They’ve been restored and the arboretum has all kinds of trees from all over the world.

Next it was on to Blarney. Neither of us has any desire to go kiss the Blarney Stone (just the thought of voluntarily touching something with my lips that hundreds of thousands of other people have also touched with their lips makes me queasy), but I’d seen signs for the Blarney Woollen Mills and our map noted that the one in Blarney was the largest (“The Premier Irish Shopping Experience” it was called) so we decided to stop in. And it certainly is large – three floors of mostly sweaters and such, but lots of other Irish-made things for sale. And here I finally found some yarn for sale, such as it was (one type of yarn, one small table), and while it was a fantastic price, I didn’t want to buy yarn just for the sake of buying yarn without having a project idea in mind, so I bought no yarn at all.

We thought about trying to get to the castle just to walk around, but decided instead to head back to Cork and try to find our B&B. And what a nightmare driving in Cork is! The narrow little roads we were navigating in the countryside, where they were only a bit wider than one car, but still allowed two-way traffic, were bad enough, but driving in Cork is kind of insane. The roads are still narrow, and while there is a line painted down the middle so that they would fit two cars going opposite directions, this only works if the streets are clear – and they were not. People just park wherever – sometimes even up on the sidewalk (if there is one), so with the parked cars the roads were down to only wide enough for one car, and yet, still, two way traffic. Add to this the fact that the only maps we could track down for Cork were for the city center (and most of the streets on the map were unnamed because identifying streets might actually be *helpful*), and our B&B is most definitely not in the city center, and we were starting to get stressed. We tracked down a phone booth at one point to try to get directions but had no luck getting ahold of anyone, so started asking random strangers, who at least got us pointed in the right direction. And then we stopped at a pharmacy to see if someone there might be able to help us, and met the nicest elderly gentleman who overheard our conversation with the clerk, and volunteered to lead us there himself. They may not be able to create maps that provide any assistance, but the people here more than make up for it – everyone we have met has been nothing but friendly.

Our B&B is in the middle of what is obviously a newer neighborhood (‘newer’ as in the sense that the streets actually are mostly labeled somewhere where you might actually see the sign when driving on them – a novel concept in a lot of places, it seems) and within walking distance of all the important amenities – places to find dinner, an internet access point (located in a large video and music store), a grocery store so we can restock our supply of traveling snacks, a gas station, and an ATM. And also a phone booth, which turned out to be important later, since when trying to pay for dinner Richard’s card was refused, and as we found out, even though I specifically called our bank to make sure they flagged our account so they would *not* assume that all these sudden purchases in Ireland were fraudulent, they didn’t bother to note this for Richard’s card, they only flagged it for mine. Luckily we cleared it up, and did find a little humor in it later, since it was about this far into his trip that this happened to him the last time he came to Ireland.

Pictures from Fota.

Today has been all about moldy ruins. Literally. We got up early so we could track down a phone booth and make our reservations for the next few nights (in fact, last night we sat down and mapped out a general plan for the rest of our trip), and it was already raining hard enough to require jackets and umbrellas. Directly after breakfast we piled into the car and off we went down the road, in the rain, toward our first heap of moldy rocks.

First stop – Cahir Castle, in Cahir. It’s one of the most complete castles in the country, since it remained in the (you guessed it) Butler family until the last one died in the 1960’s, and they did their best to keep it from falling down around them. I don’t remember exactly when this particular castle was built, but it was famous for falling to the Earl of Essex back in the time of Elizabeth I (although amusingly, the Butler family got it back less than a year later because those Butlers, they are a surprisingly tenacious family when it comes to their castles), and this particular attack was notable because it was the only time the castle had fallen – and it only fell because they used guns (in fact, there is a cannonball still stuck in one of the tower walls).

We got a short guided tour, but most of the time we were there, we were just allowed to wander on our own, with a simple admonition to just please be careful because the rain made things slippery. Um. Yes. We very carefully climbed the open stair to the ramparts, and avoided a few of the other staircases, one of which was literally just some stones sticking out from the wall. The stairs to the prison tower were also unprotected and slippery, but we braved them anyway.

