Monday, Sept. 3rd: Blarney Castle, Ring of Kerry

Tuesday was a beautifully sunny day, at least to start, and we were on our way for a long drive to Blarney Castle. I drove this part of the trip. Mostly the "M" highways, or what we would call interstates. It was very tricky finding the exact road to get on after getting to Cork. We had to stop for diesel fuel and the person at the register said we were about the 4th or 5th Americans to come through asking for help. Her directions were perfect and we soon found ourselves at Blarney Castle.

At the ticket counter, we were told the wait was about 1.5 hours to get to the top of the castle and the Blarney Stone. It was a gorgeous day outside and Kasey and Eric hadn't seen the Blarney House when they were here last time, so they headed that way and we stayed in the line for the Castle.

After just about 1.5 hours of working our way up some pretty narrow spiral stairs (not for someone who doesn't like closed in spaces), we finally made it to the top of the Castle and awaited our turn at the Blarney Stone. The trick is to lie down on your back, tip your head backwards, grab onto a couple handrails, and kiss the wall of the Castle. What they don't tell you is that there is a wide grate that you are lying over the top of and its about 4 stories straight down! Just 2 metal bars! There is one person there to help you get into position and then help you sit up again. Plus another guy there taking 2 pictures of each person. They are for sale (what else?) at the gift shop at the bottom. 10 euro for one, 18 euro for both. Most people opt to take their own pictures and we did, too.  While we were waiting our turns, a couple had just finished and it seems the man had failed to get his wife's picture. Needless to say, she was letting him have it like crazy. Very funny! I guess they had to pay for the pictures. Or, at least the husband did!  By the way, the line was so long because there were many (most?) there from the U.S. who had been in Dublin for the Notre Dame-Navy football game. They probably decided to stay a couple extra days and catch some sights. Many probably had no choice as the number of flights back to the U.S. is limited and I'm sure all flights
were booked solid months ago.

When we finished we headed back to the concession area to see if Kasey and Eric were there. They weren't, so we had a snack. Within 5 minutes they showed up having just completed their tour of the House. Great timing.

It was now time to head for the Ring of Kerry. This is a road tour around the Iveragh Peninsula, just west of Killarney. The roads hug the coastline for the most part, allowing great views of the nearby bays and islands. That is, on a clear day. Not so lucky for us, the weather had clouded up and it had begun to lightly mist as we began our trip. We were able to find a couple places to get some pictures, but most were clouded out. We stopped in Cahirsiveen for some dinner at a bar. When we walked in, the bartender looked very unexcited that we were there. He was OK after we had placed our order and even had a joke or two for us.

I told Kasey that I didn't want to drive anymore so he took over. It's just as well. The roads became quite a bit narrower with many tight turns. Plus, he knew a few of the best places to stop. We got the pictures we could. The light was fading as dusk was approaching. One last stop at the Killarney National Park and a waterfall that was pretty nice.

The pictures show: a view of Blarney Castle from entry gate, a tower outside the castle, the castle with the long waiting line, the location of the Blarney Stone (about 50 feet up!), entering the castle, a view from the top, Brad kissing the Stone, Cindy kissing the Stone, a waterfall in Killarney National Park (part of the Ring of Kerry), various shots around the Ring with us in one of them, and finally a last shot showing the waterfalls close-up.

Then, the long trip home. We took the western route using the N21 and M20/7 to go through Limerick and used the same raods we had traveled coming back from the Cliffs of Moher. Still, it was a long trip home with intermittent rain. We dind't pull into the cottage until near 11 p.m. Another long day of driving with one very successful stop and one not as nice. I guess from what we later heard that the only bad weather in most all of Ireland was in the area of the Iveragh Peninsula.  Oh well....

Sunday, Sept. 2 The Loughmore Festival

Today is a late and lazy morning as we all are a bit tired. Early in the afternoon, we are heading over to the Loughmore Festival. Many typical summer festival activities to help support the new church roof.

Kasey dropped us off at the Festival grounds at about 1 pm and off we went to see what was going on. Soon enough the Maher family meets up with us and shows us around. We also meet SO MANY family members - too many to keep track of. They are all such wonderful people.

