Day 11, June 11, Killarney

Today is our day to visit Blarney Castle.  Although I carried an umbrella, the weather was much better today.

 

The tower is 90 feet high and you reach the top via a narrow, stone circular stairway.  I had made up my mind that I was not going to let my claustrophobia or my climbing ability stop me from this climb.  Anne and Kelly has worked too hard training me for this challenge.  So it was head up, slow and steady, and keep moving.  And within in a few minutes, maybe 15, and it was very crowded I was rewarded with this view of the grounds and the manor house.

 

 

When you got to the top there was just the parapet walk around the outside and all the wooden structure down the middle was gone.

 

 

This was from the ground looking up the tower.  Do you see that open area just by the parapet area at the very top?  That is where you get to do this!

KISS THE BLARNEY STONE!

Blarney Castle (Tower) is a huge tourist area.  Where was a huge store to shop in where you could get Blarney Woolens, jewelry, t-shirts, dishes, etc. etc.  I grabbed a wrap in their cafeteria.  It was interesting there were a bunch of Harley motorcycle guys and their wives behind us in line waiting to go into the grounds.  They were touring on their bikes and ended up being from Pennsylvania, but the guy immediately behind me said he had a cabin up at Harrison.  Small world.

When we left Blarney we were going to the Rock of Cashel.  This is another large castle.  Unfortunately, right now it is almost entirely surrounded by scaffolding for work.  We stopped just long enough for a potty break and a couple of photos.  The best view was as we were driving away.

 

Then it was on to our next hotel, Druids Glen Resort in Wicklow.  We were going to go to Avoca woolen mills today, but time grew short so instead we too a panoramic tour of Dublin instead.  Avoca is on the schedule for tomorrow.  While in Dublin the driver mentioned a couple of good pubs for supper.  The Brazen Head is supposedly the oldest pub in Ireland.  So of course every headed there.  A few of us knew it wasn't possible for all of us to descend upon this pub, so we went around the corner to O'Sheas on Merchant, and have a very nice meal there.

 

 

 



Day 10, Ireland, June 20, 2013

Our center of travel today was from Killarney.  We were at The Malton Hotel, which reminded me a lot of the Grand Hotel on Mackinaw Island.  The true Irish weather finally showed up today.  58 degrees and rainy.   We tour the Dingle Peninsula where some of "Ryan's Daughter" was filmed.  Your go thru Dingle on your way out the peninsula.

 

 

This was inch beach.  Not too many hardy souls today.

On our way out we all noticed a small quilt show by the side of the road.  You never heard 36 women all start to whine at the same time to stop.  Bonnie finally convinced Noel it was better to stop on the way back that put up with this many disgruntled women.

This was a small shop above a small convenience store.  She has 2 rooms and a class room.  I went up but there were already 2 other busses there when we stopped, and I don't like confined spaces that are really crowded. So I got one snap and went back to the bus.

On our way through Dingle we stopped at a jeweler, Brian De Staic.  We were allowed to use his facilities, but it didn't hurt that we have time to look at some beautiful jewelry.  About 12 of us ordered Ogham pendants.  It is a sterling silver bar pendant engraved with our name spelled out in the ancient Ogham alphabet that Noel had told us about earlier.

So while we stopped for lunch, Noel hot footed it down to the jeweler to pick up our orders. When we got off the bus for lunch most of the women headed right across to a fish and chip restaurant.  I knew that service with take forever with all of us going in, so I had lunch a couple of blocks away at John Benny's.

 

This evening dinner was on our own so Claire, Celine, Micky and I walked a few block to the city center and found a nice pub to have dinner at.

 

Day 12, June 12, Dublin

This morning we were headed off to Dublin for a day on our own.  But first we went to Avoca woolen mill.  We had a very nice tour and then were able to shop a bit.

I remember my grandmother having a loom in her basement about this size.  She used to weave rag rugs on it.  I can remember if you were well behaved you could go down and weave on it.