And I wasn’t kidding about the mold. The main room we could go into in the prison tower was so heavy with mold that the air reeked of it, and the windows in the banquet hall were bright green with growth. No wonder the people in those days suffered from so many respiratory problems!

After the castle, we headed North to Cashel, primarily to see the Rock of Cashel. In fact, we can see the Rock from the window of our B&B room, which is positively spacious compared to the teeny little room in the place in Waterport (for one thing, neither of us will end up having to sleep on the floor!). We dumped off our bags, found one of the only places open for lunch on a Sunday and joined crowds of other people squashing into the little restaurant to get out of the rain.

The rock is quite impressive once you get inside it, especially the sheer size of the cathedral. We listened to a short presentation about the history of the Rock, and then got to wander about at will. I’m not sure if it was the rain, or the day (Sunday) but there weren’t very many people there at all, so we could poke about as much as we wanted.

The presentation mentioned the Hore Abbey, which was built for the monks at some point in the history of the Rock, and it was visible in the distance from the Rock (to be fair, *everything* is visible in the distance from the Rock – it doesn’t take much to figure out just why someone decided this was a good place to build a fortress), and there were signs pointed toward it, so once we were done wandering the Rock, we set off for the Abbey, through the mud and the rain, down a steep hill, and then down a road until there it was, sitting there all abandoned and covered in moss, smack in the middle of a field of cows. Literally. In fact, we had to walk through the field of cows to get to the abbey, and when we got there, there were only two other people in the ruins, and they left shortly after we arrived, so we had the whole thing to ourselves.

Having gone through Jerpoint and having been given all the information by the fabulous tourguide there, we could now easily pick out various parts of the abbey and figure out about where things were and what they might have been used for. This particular abbey was missing most of the cloister, but had more areas where you could see the outer buildings that surrounded the inner gardens.

By this time the rain was finally letting up, although it continued to sprinkle on and off the rest of the day. So we headed back to town and stopped into the Tourist Information office, to find out if there might be anything in town actually open late enough to serve dinner on a Sunday (exactly one place, it turned out). Luckily it was just about a block away from the B&B, since by this time I wasn’t sure how much more walking around I could take, and even though the tiny little place was packed, we were able to get seats at the bar pretty quickly, and they were willing to serve us there. The food was delicious, and it was actually kind of fun to sit at the bar, since we got to watch their system in action. The kitchens were obviously on the next floor up, so the had a little food elevator built into the wall; dirty dishes would go in, and scraps of paper with orders written on them; plates of food would come back down.

We came back to the B&B and decided to just relax for the rest of the evening. There’s a few chairs in the little landing near our room, so we went out there and I did a bit of knitting and Richard read and did some writing, before finally heading into our room (again – a nice change from the cramped conditions of the place in Waterford!). From our window we can see the Rock, where they’ve got it lit up for the night. We turned on the television and ended up finding a British film that had enough gentle humor to make it enjoyable, since both of us are to tired for anything requiring actual thought.

Pictures from Cahir and Cashel.

We got up early this morning and headed downstairs for breakfast, which is served in the owner’s tiny little living room, right next to a fish tank and a fireplace. Very cozy. Then it was off to tour Waterport and see how much ground we could cover in just one day.

Our first destination was the Treasures of Waterford, which is a museum tucked into the same building where the Tourist Information office is located. They hand you audio wands and as you wander through the exhibits, there are numbers displayed, which can be entered into the wand so you can hear interesting information about the things on display. The exhibit pretty much went through the entire history of Waterford up until about the 19th century, starting from the Vikings, moving on to the Normans, and the of course the whole messy history with the English. The layout was sometimes a bit confusing – the audio portion would indicate that we were to move in one direction when in fact the next part of the exhibit was off in the opposite direction – but that was only a minor issue. They have the original charter of Waterford on display, which was pretty interesting to see, and of course there was something about the Butler family because it seems as if the Butlers had their fingers in pretty much every part of Ireland we’ve seen so far. They were busy, those Butlers.

