The Lyrath Estate offered Archery on the grounds and we decided to try our hand, but agreed not to shot each other. John from the Hawkeye School of Falconry and Archery was excellent at training us pure newbies to shoot straight and after 20 minutes could consistently target the centre of the targets. By the end of the 1 hour sessions we both archived head shots on a baby deer target. Rose was better at hitting the deer when John covered the deer's eyes. For the afternoon, we decided to drive into town to have lunch, a Kilkenny road train ride and walk around the Castle Yard and Butler gardens, walking the grounds of Kilken... read more

Today was to be another long and emotionally fulfilling day where we would traceback Rose's family heritage and locations of her Grandparents and Great Grandparents. To start with, we went to Blarney Castle, and no we didn't kiss the stone. More importantly for our journey was Emerald House, which sits at the gates to the Blarney Castle estate and was once owned by Thomas and Margaret Nesdale who purchased the house for their retirement which included a large garden now mostly a carpark for Blarney Castle. After a lovely walk around the Blarney Castle gardens, a quick cup of tea and an interesting conversation with the Blarney Cafe owner who has lived in Blarney her whole life. She informed us that Michael Murphy who is the current owner of Emerald house, inherited the property from his ... read more

Today was a long drive day with 4 hours of driving and 5 sights to see. First of all, we started at Dunguaire Castle , built in 1520, and mostly as it was originally. The 4 different floors were staged as it would have been for a different century with the ground representing the 20th century, first level representing the 19th and 18th centuries, the third floor the 17th century and the top floor the 16th century. The castle sits on the picturesque shores of Galway bay. Our next stop was Limerick where most of the stores where closed on Sunday as the whole town was attending a Gaelic Football match between Limerick and Tipperary, given their proximity to each other, it may have been a grudge match. Having now completed most of the driving we ... read more

After our very long flight it was great to get out in the fresh air and walk some of the areas of the south side of the river Liffey, including many of the Dublin highlight's, Temple Bar area, Trinity College, Bank of Ireland, City Hall and many Irish pubs. Great to enjoy the sunny walk to get and idea of what Dublin has to offer once we are over the jetlag. Great to enjoy some of Dublin hospitality for a cooling ale. Lovely day Thursday exploring Dublin, a truly magical city. We started the day early as the sun rising at 4:56am (this is so suited to Rose) as she is walking at 6am. Walking down to the river Liffey where we found a great little restaurant for Irish Potato Cakes, so yum and cheap. After ... read more

Sirmione saw us catching up with my cousin Ross and his lovely family, Laurie, Poppy, and Coco. To be far to them, it was our conversations with Laurie in June that prompted us to change our plans and come to Sirmione and meet them, this then provided the timing for Trieste, Slovenia, and Chioggia, three of the highlights for us in Italy to date. (No offence Clarke, you were also a highlight). Sirmione was the Venice of the lake district and all about tourism. It was lovely, but crowded, the gelateriers opened until 1am as the tourists continued to consume everything like locusts. Restaurants were still nice, but twice the price of Chioggia. As we only had one day with Ross and Laurie, we decided to hire a boat and take the kids for a tour ... read more