The festival has all your typical festival activities; a giant slide, life size foosball, craft tents, food tents, dancing and music, a tug of war contest, farm displays, kiddie wagon rides around the grounds, bagpipes, etc.

We spent the afternoon checking out most everything. Trying to get a feel for the Irish. Everyone was so friendly!

While watching the dancers, we noticed that 3 members of the Nesbitt family were sitting near the stage; Mr., Mrs., and a daughter.  They were soon joined by Mairead, the fiddler who plays with Celtic Woman! What a wonderful surprise!! She is from Loughmore, but who would have thought she would be able to be there? I guess she participates in as many community activites as she can fit into her schedule. That's amazing. We obviously didn't bother her at all, but instead enjoyed her playing the fiddle with her family and with the kids of the community. In the interest of privacy, I have not included any images of the family.

Below are some pictures of the activities. Many are self-explanatory. Tony Maher and his daughter, Caoimhe, sang a song together that was very pretty. At 15 years old, she is quite talented, being able to play the fiddle and guitar as well as sing.  There was a skittles contest. 3 throws to try and knock down 5 pegs. A beautiful steam tractor running a threshing machine. Some dancers and bagpipers. The tug of war contest.

Saturday, Sept. 1st at the Cliffs of Moher

Not getting to sleep until about 3 a.m. meant we would try and sleep in a little longer Saturday. But, by about 9:30 a.m., we were all awake and Kasey was busy with breakfast; eggs over easy, a marinated hamburger "steak", and toast. I made Cindy and I some coffee. Great way to start the day.

We were headed to the Cliffs of Moher on the west coast of Ireland. The drive would be about 2 hours. I told them I would drive since I had missed half my turn the day before. Eric's phone GPS system worked perfectly. I actually liked it a lot because it told you which exit of the round-a-bout to use. The only issue we had was a blocked tunnel near Limerick because of an accident. We were re-routed through the city (not
all that big a city) and soon arrived at a very windy visitor center. By the way, the roads that lead to the Center are very narrow - I can't imagine getting a large tourist bus up there, but there were at least 8 parked there when we arrived with more coming and going all the time.

The Cliffs are quite spectacular. The pictures only tell part of the story. The constant, gusting winds were something else. At the top of the southern-most part of the park path, there's an entrance of sorts to an area where many people go to get more views. It is not part of the park and no safety fencing is in place. In places you can literally walk over to the edge of the cliff. Oh, and those cliffs rise about 390 feet above the Atlantic Ocean!! In the largest picture below, those are people on top of that first cliff out near the very edge.

Eric and Kasey decided to go ahead and see what was there. They came back and said there was a trail they were going to follow and that they'd meet us back for food and drinks after they returned. Well, their little path turnd out to be about 2 miles each way. By the time they returned, it was raining quite hard and Cindy and I were relaxing in the visitor center with a nice cup of hot chocolate.

They got dried up as best they could, warmed up, and had a warm drink. Eric drove home and we decided to stop at the pub in Upperchurch that had wi-fi and have something for dinner. Cindy had a lager beer with lime juice (something she has found is pretty good) and I had a Jameson's and Sprite, something I've found I like - a LOT! We had a very good pizza and some excellent chips (french fries - steak cut). We used the iPhone and the wi-fi to get caught up on communication. The pub was also showing the Notre Dame football game and then switched over to Penn State. Very nice of them to have American football on.
By the way, the Notre Dame vs. Navy football game was huge over here - they expected well over $100 million euro ($125 million) to be added to the economy of the Dublin area because of it. And, I guess the airlines are expecting the busiest 2 days ever on Monday and Tuesday as all these fans try to get home!

We arrived back home at the cottage by about 8:30 p.m. Another pretty long day. Eric and Kasey are headed back to the pub tonight. They've been invited down for a birthday party. Great place, Ireland.
You don't really need to know anyone to get invited in for some tea or a party!

Friday, August 31st: The Hike and Kilkenny

We were late getting up on Friday after the long night. We were planning on picking up Maggie later in the day and heading off to a pub (called Paris, Texas) in Kilkenny to see a 4-man group called Na Fianna make their last appearance together. What to do before then?

