Ireland Honeymoon March 10

Travel Journal Ireland Honeymoon Sunday March 10, 2013 Kate & Steve Kitchen

We slept fairly well last night – I woke up twice and looked at the clock and was totally relieved to discover that it wasn’t time to get up either time!  I got out of bed at 8:30 a.m. as there were 3 female students finishing a course in nursing who were staying at The Grand Inn as well and they had the 8:30 a.m. breakfast slot.  I showered as soon as I got up, while Steve slept in, and then I got Steve up at ten to 9.  When I was mostly presentable (other than the wet hair), we went down to the breakfast room.  It was filled with more Catholic images and photos, and antique lamps and décor, along with some of the B & B woman’s personal photographs and certificates.  She had 2 daughters somewhere in the Inn, likely in the living quarters blocked off to B & B guests, but a couple of times the girls popped their heads out and we said hello. 

We had ordered the “full Irish breakfast” last night, unsure what exactly it meant, so as we waited, the lady of the house brought out a pile of toast (I think it was 6 half slices) and a hearty but almost flavorless brown bread (that seemed to find its way onto our plates every single morning the entire trip). In addition to orange juice here, Steve also had a cup of tea and I had a coffee – we each got a small sized thing with our beverages – Steve a small teapot, me a French press of coffee.  Not being a true coffee drinker, I didn’t “press” it right and ended up eating some coffee grounds.  Oh well.  A “full Irish breakfast”, we quickly learned, is about 4 lbs. of meat.  You get a fried egg with a runny yolk, grape tomatoes or tomato slices, Canadian bacon (at least 3 gigantic pieces), blood sausages (at least one, maybe 2 in round disc form), another circular sausage with a decent amount of spice in it, two large links of another kind of sausage (this particular “link” style sausage was different everywhere we went), and the coffee for me and tea for Steve along with the OJ, and at this B & B, a most delicious strawberry jam for the toast. 

I could not eat all of that meat, but I did my best to try to get as much down (or at least a couple of bites of everything) as I could so as to be polite to our hostess.  The OJ was the best part, but we ran out of it.  We are just dehydrated at this point from traveling and the fact that there really isn’t much by way of fresh water.  We did ask for some water, as well, but the hostess forgot to bring it at this point. 

While we began eating, the hostess was not in the breakfast room, but for a few minutes talking to us about the Pope.  She had a great love for Pope John Paul II, as he had formally blessed her marriage and she had a beautifully illuminated certificate signed by the Pope indicating that their marriage was blessed by him.  She was very interested in the way that the Conclave would go – bearing in mind that at this point in time we did not have an idea if they had set a date for Conclave yet.

After eating much too much protein, we ventured back to our room to continue to get ready and pack.  While Steve was taking a shower the hostess knocked on our room door and she had brought up two glasses and a large old-fashioned liter bottle with a cool snap on/off top that was hung on a wire around the bottle top.  And the water was cold.  I can tell you we finished that liter very quickly as we packed.  It was a real treat. 

Not being used to staying in B & Bs, we didn’t know the protocol for things like clearing our breakfast dishes (we didn’t), but we also had no idea where to clear them to, not having seen a kitchen.  We also didn’t know if we should strip the beds, so I asked and the hostess seemed shocked and said “No, of course not!”  She didn’t seem insulted but rather impressed that I would ask. 

Finally we had the car loaded and were ready to go, so we said goodbye to her, and then Steve took photos with me and her on the porch. (We wore Wellingtons for the very first day – though I forgot the liners and wouldn’t make that mistake again.)

It was very rainy all day, though a rain that wasn’t too soaking or driving – more like what we expected Ireland’s rain to be like, constant but not too heavy.  We always said we never expected to not be wet in Ireland, and a little bit of rain never hurt anyone. 

Once we got out of the tiny parking lot (even though our car was small it was still large by Irish standards!), we popped over to the “petrol” (gas) station across the street for diet Coke, then we went down to Carrick again to see their own castle.  From the outside, the castle was lovely, but the castle itself was not open and the area around the castle was closed because they were setting up a vintage car show for charity.  It was kind of wild to see “vintage” cars in Irish style – as they are so different from what we might see at a Cruise Night or vintage car show in the U.S. 

The people who were outdoors directing the vintage cars to their parking spaces told us the news about the castle but said that we should park and go into a building across from the castle and told us to “have tea or coffee and cakes” on sale for the same charity.  We parked, then walked into what felt from the outside like a private residence, but no one questioned us other than to ask if we were drivers and needed to register or not.  We said we weren’t, then walked a bit further and found ourselves in a large living room/kitchen and a lot of people were giving us kind of funny looks.  It turns out that it really was someone’s home.  However, they welcomed us in, and we explained how we ended up there, then we bought a rhubarb tart for €3, and then excused ourselves.  (Nevermind that we never got around to eating the tart and left it at a different B & B later down the trip!)

