After we left Other Meredith in Dublin, we went back to the airport to rent our car. Renting cars is such a pain and so expensive. But driving places is great, so what can you do. We did learn pretty quick that the guys who work at Enterprise are
still really cute. Don't know if they're doing that on purpose, but I'm not mad about it. We also learned this important fact-if you set your GPS to avoid toll roads in Ireland, you will be on a lot of back roads. This is actually pretty fun, and you get to see a lot more of the actual countryside than you would on the big highways (I assume), unless your back road is one of the ones lined by hedges that you hope are not covering walls. Your rental car can handle a few hedge scratches, but it probably can't handle running into a hidden stone barrier. Spoiler for the trip-we didn't crash. Also, they make you supremely paranoid about getting the tiniest scratch on the car but they for real didn't even check it when we turned it back in. But our paranoia did make us drive safer, so I guess it worked out.
Our goal for the night was to reach Kilkenny, but we decided to go by way of the Wicklow mountains with a stop in Avoca, which is a village famous for hand weaving. We learned a valuable lesson here, unfortunately. We reach the village at about 5:30, but since it's a village, everything had closed at 5. The drive was very pretty though. And we took a nice walk, so health. Then we headed to Kilkenny. Kilkenny is a great city, truly amazing, but a lot of things there also close super early. This seems to be a theme of international travel, so my advice is to eat early and have some snacks on hand if you get hungry later. We ended up eating some very expensive and mediocre pizza before out quest to find our AirbNb. I really liked this one. It was basically a little carriage house on someone's property. We each had our own rooms! It felt pretty luxurious even though we struggled with turning on the bathroom sink. We also did a bit of research as to what we should do the next morning. We mostly decided to wing it on this vacation (the few exceptions were places you had to book ahead or that were cheaper if you did). It was a pretty nice way to travel, actually. We missed out on some stuff for sure, but it was also way less stressful than always rushing to get places.
In front of the Kilkenny Public Library! This is actually where we parked.
In the morning, we headed into town to go for a tour of the castle! Kilkenny is a pretty famous medieval town in Ireland, with a castle that was originally built more than 800 years ago as well as old churches, cathedrals, streets, and buildings that have literally been around since medieval times. It's considered part of Ireland's Ancient East, which is I think a really historical part of the country. The castle itself has a huge park attached to it, and across the street from the castle are the ancient stables which are now stores. The castle itself was owned and lived in for hundreds of years by a family called the Butlers. If I'm recalling correctly, the Butlers were part of the English invaders and were never super popular with the Irish people, even after hundreds of years. They stopped living in the castle altogether in about the 1920s, and then in the 1960s, they sold the castle to the government for about 50 pounds. It's now run by the Office of Public Works, which is like the National Park Services here. The castle was pretty run down by that point, since the Butler family had lost most of their money over time and couldn't/didn't keep it up.
Anyhow, when we got to the castle, we found out that we could go on a self guided tour for 8 euros or a guided tour for 12. The guided tour was starting in just a few minutes, so we decided to do that. It was definitely worth the extra money. Our guide was named Michael, and he was very funny. We learned so much from our guide! I have now forgotten much of it, but still. The castle itself is amazing, and it's pretty unreal that a single family used to live in it. My favorite part of the castle was the painting gallery, but I also enjoyed the giant toilet.
About to enter the castle!
A view of the castle gardens, with I believe the Cathedral in the distance.
Look, it's Michael!
The giant toilet!
I thought these stairs were very scary until later in the day when we went to the tower. But they were pretty scary. They're so old! And thin!
In the art gallery. The ceiling was the most impressive part of the whole thing.
