The Rock of Cashel

Dingle

The music last night was beautiful—a full-size set of Irish pipes, a fiddle, and a 12-string guitar. And we sat really close to the musicians. There was a sort of window, a big one, between our booth and the musicians, and hanging over the stage were various instruments—accordions, violins, a lute or bouzouki, etc.

Today we’re getting on the bus at 8:30, so no messing around.

From the bus, I noticed a sign: Acute Bends Ahead (square yellow sign, very curvy road amid more illegible word—don’t bloody write in longhand on a moving bus.)
Ah, just look at that bend. It’s so cuuuute.

Lambs wag their tails while nursing, like kittens purr. Contentment.

Killarney

We stopped at Killarney, 10 am, for restroom break (and Matthew needed to gas up the bus). Killarney Outlet Centre—looks like an American mall. I bought a wooden Buddha—nontraditional—at a booth in the hallway. After looking at “before and after” photos of Killarney—photos taken around 1900 next to the same place photographed in 2004. Some haven’t changed, but one street scene showed a couple of thatched-roofed cottages between some buildings that look about the same (the cottages have been replaced—or at least altered a great deal).

Cill Airne = Killarney

“165 people killed on Cork roads in the past four years.”

I could make a comment about drinking and driving, but it might sound like I'm stereotyping the Irish, so I'll refrain.

On the way into Mitchellstown, Matthew explained that the wall on our left dates to famine times, when poor people were paid one pound a day to build the stone walls (and 140 pennies equaled a pound then). The wall is between five and seven feet high by the looks of it and doesn’t look very thick, but I could be wrong—it might be two or three rows of stone. This wall would have surrounded a lord’s estate.

Garde = police

The Rock of Cashel

Bru Baru—for lunch—“There is no brew at Bru Baru.” --Dave
Rock of Cashel (pretty much across the street from Bru Baru)

We stopped at the Visitor’s Centre called Bru Baru, where we had a simple lunch of soup, sandwiches, and tea in a room reminiscent of a medieval great hall, particularly in the style of fireplace and the medieval-looking banners hanging overhead. There are long wooden tables and benches and high rafters. There’s also a gift shop down the hall, where I got a Bru na Boyne-inspired necklace for Jill and a toy sheep for Malcolm. That was after I finished lunch and scurried outdoors to take pictures. The Rock of Cashel is way overhead, the mountain overlooking Bru Baru.

When the group was all ready, we headed for the mountain and climbed up to the front gates, where we waited to get in and took pictures. We followed Dave through the gates with a young tour guide named James who led us to a rather worn down Patrick’s cross (actually, a replica of the one indoors, sheltered in a one-room museum). He told us about the history of the Rock of Cashel. The original building was a castle in the forth century, but it was a simple one and built of wood and hasn’t survived. The only surviving buildings are religious, not castle architecture, and date from the 12th, 13th, and 15th centuries. There’s a lot of harsh wind up on that mountain, and that alone has damaged the buildings—there’s a chunk that’s fallen off the big cathedral.

As for the cross of Patrick—if you can wrap your arms all the way around it and your hands touch, you’ll never ever have to [it looks like “chache”, but that doesn’t make any sense—maybe “age.”] and if you hop nine times counterclockwise around the cross, you’ll be married within the year. I was tempted to try the first, but definitely not the latter.

Dublin

In the evening, we arrived in Dublin around 5:30, checked in to the Trinity College dorms and went to a really fancy restaurant for our farewell dinner. I spotted a picture of Johnny Depp and pictures of other actors on wall behind our tables and on other walls. Lots of maroon, lots of mirrors—it’s a theatre-oriented restaurant, like a famous one in New York that I can’t remember the name of (but it’s in a Muppets movie). Phil awarded everyone something different—like Linda’s award had to do with knitting—and the prizes were shamrock tiepins or Irish flag tiepins. I got a shamrock, “I wonder what she’s writing about me in her backward journal”award. (Yes, I was visibly writing in my journal a lot, and I open it right to left because I’m left handed and can.)