Feeling done with the area, we decided to head down south to County Waterford, and ended up in the small city of Waterford itself.  It’s a very interesting small city near the sea and it’s obviously a port for commerce and possibly the Navy.  We parked the car in a one-way alley (that was a difficult find, and the one-way nature of the alley made it very difficult to escape once we were done in Waterford!), then made our way to the House of Waterford Crystal to shop their beautiful crystal collection. 

As we were making our way into the House of Waterford store, we watched men in Navy uniforms rehearsing an event to be held that same day at 3 p.m. commemorating the raising of the very first Tricolor Irish flag (green at the hoist representing the Gaelic tradition of Ireland, orange representing the followers of William of Orange in Ireland, and white representing the aspiration of peace between them) in 1848.  The ceremony to be held later that day would commemorate that 1848 raising of the flag, still the flag of Ireland, through the raising of the Tricolor, the American flag, and the Union Jack of Great Britain.  Although we couldn’t stay for the ceremony, we did see the rehearsal and a couple of gents in military kilts and hats.

The Waterford crystal display room was amazing – whole tables with multitudes of crystal chandeliers overhead, a giant crystal globe, a crystal “sword in the stone” that Steve pretended to try to pull out, crystal wedding gifts, crystal ornaments, a crystal full bar set up, and even colored crystal (not my favorite).  I decided it made no sense to buy a glass or even two in Waterford without getting a set, so I bought something on clearance, a simple crystal Irish harp Christmas ornament.  Ironically, the Irish harp is often the symbol used for Ireland and it used to be the official Irish flag – a harp on a sea of green!  We truly enjoyed looking at the crystal and imagining that we were “crystal people” who would use it in our everyday lives – Steve even found some crystal that he thought looked really cool.  The crystal Harp ornament was only $23.00 (yes, they were able to charge it to dollars instead of Euros), so it was much cheaper than I expected.

Just across the entryway from the store is the Waterford café, and so we were able to have lunch there, in a fancy cafeteria style, and enjoy the crystal chandeliers overhead and the setting up of the ceremony. 

When we finished eating and taking some photos, we hopped back in the car (I drove today as well as yesterday), and we began our drive to Blarney in County Cork.  The rain was terrible by this point, and I drove the whole way.  My right leg was so cramped and so were my hands from gripping the steering wheel so tightly.  And I think Steve was nervous even as a passenger and he was sore as well. 

We stopped for a quick walk around the town square of a place called Dungarvan, County Waterford, the twin city to Erie, Pennsylvania, so that we could get something from the chemist shop for our pain and to say that we walked around in the twin city to Erie, Pennsylvania, near where my Aunt Carol and Uncle Brian Lindsay live and not terribly far (within a couple of hours) of where Steve works.  We then jumped back in the car to keep going to Blarney.

It’s so wild here in so many ways – sometimes you’re on 4-lane expressways, and then you’re on the narrowest, windiest, hilliest roads, and sometimes in the bad rain you are sure that you’re going to die.  You never know where you’ll end up next!

Finally we got to Blarney, and the wind was very strong when we got out of the car at Blarney Castle.  Steve’s umbrella kept getting him wet as it was blowing inside out – we learned that we had to be careful with the cameras, keeping them covered as best we could with umbrellas and cases, and lean into the wind to prevent out umbrellas from blowing out.  As it was nearly 4 p.m. by the time we arrived at the Castle, there were very few other people there.  I imagine the weather helped us out a bit too. 

The Castle grounds were beautiful – lovely purple spring crocuses and daffodils popping up all over, and the greenest moss and grass you’ve ever seen.  There was an over-swollen river rushing around the Castle and I swear in the time we were climbing up to the top of the Castle and down again the water level had risen immensely – for sure it would flood!  The whole area was so picturesque.  We just slowly strolled, enjoying the old castle and keep and dungeon and caves below the castle, taking lots of pictures before beginning our climb to the top. 

Finally we reached the inside of the Castle and the harrowing walk up a spiral staircase with wet, narrow steps that were very uneven, with only a rope latch to the top of the stairs down to the bottom to hold onto to help you climb up.  It was quite the task with umbrellas, cameras, a cross-body purse, and a video camera as well.  It was a long climb, but it was awesome because every section there was a break to go into the former living quarters and catch your breath and let your muscles relax and just take in the wildness and the feel of being inside a castle and realizing that castle life was just structurally uncomfortable in general!  It had to have been drafty and wet and the stairs were so difficult – and the defenses in place were quite adequate – a murder hole to drop boiling oil on one’s enemies, a spiral staircase where the rail would have been on the opposite side to make most right-handed sword carrying invaders forced to use the right hand for the support of the rail, putting them out of easy sword play by down-running castle defenders.  We were kind of dorky and made a special stop in the Kitchen areas of the Castle, and of course took pictures of each other next to and under the signs that said “Kitchen”.  Hey, we’re allowed, it’s our last name, right?