After we left the castle, we went to the town visitor's centre and went on a tour of the town with a guy named Pat and a bunch of other tourists. Some of them were from Northern Virginia. We bonded over that. Leah also bonded with a lady from Australia who seemed very cool and was an aspiring romance novelist. Pat walked with us down Kilkenny's medieval mile, which goes from the castle to St. Canice's Cathedral. Not sure if it's actually a mile, but basically. One of the story's he told us was the famous story of Alice Kyteler, the first person in Ireland to be condemned of witchcraft. Probably it was because she was married 4 times (and accused by surviving family members of having poisoned at least one of husbands), plus she was rich and was a moneylender. You almost have to admire her, but after she was condemned, she fled town in the night, leaving her servant Petronella behind. Petronella de Meath was subsequently put to death, which was a real downer. Why couldn't you take Petronella with you, Alice??? There's a fancy restaurant in town named after her, though, so that's cool? I guess?
We also learned a lot about how people are trying to revive the Irish language in the country. It's currently taught in schools, and almost all the signs in the country are in English and Irish. There's a big debate about whether or not students should be tested in Irish, or if not testing in it would make kids more comfortable just learning for fun. It was really neat to hear the tour guides speaking in Irish. I'm pretty sure all of them at least greeted us and told us goodbye in Irish. Hopefully it works and people start becoming more fluent.
One really neat place we went was the Black Abbey, which is a Dominican priory. I am not Catholic, and I don't totally know what that means, but I'm pretty sure it's a church where monks lived. It was built in about 1225 and has had a long and varied history, with a lot of hard times when the protestant government of England was being especially hard on Catholics. It, along with many Catholic churches in Ireland, are currently struggling because the country isn't devoutly Catholic like they once were, which is both sad and at the same time totally understandable because of the many abuses that have come to light in recent years. Still, it's a beautiful church and hopefully it survives.
Black Abbey. You can't tell from my pictures, but many of the streets in Kilkenny, including the one you walk down to get here, are small, cobbled, medieval streets, and when you see a car on them, it seems very weird.
The stained glass was unreal. This was the inside of the window from the picture above.
After the tour, we went to St. Canice's Cathedral. The Cathedral used to be a Catholic cathedral, but I'm pretty sure it's Church of Ireland now. The cathedral was probably built around the same time as the Black Abbey, and it's very famous for having a Round Tower, one of only two in the country that you can actually climb. It's 100 feet tall, and they were built originally as refuges for both the monks and the treasure that churches almost always had. Basically, if people came to attack, the monks could go into the tower and pull up the ladders which were the only way to get up. Plus, the view from the top is 360 degrees and you can see for miles, so it was a good watchtower as well. When you go to St. Canice's you can either tour the church or climb the tower or both. We decided to do both, with the tower first. I guess I'm glad I did it, because I made it through, but it was truly one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. If you're afraid of heights, I wouldn't recommend it. You still have to climb ladders to get to the top, although they're permanent and sturdy ladders now, not the kind that can be pulled up. At each level is a small platform in case someone coming down needs to pass you. Only a certain number of people are allowed up at a time because the top is so small. The view is amazing, but I could hardly look at it. And then I had to climb back down! When I got out, two tourists were trying to convince a lady with them that she should climb it with them and that it wasn't scary. They asked me to tell her that it wasn't scary, but I could not lie. She decided to not go. Leah stayed up a lot longer than me, admiring the views while I was safely on the ground looking at the old cemetery. When she came down, we went into the cathedral and did the Cathedral scavenger hunt. That was neat and on solid ground.
St. Canice's Cathedral and the infamous tower.
About to enter the tower, little knowing the horror that awaits!
These are only stairs in the loosest sense of the word. It was so scary, y'all.
The view from the top. Do you see how tiny those people are???
Inside the Cathedral sitting on the chair where they ordained bishops, I'm pretty sure.
The kind of tomb I want, everyone take note. The cathedral has many of these sorts of tombs inside.