As we crowded into the tour area, the lady giving the tour has just held up a beautiful throw that was square's of blue and green which reminded me of the sea and land here in Ireland.  As soon as I saw it I knew I was going to leave here with one.

When we were done at Avoca some of the ladies didn't want to go to Dublin.  They wanted to go back to the hotel and rest.  So to keep them happy the driver took them back to the hotel.  Which was great for them but the rest of us lost an hour of our free time in Dublin.

By the time we got to Dublin, we had about 4 free hours.  We did drive around just a bit to get our bearings.

This was in Phoenix Park where one of the Pope's recently said mass.

Thought the cow skulls on the building friese were interesting.  And we drove through the Edwardian part of Dublin and got a look at all the interesting doors of Dublin.  This is the most ornate one.

  Many of the ladies headed to Trinity University to see the book of Kells, some went to Christ Church Cathedral others to St. Patrick's Cathedral  I walked around for about 3 hours before my knee started to really hurt.  I was afraid I might not make it back to the bus, so I slowly headed that way.  It had rained a couple of time quite hard, but wasn't at the time I was walking back.  Luckily our bus was there and waiting so I just got on.  In my walk I had seen 3 charity shops while we drive around so I had found all of them and looked but didn't find any men's shirts to buy, or anything else.

We were supposed to head to the hotel for a dinner at 6 as out farewell dinner with the International Quilt Festival of Ireland sponsors.  But we had one gal get disoriented and lost and we were a half hour late looking for her.  Happy we found her and it wasn't that she got sick or mugged, just lost.

So we headed back to the resort for a lovely dinner.  Tomorrow we head for Belfast and our last 2 days of the tour.

Day 9, Ireland, continued

I think when we were heading to Killarney we were going to be a little too early for our hotel. So we stopped at this church.  Noel had talked about this ancient church, Kilmalkedar, several times over the last few days. The church is very old and the churchyard has stones from ancient to current.  It was interesting to think of those buried not a few hundred but many hundreds of years ago.

 

 

 

This was an Ogham stone.  Agreements were made here by parties inserting their fingers in the hole at the top.  Some has a whole large enough to reach your hand through.

 

This was an ancient sun dial.  This was the front.



A stick would be stuck in the hole on the back and the markings would indicate the time.

 

Day 8 - Ireland - June 8, 2013

This was another day on our own around Galway.  You could use the shuttle to go to the quilt show or take it so the City Center, Eyre Square for shopping and sight seeing.

There was a lecture at 10:30 am on Early Irish quilts by Roselind Shaw.  I had not heard of her before but wasn't going to pass up a chance to see early Irish quilts.  She had quite a number of quilts that she had collected but didn't allow pictures of them.  Have since found a couple of articles about her on the internet. 

One of the other exhibits I did yesterday was Mantility of a Quilter.  This was an exhibit of quilts made by men.

Visiting Gramps Memoirs by Shawn Quinlan



One exhibit "I Believe" was set up in Galway Cathedral which was across the river from the university campus.  So a bunch of us walked over there today before the lecture on antique Irish quilts.  Here are some of those.



This was the door handle on the cathedral at Galway.

After touring the Connemara Marble factory the other day it was interesting to start noticing the beautiful marble used in the floors of the cathedral and how quilt like many of the designs were.



 

This was one of the black marbles with lots of sea shells in it.

 



In the center of the University campus they had an area called quilters village.  This is where the vendors were, some quilt exhibits, the prison quilt exhibit and an area they has set up as the Wicked Thimble Pub. 

 

After getting some lunch, Mickey and I caught the shuttle over to Eyre Square which was the city center.  We walked the shop street and did a little shopping, but it was really warm, 80's, we went back to the hotel.  This was my evening at the Wicked Thimble Pub.  There was grilled sausage, hamburgers and chicken, with different salads.  Then they has a Irish band and some young girls (10 years of age and younger) who came and did some Irish dancing.  Then at nine caught the last shuttle back to the hotel.