In one of the brochures for the Upperchurch area, I had read about an historic hiking path, called Eamonn an Chnoic, that left the town, went into the hills, and circled back. It was 8 km (5 miles) and it was supposed to take about 2.5 hours. It sounded pretty good to all of us and would give us nice views of the surrounding hills. So, we drove to town, parked the car, and headed out using the pamphlet as a guide.
After walking a certain distance, we were told to enter a field over a "style". We had no idea what these were until we found the path marker. A "style" is basically a two-sided ladder to go up and over a fence. It's much easier than having people opening gates and then not closing them properly. Many of the fields we ended up going through had cows in them!

We soon found that this hike was going to be a problem. Mud, everywhere. You see, it rains in Ireland (a LOT!) and this year has been much rainier than normal. Add that to the cattle in each field and the soil is pretty chewed up forming large areas of mud. Besides climbing hills, we mostly found ourselves trying to find a way around all the mud. After the first climb, we came to some picnic tables and rested. I also took some nice scenic pictures. No more picnic tables on our trip! To make a long story short, we had plenty of climbing yet to do, plenty of mud to get around, and many styles to climb over. We eventually circled around and came to a road and got a good laugh.
Our cottage wasn't 100' away from where we left a field and took to the road. The hike only had about a half a kilometer left, so Cindy and I decided to stay and get cleaned up while Kasey and Eric finished the hike. That was so that when Kasey and Eric got back, they would have access to the showers.

The picture of our sneakers says much about the mud we found. Luckily, we were able to get most of the mud off using an outdoor water spigot and the washing machine did an amazing job at getting our sneakers quite clean.

Then it was off to Loughmore to pick up Maggie and head to the pub in Kilkenny, about an hour away. Maggie wanted to get there early for the 9:30 p.m. show (everything starts late here!) because she felt the place would be packed. Maggie knew the 4 men in the group after meeting them when they performed in Orlando (where she lives). We were also meeting up with one of Siobhan's sisters, Vera. Kasey and Eric had met her on their previous visit 2 years ago. We arrived about 8:15 p.m. and the place was about empty. We had our choice of seats and had dessert and coffee. 9:30 came and went and no sign of a show. We learned that 2 of the members were coming from another gig and the show wouldn't start until 10:30 p.m. Ugh! 

The show finally started at about 10:45 and lasted until about 1:45 a.m.! It was a very good show -
4 talented singers and musicians. In the second to last picture below, Cindy and I are pictured with Eric (left), Vera, and Kasey (right).  Eric and Kasey planned the whole trip and we are sharing the cottage with them.

We got Maggie back to Loughmore and we arrived home at about 3 a.m.!!! Were we ever beat! Off to bed in a hurry. We knew we had a busy day later on  Saturday as we wanted to go to the Cliffs of Moher.

Thursday, August 30th: Arriving in Upperchurch

Today was checkout day at Spencer Docks. We got everything packed and then checked the weights of our bags at this point to see how we're doing. All looks like we'll be OK for the flight back home next Friday.

We headed southwest out of the city along the same route taken on our Kilkenny trip. We stopped near
New Inn along the M7 at the Gannon Inn for lunch. Also filled the car's fuel tank with diesel, our first fill up since we arrived. 75 euro at $1.59 euro per liter. Quick estimate of cost: about 3.8 liters in a gallon, so 6.04 euro per gallon. 1 euro = $1.25 so about $ 7.55 per gallon.  And diesel is about 0.10 euro per liter cheaper than gasoline. Gasoline is about $8.07 per gallon!!

On the road again, we took the M8 now onto Thurles. Pretty big "city", large shopping plaza located
there. We drove through Thurles and quite a few turns few turns and 20 km later we're in Upperchurch and headed up the "road" to our cottage. I say road with a laugh because at home this would be a farm path at best. One lane, twisting, bumpy, no shoulders (well, there's a hedge!), and the speed limit is
80 kph (50 mph). Most everyone tries to go that fast, too.

We found the cottage - looked just like it did in the Google Earth view! Our booking agent soon showed up with the keys and gave us a quick tour. The owners have everything labelled as to what it is and how it works. The agent left us to unpack a bit and returned with a big box full of milk, eggs, juice, cereal, etc.
It was a beautiful sunny day in Upperchurch. Next, a phone call....