After St. Canice's, it was time to leave Kilkenny. It was a very cool city, but we had too many plans. We went to lunch at a cafe and almost got killed by wasps, and then we headed to Waterford! I went to Waterford with Niki when we were in Ireland, but we weren't able to do the tour of the factory that time. I totally suggest doing the tour if you can. It was very cool! Fun fact-apparently there is currently one lady craftsperson making crystal at the factory in Ireland (the first lady ever, not the only one currently. Although, that was months ago, maybe there are more now). A lot of stuff you can buy from them is not actually made at the Ireland factory anymore, but all of the cool custom pieces are, and they were very impressive.
He's blowing down the tube thingy, and the molten crystal is expanding! He's also rotating it and pushing it against some metal thing to shape it as he blows into it. It's was very neat.
See? It's a thing! A vase maybe? It's still pretty early in the process.
We decided to try to get to the Rock of Cashel next, which is a very cool-looking castle ruin in Cashel. We were too late to do the tour, unfortunately, but we did hike around the outside, and it was still really neat. I know absolutely nothing about it, but I bet there's some cool history there. Then we headed to our next AirbNb in Killarney. Frankly, it had been a very full day, and we were tired as heck. Thankfully, the place we were staying (for two whole nights!) was very nice and also they gave us the best breakfasts. And the host gave us good advice about what we should do the next day in Killarney.
We were outside the Rock, and I can prove it!
Random beautiful ruins down the hill and across the street from the Rock of Cashel. I think this was an Abbey.
We hiked around the Rock of Cashel for a while. It's really up on a hill, making us wonder how they were able to get all that stone up there. Aliens? Probably the fae, considering Ireland.
The first thing we did the next morning was go to Ross Castle. Ross Castle is one of many, many Tower Houses in Ireland. According to our guide, something like 2500 tower houses were built in Ireland between the 15th and 17th centuries, and about 2000 are still around the countryside in some form or another. Ross Castle is the only one we actually went into, but we saw a lot many over the course of our trip. Ross Castle has had a very interesting life, first being a regular Tower House (basically used by rich land owners to defend their lands and also to live in), then being taken over by the English, and eventually added onto to be army barracks, then being left to turn into picturesque ruins, and finally being taken over, restored, and run by the OPW. It was built on the edge of a lake (I think called Lower Lake?), and I can very well imagine that it was a popular boating destination while it was a ruin. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but we did learn a lot of cool stuff. First, fun fact, living in a tower house seems pretty terrible! Basically each floor is just one room, so it wasn't glamorous like we currently think of castle living. Also, we learned the origin of the word threshold- thresh (basically straw, as far as I can tell) was strewn over the floors for reasons which I don't totally remember, I think to help insulate since it was stone?, and the threshold was put across doorways to keep all the straw from getting on the stairs and all over the place. We also learned about medieval laundry and bathroom habits. Be warned, it's pretty gross. There was a little alcove on an upper floor of the tower house that had an overhanging section of outside wall in it, and there was a gap in that overhang for you to do your sitting down business on. There would have been a pit of some sort on the ground below for waste to gather in. Then at night, people would take off their clothes and hang them over this pit. The fumes would literally fumigate any sort of creepy crawlies that had taken up residence in your clothes so you could wear them again the next day. Aren't you glad we have indoor plumbing now? There were also smaller holes near the arrow slits where guards could go number one and have that run down the outside of the tower. Pretty amazing that anyone lived long enough to carry on the species. Another thing I'm pretty sure we learned here is that once the English were well and truly entrenched, one of things they would tax was roofs. So basically, if you had a roof, you had to pay extra taxes. Apparently, many of the tower houses in Ireland are currently ruins because people who owned them but didn't live in them would take the roofs off to avoid paying, and then things would fall into disrepair. Relatedly, there was also a window tax, so you can see some old buildings that have their windows bricked up.
Ross Castle. Most of the tower houses didn't ever house British troops, so they'd just have the tall part, not any of the other surrounding stone parts.
Only the main central tower was restored. I think the stairs I'm climbing here go to an add-on.
Defending the castle. But from whom? Peasants? The English?