We ate lunch in the little cafeteria next to the museum and then went on to Reginald’s Tower, which stands down at the end of the Quay and is the last remaining tower from the walls that stood around Waterford hundreds of years ago. The tower was used at one point as a mint, so there was lots of history about the various people who’d been in charge of that, as well as a number of historical coins on display.

Next we headed off to the ChristChurch Cathedral, which is right next to our B&B, and went inside to wander around. This particular cathedral is famous for a few reasons – the first is that the architect who designed it also designed the Catholic church down the road (a big deal back in those days); the second because James Rice, a former mayor of the town, is buried there, and at his request, his body was exhumed a year after he was buried and an effigy of his corpse was put on top of his tomb, with a little inscription to look on him and know that he was once as we were, and anyone looking at him will eventually become just like him. The guidebooks all described this particular effigy as ‘gruesome’ but I just thought it was pretty interesting. I found it amusing that they included in the statue the little critters (mainly frogs, it appeared) who were dug up with the corpse.

Then we headed back to Reginalds Tower because just around the corner from our B&B were the ruins of the French Church, and the guidebooks said we could ask for someone at the Tower to let us in so we could wander. They did more than that – a very friendly man led us over, opened the gates, and then walked us around and talked about the history of the ancient church, including showing us a few of the oldest gravemarkers and explaining some of the family coats of arms and how to read the text around the edges. Then he asked us if we wanted to see something really different, and we said of course, and he led us off across the street to this unassuming door, opened it, and led us into an undercroft. There were, in fact, two of them – an upper and a lower one, and he said that they figure the people who built the upper one probably had no idea the other was there, and that the lower one likely dates from the 12th century. In fact, the way they discovered the lower one is that some historian was visiting someone who lived in a house above it sometime in the 18th or 19th century and noticed an old stairway spiraling down in a closet. He asked the owners where it went, since he immediately recognized that it was extremely old, and they didn’t know. Apparently they’d just been using it as a place to toss trash! And even more amazing, once they finally got inside, it was stuffed full of trash, layers upon layers of it that likely went back hundreds of years. Unfortunately at that time no one really thought it was worth it to keep the trash itself, so out it all went (archaeologists all over the world must be gnashing their teeth and weeping in horror every time they learn about this sort of thing), but they did at least recognize the significance of what they’d found, and set about trying to restore and protect it.

So we got to see this amazing little thing, hidden behind a little door in a little back alleyway; something that isn’t listed in any of the guidebooks we’ve read. It was very cool.

We wandered around the streets for a while longer, trying to find a restaurant that was recommended in the guidebook, but which no longer exists (in fact that entire street was being ripped up and redone). So instead we found a little Italian place close to our B&B and had dinner there, and then did a bit more wandering until our feet were tired and so were we.

Richard’s gone off to a pub to hear some local music, but I elected to stay back at the B&B. We’ve been doing a lot of walking this past week, and while we’ve joked about this being my crash training program for the Avon Walk (please sponsor me!), it’s starting to catch up with us.

Pictures from Waterford are here

This morning was our last in Kilkenny. We packed and ate breakfast and I made one final trek downtown to stop by an ATM because so far both places we’ve stayed prefer cash to credit cards for payment. That was a bit of excitement in itself since I thought Richard knew where I was headed, but he went to put the bags in the car and when he came back inside I’d disappeared and he didn’t have a clue where I was. So when I came back I was greeted with hugs and ‘oh, we were worried about you!’ from the innkeeper, which confused me quite a bit until I realized what had happened. Anyway, it was a bit sad to leave, since the couple who runs the B&B is very nice, and the town had lots of character.

