Advertisement
Published: July 20th 2010
Hello everyone from Ennis in County Clare on the West Coast of Ireland!
I landed safely in Dublin on Sunday afternoon after spending most of the morning at the airport. I decided to take the city bus in the city centre in order to get a sense of the city. The main street seems to change its' name about 5 times before I got to the hostel where I was staying the night. I just took the time to do some laundry and get ready for my next adventure around Ireland. I actually met a girl from Australia who was staying in the same room as me who actually ended up on my tour.
We checked in for our tour with Shamrocker Adventures on Monday morning early. There are 29 of us from Canada, Australia, Denmark, and the US who are part of the trip heading southward from Dublin and around Ireland! Our tour guide is Carol who is from Navan and our driver is Brenda! They are very kind and Carol gives us all the info we need and fills us in interesting stories about the places we are visiting and some folklore and legends along the way. We all introduced ourselves to the group which made connecting a bit easier.
We have had a very busy schedule both on and off the bus and it has been fun getting to meet new people and to learn about where they are from. Most of the people on the tour are long professionals. There are about 5 teachers and many people working in either the healthcare or childcare fields. Everyone is very friendly too!
On our first day we head off from Kinlay House in Dublin and made our first stop in Abbeylix to get some groceries to pack for lunch en route to Cashel. We arrived to see the Castle of the Kings in the pouring rain and so we took some quick photos before heading on to Michelstown. There are some very interesting limestone caves owned by a family at Michelstown that we visited. We were about 200m below the ground and got to see some interesting rock formations ressembling the Towers of Babel, various animals and faces. Apparently they even record concerts below the ground there which are cool! We were asked by our tour guide to sing to test out the acoustics. I was asked to lead in the singing of O Canada. The Aussies sang Kookbura. Great acoutistics down there. We continued our journey south to Cork and stopped late afternoon for a kiss of the Blarney Stone at the Blarney Castle. There was quite a line-up but it was worth the wait! We rounded up the spiral staircase and checked out the castle ruins on our way up and then got ready to kiss the stone! We got some great photos of our "First Kiss" of the stone. That was an experience on my life travel list so I am happy to cross that one off.
We arrived in Killarney around dinner time and headed off for some traditional irish fair at Murphy's Pub. I had a delicious shepherd's pie and a lady's pint of guinness with blackcurrant juice-it was pretty good actually. We went to see some pub theatre after dinner at O'Connor's pub by a local Killarney actor named Padraig who tells the story of the day the pub closed. He was hilarious and very entertaining. At the end of his show he brought out a guitar and asked if anyone could tune it; I was able to oblige and then we jammed a bit as a travelling group singing American Pie! That song is timeless! After hearing me and the group sing, he asked me to join him in playing a song or two as he played the traditional irish drum, the bodhran! It was great! He even had me play one of my own songs! It was fun and so nice to get a chance to share some music too!
That was the end to a very full and exciting first day of our journey! We covered a lot of ground and much adventure is on the schedule for day 2!
Hope you are doing well wherever you are. Wishing you much love and the luck of the Irish!
love Katy
Advertisement
Tot: 0.077s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 14; qc: 22; dbt: 0.0481s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Marje (Mya)
non-member comment
I'm reliving my Ireland tour!
Katy, Kisssing the Blarney Stone was a real highlight for me too and have you ever seen so many shades of green? The rest of your tour will not disappoint. I particularly enjoyed the Dingle Circle and the Cliffs which you've probably seen by now. How I wish I was there again. I haven't had computer access as I've been up north for most of my time since school ended and am only now catching up with a myriad of e-mails. I know you'll have the pics to share come Sept. and I'll be 1st in line to savour them all. Otherwise ... summer is bloody hot and humid here but hey... I don't mind. Thinking of you on your adventures .. enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! Ciao for now ... Marje (Mya)