Blogs from Ireland, Europe

I'm sitting in the hotel bar in Killarney listening to John O'Roardan sing Irish folk songs and thinking over the past 2 days. Yesterday we started the day meeting Ruti Lachs, a Jewish resident of Cork, who has done research on the Jewish community of the past. I had connected with her online and 30 emails later, 6 of us met her to hear stories, songs and see what was once Jewtown (called that in an affectionate way according to our guide) I'm not so sure about that. Jews from Lithuania settled here in the 1880s. We saw the building that was a shul, that closed in 2016 and is now a 7th day Adventist church and walked over the Passover bridge inaugurated by the Jewish mayor Jerrold Goldberg. Ruti sang a poem Tashlich on the ... read more

After another scrumptious breakfast we packed the cars to head south towards Cork but more specifically this morning to the Jameson Heritage Centre at Midleton. The SatNavs were programmed, and it looked like we were going to take the N24 across to the M8 and then rocket down the motorway. Ahem, we were driving around Limerick again on the N18 expecting to flow onto the M7 and then head off onto the N24 at Junction 29 but, that’s not what happened. At Junction 1/30 where the N18 and M7 intersect we were directed off into Limerick. Whaaaat?! After negotiating a number of busy roads in Limerick we found that Apple Maps had decided to redirect us onto R512, R514 and R513 to Mitchelstown before setting us on the motorway (M8) heading south to Cork. And we ... read more

This morning found us heading north-west across the country towards Limerick rather than south-west towards Cork. Ordinarily a circumnavigation of Ireland would continue clockwise around the country BUT we had to make another compromise on OUR itinerary because of Bloody Bruce! Bruce and the E-Street Band are playing Cork tomorrow night, so fans booked out all the accommodation in and around Cork months ago!! Fortunately, it’s a small island and the cities aren’t too far apart. We will head down to Cork on Friday after Bruce packs up and leaves. We started out travelling west on the N25 from which we could see another spectacular bridge crossing the River Suir. After we navigated a short section of the N9 and turned onto the N24 Bernie spotted a place to pull over to photograph the bridge. We ... read more

This morning, we headed back towards Kilkenny to visit Jerpoint Abbey at Thomastown. This was always on the cards because of not being able to book accommodation in Kilkenny because of Bloody Bruce and his concert clashing with our itinerary. However, if we’d been a bit more on the ball, we would have called in at Jerpoint Abbey on our way to see the Green Bridge at Instioge. Rather than taking us the M9, Apple Maps took us north on the R448 which was probably more scenic than the motorway. Jerpoint Abbey is a 12th century Cistercian Abbey located by the little Arrigal River in a remote (back in the day) wooded area, close to a quarry. In 1228 there were 36 monks and 50 lay brothers who held 20 thousand acres of land. The abbey ... read more

Our excursion was supposed to leave at 1:30 and last for 6 hours but we wanted to go earlier so we went down at 7:30 to try to go standby. We made it!!! We got down to the tender and wow, it was rough, but we got on. The ride to Dun Laoghaire was rough but not horrible. Once in Dun Laoghaire, we boarded the bus, but walking to the bus in the rain and wind was miserable. The bus ride into Dublin was about 30 minutes. We drove around a bit before stopping near Trinity College for a break for folks to shop or get a coffee. No one wanted to go out in the miserable weather. We headed upstairs to the coffee shop for a scone and diet coke. I looked at Facebook and ... read more