Our first stop today was in New Ross, to visit the Dunbrody Famine Ship. New Ross sits at the mouth (or is it the end?) of the River Noire, and is a major port, which means it was also a major departure site for the Irish who fled the country during the great potato famine. In New Ross they’ve recreated the Dunbrody, which was one of the ships used to transport passengers. There was apparently a short video about the making of the ship, which we weren’t too upset about missing, and then the guide took us onto the boat and walked us around. As you can see in the pictures, it wasn’t a very big ship at all, but it’s even tinier when you realize that it would carry 150 – 300 people for 50 days across the ocean.

She took us below, first showing us the captains quarters and the first class cabins, which certainly weren’t luxurious by any stretch of the imagination, except when compared to the rather mindboggling conditions of the steerage compartments, where the bulk of the passengers were stored. There were two character actors who came to talk to us – the first a woman traveling in steerage, sharing a cramped bunk with her husband and 5 children; the second, a woman traveling with her husband and two children in first class. They both remained true to their characters (which were based on actual passengers on the original Dunbrody) even throughout answering questions. It was really quite sobering to look at the quarters where too many people were crammed in like sardines, in horrible, filthy, inhumane conditions. 50 days doesn’t seem too unbearable until you think about spending it below deck surrounded by 200+ unwashed strangers, likely suffering from seasickness, dysentery, and worse. Oh, and of course, there was no indoor plumbing, only buckets tucked under the stairs.

After visiting the ship, we left New Ross and headed further east toward Wexford, to visit the Irish National Heritage Park. It’s 35 acres of partially reclaimed bogs and marshes, onto which they’ve built life-sized replicas of various dwellings and other structures throughout the entire history of humans on the island, and it was quite fascinating. We traveled from primitive temporary campsites to thatch-roofed farmhouses; toured an early ringfort and a primitive monastery; even got to visit a Viking boatyard and saw boat-making in action. Some of the sites had fires burning and tools and other implements strewn about as if the inhabitants were just about to return. A few of the sites showed the various burial structures through the ages, and we got a kick out of the fact that the dolman exhibit even had a few bones tossed in. It was quite a hike around the entire park, and we were both glad we’d thought to eat lunch first (huge bowls of Irish stew at the little cafe in the visitors center near the entrance).

Our final stop for the day was Hook Head Lighthouse, which entailed more driving down tiny little roads through tiny rural communities and farmlands dotted everywhere with ruins. It seems like everywhere you turn there’s ruins of yet another church or house or castle, and they’re just…there. No one seems to give it much thought at all.

Hook Head Lighthouse is the oldest working lighthouse in Europe (and possibly the world), and our tour guide gave us quite a detailed history of the place. It was built a the request of the current king by the monks of the area, since we could quickly see that the rocks surrounding this peninsula were pretty nasty and probably weren’t fun for any ships trying to enter the mouth of the bay (and then progress up to Waterford or New Ross). The monks also built an attached abbey at its base, and were responsible for its function. They kept signal fires burning on top of it, and when coal came into use they stored all the coal in the bottom and then had to cart that coal up extremely steep and narrow stone steps to the roof to keep the fire burning. We’ve noted that this sort of inconvenient and awkward manual labor seems peculiarly suited to the monks of the era, since it seems that they were big into that kind of thing.

We got to climb out to the top and had lovely views across the end of the peninsula. I’m sure it would have also been a lovely view out across the water, if it wasn’t for the fog.

We made our way around the remaining half of the Ring of Hook, back to New Ross, and then across to Waterford, and this time had no problems at all finding our next B&B, since while our city maps don’t seem to like to provide actual street names all the time, they do include landmarks and historical sites, and our B&B is right across a little courtyard from the Christchurch Cathedral.

Our room is at the top of the stairs on the third floor. The stairs themselves tend to list alarmingly away from the wall on a few of the flights, and the room is extremely tiny. The bed is also tiny, and smashed against the wall, and we both looked at the layout and realized that we were going to get no sleep unless we were willing to be creative. So I snagged a few extra blankets and the comforter off the bed and have created a little temporary mattress for myself on the floor, and Richard’s sticking with the bed. The bed is soft enough that I know it is the type to give me a backache, so I’d rather the floor anyway.