We were meeting up with another person we know from Celtic Woman, Maggie Ryan. She is Irish through and through. She now lives in Orlando, but all her family is in Tipperary. We drove back into Thurles and parked. As we walked down the street she came running up and gave Kasey a big hug and then Cindy and then me and Eric. It was like we all knew her our whole lives.

Then off we went on a short road tour of her hometown, Loughmore. It just happens to be the hometown of
a fiddler named Mairead Nesbitt, from Celtic Woman, too. We drove around the town and Maggie provided us with its history. We stopped at The Cottage for a quick snack. Cindy had carrot cake and I had chocolate cake and ice cream. Delicious. Then the owner asked us to come out back to the patio - we were
greeted with one of the most beautiful scenes I have ever seen. There, through the trees, was
Loughmore Castle. Stunning doen't do it justice. It is on private property and is not open to any tours. So, all one can do is admire it from a dstance. Pictures were taken and we headed up to the Abbey Cemetery for some more history and pictures. We ended our tour of Loughmore at the local pub, Stapleton's.
What else would expect us to do?

Next, we headed off to Maggie's relatives in town, the Maher's, Tony, Siobhan (pronounced sha-vonne), and daughter Caiohme (pronounced kwee-va).  We had a nice conservation over some tea (the other what else??).

Time now to get ready to go to THE highlight of this part of the trip, Jim O'Mills. Every Thursday Jim opens his home/pub to anyone and everyone interested in listening to, singing, or playing music. Tony offered to pick us up before and drop us off afterwards! A very nice gesture on his part. We've  heard the sessions can go until 2 to 3 in the morning, but Tony said it would be earlier since his daughter had school.

Jim's gets very crowded! We got there about 9:30 and found some of the last seats in the main room, a space about 16 x 16 feet. There were probably 30 people in there! Guitars, fiddles, pipes, drums,
banjos, harmonicas, to name some of the instruments people had. Someone would start, and the others
would join in. When the music stopped, anyone with something to offer could start. Many sang without instrumental help and many times multiple people played their instruments. Tony sang a couple songs - he sounded to me like the stereotypical Irish singer. Very nice. His daughter, the youngest one there at 15, played a beautiful fiddle and sang with her guitar. Talented young lady.

Lots of beer poured all night long. It became VERY crowded over time as many people showed up,
many more than usual. We found out that some had traveled from Dublin (2 hours) to come to Jim's.
They were Notre Dame fans here for the weekend football game vs. Navy. Even the lineman who played
for Notre Dame and threw the block that allowed Rudy (of movie fame) to score was there. Very cool.

About 1:30 a.m., Tony decided he needed to get his daughter home so offered us a ride first. Cindy and I were ready, not sure about Kasey and Eric. But they came along because there would be no other way for them to get the mile or so back to our cottage.  Tony's daughter, Caiohme, is to the right in the last picture playing her fiddle.

We had turned the heat on in the cottage to take some of the chill and dampness out. We fell asleep
pretty quickly.

The pictures below show some of the things I mentioned above. I'm finding this blog software to be a pain at placing images within the area of the text, so I'm placing them all at the bottom.

Wednesday, August 29 at the Brazen Head

Today ended up being a rest day and "finish up any Dublin details" day.  Cindy and I had a quiet morning walking around the Spencer Docks area and then headed off to the Brazen Head where we would be meeting up with Kasey and Eric (after their shopping trip to Guinness) and Maggie Ryan. She was coming in from the airport via bus. It ended up that Maggie and we didn't quite connect on what was going on so she missed seeing us at Brazen Head. We instead would meet up with her in Loughmore tomorrow afternoon.

The only pictures today are from the Brazen Head.  The sign out front and plaque inside give the history of the Pub, and then there's a couple shots of the courtyard before entering the actual building. It had sprinkled a bit so they had extended the canopy.

The walls inside were covered with tons of dollar bills all with something different written on them. We found this Yankee-Red Sox one. And Cindy found a couple badges from NY police agencies!

Then back to the apartment for final packing before heading off to Tipperary in the morning.