Despite the long climb, it was awesome.  When you get to the top of the Castle, you walk along the slippery platforms with gaps between the walkway and the walls looking straight down to fire arrows on your enemies, and then you arrive at the Blarney Stone. 

Most people misunderstand the meaning of the Blarney Stone – it was, in fact, a stone that was brought over from Scotland.  Though it’s difficult to determine what the full correct story is, the proprietors of the Stone and the Castle say that it was a gift to Celtic Cormac Mac Artur from Robert the Bruce for the Irish assistance given the Scots at the Battle of Bannockburn (you may remember from watching Braveheart when the Irish, brought to fight the Scots by the English lords, suddenly join the Scots to fight the English).  Whether or not it’s the truth, the Stone is, in my opinion, fitting tribute as part of the Stone of Scone, where Scottish royalty was crowned.  Either way, it was a gift and installed on the Blarney Castle and the legend of kissing the stone evinced.

You will find that many think that you kiss the Blarney Stone for good luck.  While I suppose maybe there’s good luck to be found by kissing anything Irish, the reason that you kiss the Blarney Stone is to receive the gift of Eloquence, sometimes translated to the gift of gab or the ability to speak or write with ease and be able to convince others of your skill and your worth as a person or to join your cause.  Perhaps it is with the gift of Blarney that each entry in this journal grows lengthier than the last!

Either way, when you reach the section of the Castle where you are to kiss the Stone, a man places a mat out (because the rocks, at least in our case, were so slippery from rain), and you lie down backwards to the direction of the wall on this mat, then scootch your butt up until your head is in the space between the wall overhang and the solid rock that you are lying on.  You grab two bars alongside the wall to pull your upper body down so that you are bent backwards down the castle side, while the assistant holds your legs and also puts an arm across your abdomen.  You lower yourself down as far as you can go, to the very lowest stone, and kiss it!  Once you’ve kissed it, you have to pull yourself up, which is almost a more difficult feat than lowering yourself down!  They have a camera of course, which captures your kiss (or at least your neck and your upper body stretched down in the gap) and then captures you trying to get out of the position, and then you’re given a ticket to purchase your photographs.  Steve and I did videotape one another doing our kisses though – I’m anxious to see how those videos hold up!

We were both like little kids throughout the castle and the experience and giggled and had fun, and we didn’t mind the significantly wider staircase going down!  We bought our souvenir photos – as I doubt we will ever need to kiss the Blarney Stone again!  We also got a magnet for our collection and some gifts for others, as well as postcards.

We looked at the time and realized we had dallied a bit long, and we would be late to check in at Mary Brennan’s B & B “Ashfield”, our next lodging site, as check-in was between 3-6 p.m.  Immediately I had Steve telephone her to let her know that we would be late and we couldn’t really make any other stops in County Cork as Ashfield is located in Kenmare, County Kerry.  We did, however, see a giant statue of a unicorn raised up on its hind legs on top of the stone that had been carved through for the road.  It was very peculiar. 

We drove through Cork as fast as the roads would allow, and into Kerry.  The landscape changed so dramatically along the way – Kerry became wilder and untamed and high and rocky, and by the time we reached a big gap in the stone, it was snowing!  And sticking!  It was crazy – we were in awe of the wild, untamed brambles of landscape. 

We arrived at Ashfield at 7:00 p.m. in Kenmare, County Kerry, where my Great Great Grandparents lived only a few miles away at the start of the 20^th century, and met Mary Brennan.  Sadly, we found out that her husband’s family and her relations (Brennan is the surname of many of my relations) are from Kilkenney, and not from Kerry.  So it was just a random coincidence that we aren’t related in any traceable way.  However, she was just as jolly and sweet as could be, and recommended where we try to go for dinner once we were settled in our room.

Her home was beautiful – built specifically to be a B & B, and we were her only guests that night even though she was booked full for the next 8 nights.  When we went to our lovely room with a beautiful view of the Kerry Mountains, we found a chocolate bar and a sweet card welcoming us there on our honeymoon. 

We made our way the short distance into downtown Kenmare, an adorable little town that we would soon fall in love with, and headed to the not-so-busy Coachman’s Inn for dinner.  It was late, and a Sunday night, so I wasn’t surprised that it wasn’t busy.  I think we had Guinness there – it tastes SO much better in Ireland – and Steve and I both had fish and chips.  I’m not sure why I chose it – probably because I had seen the dessert menu and I wanted to save room for dessert and that was the best way – pawn off most of my fish to Steve.  And dessert we had…..it was lovely.

When we returned to the Ashfield, we set to planning our agenda for tomorrow, unpacking, getting ready for tomorrow, getting ready for bed, and repacking.  [This would become our usual arrangement as it wasn’t until Dublin that we stayed more than one night in the same place!]  Then off to bed.