We’ve wandered the city a little this evening, just enough to find a place for dinner, get our bearings and track down location and hours for the places we intend to hit first tomorrow. This is definitely the largest town we’ve been in so far in Ireland, if the size of the open air shopping center, and the inclusion of recognizable chain stores is anything to go by.

Pictures of Irish Heritage Park and Hooks Head

I think we’re starting to get the hang of the weather around here. In the morning, before you’ve gotten through getting dressed and eating breakfast, it’s dry and sunny and you can see patches of blue sky. However, just about the time you’re ready to walk out of the door to face the day, back come the rain clouds, prepared to keep things in some range of damp to soggy until just about the time you give up and head back inside for dinner. If you’re up for wandering around late at night, it’s dry and clear again. Heh.

Today was a bit lower key than the last few. We headed off to see Jerpoint Abbey, which is an ancient monestery located just a bit south of Thomastown. Score another one for the Heritage Card – I think we’ve now broken even on the price of those cards and we’re barely one week in.

Anyway, the abbey. We were all set to wander around on our own, but then a tour guide came rushing out to us. She was just about to start a tour for another couple and wanted to know if we’d be interested in joining in. Lucky for us, because the tour was wonderful. So far either we’ve been really lucky, or all the tour guides around here really are just this enthusiastic about what they are doing. She told us all about the founding of the Cistercian sect of monks, which split from the Benedictines, and how they spread across Europe, and were the ones who built this particular abbey. She walked us through the chancel, which was always the first part of an abbey to be built, and pointed out details on some of the tombs neither Richard or I would likely have noticed on our own. And she described how to tell which saint is which when we’re noticing the saints carved into the sides of some of the raised tombs, plus she showed us a number of the figures carved into the pillers that lined the cloister and explained what they thought they might be. She also explained why it is that we see so many places where there’s people buried inside the church. During the reformation, the king (Henry the something) shut down all the churches and religious orders (at least in Ireland) and banned their use, so Catholics couldn’t practice openly. So the people would sneak in and bury their family members inside the churches because at least it was still hallowed ground. And they would snag a bit of carving or relic to place over the burial plots so they would know where their family was located, since they couldn’t put an actual headstone. Our guide noted that there are still families who have the right to continue to bury their dead inside some of the ruins. She said they’d been trying to do a census of bodies just within the grounds of the abbey itself and there were dozens and dozens that they knew about so far, and likely dozens more they’ll never really track down.

After the abbey, we headed back toward Kilkenny, stopping at a brighly colored little building along the way, called the Watergarden, for lunch. Richard had a bowl piled with beef and Guiness stew and I had a bowl of potato, leek, and pesto (I think) soup, with a side of that brown soda bread we see everywhere. And then it was back to Kilkenny to brave the rain again.

We decided to try to get up to the design center which is in the old stables, across the street from the castle. The guidebooks and fliers made it out to be something really interesting, where we’d be able to see local artisans at work, but the guidebooks and fliers, they lie. So instead we meandered back down the main streets of town, poking our heads into a few stores and stopping to try an assortment of little pastries in a coffee shop (note to self – pastries around here are deceivingly filling). We also decided to take advantage of the spare time to get a load of laundry done.

Richard’s been wanting to get into a pub to hear some local music, but so far we’re usually pretty exhausted by the time evening rolls around. Tonight, however, we headed off to the Kyteler Pub, which is named after a woman who was condemned as a witch. We ate dinner (first time in my life I have ever been served a side of fries with my lasagna – heh) and then lingered over dessert until it was time for the music to start.

The waitress had told us it was going to be acoustical music, and it was going to be traditional Irish music, and while the duo playing sang and played well, it was neither traditional, nor acoustic. Nevertheless we had fun sitting there for a bit, chatting with our table mates – a mother and son couple from England – and watching the crowd of locals near us singing along with some of the songs, and playing with their digital cameras. It wasn’t until we were just about ready to head back to the B&B that they finally sang a few Irish songs, so we lingered just long enough for those and then decided to call it a night.