After Ross Castle, we spent the afternoon in Killarney National Park. Truthfully, the castle might be part of the park? But we went to the main part and spent some time exploring the gardens and then were tricked! Tricked I say! into getting a young tour guide to take us in the horse cart to the waterfalls. We had a lot of great guides on our trip, and some of them were even young, like Michael in Kilkenny, but most of the best ones were older. This guy was pretty much nonverbal as he drove us around, which was a bummer. And when he did talk, we understood almost nothing. Anyhow, the horse cart things, which were all over the park, were called jaunting cars, and I think we would have enjoyed it a lot with a more verbal driver. Anyhow, he drove us through part of the park and dropped us off at the end of a short trail that led to a really amazing and beautiful waterfall. There were a lot of people there, but it was still very, very cool. And while we were hiking over there, I made several friends with random Irish guys while Leah attempted to take my picture! It was pretty funny. They kept jumping in. I felt popular. The jaunting car then took us back to the start, and we decided to hike to Muckross Abbey. The Abbey is an amazing ruin that you can explore. It was originally built in the 15th century, and then burned by Cromwell in 1652 (there's still a lot of understandable bitterness towards Cromwell over there. What a jerk he was). After the Abbey, we went on a tour of Muckross House, which was a fancy manor house built in the 1800s. The people who originally built it lost all their money (another common theme), and then did something thrilling by selling it to an American! But the Americans gave it to the country in the 1930s, and eventually it was opened as a fancy place to tour.
Taking a ride in our jaunting car!
Our horse, Milo. He was a good boy.
On our hike to the waterfall. Look how absolutely green everything is.
We made it! The waterfall was actually hugely impressive in person, and we couldn't capture it in pictures.
My first new friend! He snuck up behind me, which was hilarious but also extremely startling.
My other friends, who were I'm pretty sure friends with the first guy. They were waiting for us on the other side of the tunnel. Which sounds creepy when I say it like that, but it was very funny.
Muckross Abbey. Most of it has no roof, but there are a lot of stairs that are structurally sound, so you can explore most of the ruins.
Some of the parts you could explore are very short!
A yew tree growing in an enclosed courtyard in the middle of the abbey.
In front of Muckross House. You can probably tell that this is after we hiked to the Abbey and back. We were very sweaty, and I have intense humidity hair.
This may have been earlier in the day, but this is when we were wandering around the gardens surrounding Muckross House. They're beautiful.
At this point in the day, we had done and seen so much, you would think we'd be done. But you'd be wrong! Our host at the AirbNb had suggested the Gap of Dunloe as a beautiful and majestic place to hike, so in the evening, we did it! It was somewhat confusing as to whether or not we were allowed to drive up there. Signs certainly suggested no, but the cars that kept passing us suggested yes. Anyhow, we saw a lot of amazing stuff. If we were really strong, and also hadn't been super busy the last two days, we could have kept going and seen a basically infinite amount of beautiful views. But we did see some majestic horses, and then we saw a whole flock of sheep being herded! That was pretty neat.
The actual Gap of Dunloe! We didn't make it all the way, it was very far.
One of the many amazing views on our hike.
Another beautiful view. You can tell it's all the same day because I'm wearing the same shirt in all of these pictures.
I believe we were trying to show that we're legit in the mountains. And that we're having a grand old time.
It was just so pretty, you guys. We took about one billion pictures.
We also passed a lot of the iconic stone walls.
Pretty much every person we saw in the Gap stopped to get their picture by this bridge, and who are we to fight against that?
A majestic horse!
The sheep, not as majestic, but very cool. Many of the sheep that we saw were very brightly colored in different colors, I'm pretty sure to help farmers keep their flocks separate and to identify any lost sheep.
And that really was it for the day, except for getting pizza (much better and cheaper than the pizza we got in Kilkenny) and candy in town. Even not great pizza is still pizza, so I am grateful that it's a dish you can get almost anywhere in the world.
One more shot of that awesome tree. I loved it so much.
Next time, on
The Black Lung: we visit my old pal, Fungie the dolphin.