The sky was clear as we headed back to our B&B and the city is so quiet, when compared to cities back home. Richard pointed out that we’ve not heard a single airplane go overhead anywhere we’ve been so far. Little things, but enough of them to remind us we’re very far from home.

Picture from Jerpoint Abbey are here

We were really lucky the past three days with the weather – in fact yesterday we actually saw a bit of sun. Today, however, the rain set in, and after traipsing around town this morning for only a short while, we decided to break down and buy umbrellas. With the wind they don’t keep you from getting wet, but they do help keep you from getting completely soaked!

This morning we went to the tourist information office first, and then hit a series of bookstores, still trying to find a new copy of that book. It appears, however, that of all the travel guides available, this series simply isn’t available in Ireland or the UK. So we picked up something else which seems to be quite informative on its own, and with that and the Rough Guide to Ireland, I think we’ll be okay. We also discovered that Amazon.uk’s idea of Priority Two-Day Shipping is actually to wait to ship it out until July, so we cancelled the order for the replacement book.

Our first stop this morning was to Kilkenny Castle. Again, no pictures allowed inside, but our tour guide was enthusiastic and informative, even with such a huge crowd of people, and told us all about the history of the place. It was built and run by the same family (the Butlers) for over 600 years, even after being overrun here and there during the various wars. The Butler influence was rather obvious throughout Kilkenny, actually, since a number of them are also buried in raised tombs inside St. Canice’s Cathedral, which is located at the other end of the town and which has been actively used for over 800 years.

We’ve done a lot of wandering around the town today. It’s obviously much larger than Trim, and although we don’t recognize most of the shop names, the main streets of town are crammed with stores, a few of which I remember seeing in Trim, so I suspect a few might be chains. My umbrella broke while we were at the Cathedral, but the store very nicely let me exchange it (a good example of why it’s important to hang onto your receipts).

It’s been a slower day than the previous ones on our trip so far, but I think we needed it. We’ve had more time to walk around (despite the rain) and take in the town; to stop at little coffee shops and tea shops along the way, and to get thoroughly soaked several times (hence the stopping at coffee shops and tea shops to warm up and dry out!).

We ate fish chowder for lunch in an extremely crowded pub, and had a more leisurely dinner at a rather nice restaurant downtown – our first two non-breakfast meals in Ireland that did not have either fries (chips) or coleslaw. So far every single meal has had one or more of the following three things: some kind of potatoes (often more than one form dish), the aforementioned coleslaw, or brown bread, which seems to be a rather dense and hearty whole-grain recipe (it’s really good).

Not as many pictures from today, since we couldn’t take pictures at the castle, and the rain’s been a bit too much for any pictures of things outdoors, but those pictures we took are available here.

This morning we ate breakfast, packed up our bags, and waved goodbye to Trim. Our first stop was to be the castle in Maynooth, but we discovered once we got there (which involved stopped in downtown Maynooth at a little coffee shop to get coffee and ask for directions) that it doesn’t actually open until June. Oops. That is going to be one small downside to taking our trip in May – a number of the historical sites listed for the Heritage card aren’t even open until next month. No problem – we were just happy we’d managed to navigate our way out of Trim and down to Maynooth without getting lost once. In fact we think we might actually be getting the hang of the street sign system around here, and after today’s rather harrowing journey through a number of roads that are only about one lane wide, but which allow two directions of traffic, that’s saying a lot.

So instead of going to the castle in Maynooth, our next stop was in Celbridge, to tour Castletown House. We got there just before a large school group arrived, so one of the tour guides decided to take us and another couple (also Americans) around by ourselves. The guide was a woman who seemed to very much love her job, and have a great deal of pride and enthusiasm about the house, and the tour was wonderful. The house is huge – I don’t remember how many rooms she said it had, but what amazed both of us was that for its sheer size, she noted that it had never been built with space for children in mind. The entire west wing of the house was dedicated to the kitchens, while the east wing was for guests, and as she told the history, it appeared that this house had been decorated and run by a series of strong-minded women who had deep love for their home.

During the tour she pointed out a structure in the distance – a memorial obelisk built by one of the women who’d lived there as a memorial to her husband. So after we left Castletown House we made our way over there (only getting slightly lost once). There’s a fence around it so we couldn’t get very close, but we could at least get some pictures and stare at it.

Next stop, lunch at the Abbey House in Celbridge, and then on to Powerscourt, which was about an hour or so drive through some extremely ‘fun to drive’ (ha ha) roads. We passed through a lot of farmland, most of which is segmented up with crumbling stone walls nearly covered in some kind of bright yellow-orange flowering shrub, and many of them filled with sheep. In fact I tried to get pictures of some of the sheep (just for the amusement factor) but the sheep weren’t entirely cooperative.

Powerscourt has another large mansion, but it was obvious driving onto the grounds that this was much more of a tourist-oriented thing than Castletown, and we both remembered from the missing guidebook that the gardens were a better bet anyway.

The gardens at Powerscourt are huge, and it’s obvious that great care is being taken to try to renovate them. There was a lot of new planting and we both wondered if they’re trying to recreate what used to be there. They offered a map, which we discovered was barely any use at all, and we set off on a path into woods, passing by statues and stone urns. We found an old well, and then a ‘little’ tower that was apparently commissioned by Lord Powerscourt. It is called the Pepper Pot Tower because he wanted a tower to look just like his pepper shaker. Must be nice to have that kind of money (heh). The tower was open, although it wasn’t big enough to have much more than a steep spiral staircase inside, so we could climb to the top and look out over the gardens. From up there we spied a tiny little cemetery, but back on the ground we discovered there was no way to actually get to it (and we assume it was likely the family’s private cemetery, since it was walled off).

The estate includes a Japanese garden with little pagodas and curious stone mushroom type sculptured scattered around, and little bridges over tiny little brooks, and best of all, a little stone grotto with paths leading into and out of and over wherever you looked. We decided to go the long route to see the rhododendrons and azaleas, of which there didn’t actually seem to be very many for either type of flower, but it was a nice walk until the extremely steep climb back up a hill to rejoin the main path. We found the pet cemetery, where all the horses, dogs, and a few notable cows are buried, and then made our way past the Dolphin Pond, where we didn’t find anything at all resembling dolphins (supposedly the fish on the fountain were dolphins, but they were the most un-dolphin-like fish we’d ever seen). Next up, the walled gardens, which our little map said had the world’s longest herbaceous border, and then back into the more manicured areas of the estates.

From Powerscourt, we meandered through yet more slightly terrifying one lane / two-way roads until we found Glendalough, which is an old monastic settlement founded by St. Kevin hundreds of years ago, nestled into a little valley. Most of the settlement is a cemetery that is still in use, so there were headstones from the late 1900’s set in right next to stones from the 1700’s, or even stones so old that all the writing had worn away. The settlement is notable for the fact that it has one of the most well-preserved Round Towers in the country, which they think might have been used as bell towers (although they weren’t entirely sure).

After this, another hour or two of driving, although thankfully the last half of this final leg of the day’s tour was done on fully paved, multiple lane roads. We made it to Kilkenny but then realized we didn’t actually have any directions to our B&B, so had to ask a few random people where to find the street. Finally found it, though, and are settled into our room, which is where we’ll be staying for the next few days. We did a bit of wandering this evening, mainly to find someplace to get food (we finally settled on a tiny little sandwich shop, since it was one of the few places still open) and to try to track down location and hours for the tourist information office. For all the driving we did today, we also did a huge amount of walking and we’re both completely exhausted, but looking forward to exploring Kilkenny and the area tomorrow, *after* we get some sleep.

Pictures from today: Celbridge, Powerscourt, Glendalough