Was able to sleep in a bit this morning, which was nice. I had booked a black cab tour and was being picked up at 10am. My driver, John, arrived on time and we set off in his black cab. The purpose of the tour today was to get a better understanding of what the people of Belfast call "The Troubles" and to visit some of the locations that have become synonymous with this period in their history. Our first stop was on Falls Rd to see the International Wall and John explained where all the angst began. We are commonly told it was a fight between Catholics and Protestants but the conflict was primarily political and nationalistic, fuelled by historical events. The Unionists/loyalists, who were mostly Protestants, wanted Northern Ireland to remain within the United ... read more

After breakfast I checked out of my hotel slightly prior to 9am and then walked for about 15 minutes to the train station. My train was departing at 9:30am so I had enough time to grab a coffee. The trip took 2 and 1/2 hours and I arrived in Dublin Heuston station at 11:55am. I then made my way out to the Luas (lightrail) for 25 minute trip to Dublin Connolly station. My train to Belfast wasn't departing until 1:20pm so I had time to have some lunch at the station. After lunch I decided to use the bathroom at the cafe but when I went to unlock the stall, I couldn't get the door to open. I tried turning the small knob many times but nothing happened. There was no where to grip either the ... read more

Cormac cooked up a big breakfast for us this morning, which was lovely. Issy had a huge sleep and only woke up around 6am. After breakfast Cormac suggested we try to head into Heuston station as there was a good chance I might not be able to get very close, due to road closures for the Pope's visit. Today the Pope was holding the big mass in Phoenix Park, which is right next to Heuston Station, and they are expecting about 500k people. It was a good suggestion as we indeed were not able to get too close, although Cormac sweet talked a police officer to allow him to get a bit closer than we should have. This meant I had to walk for about 20 minutes but this was fine, as we had allowed enough ... read more

The good news was, when I woke up this morning, I had already done approx. 4,000 steps on my FitBit. Gotta love dancing at weddings! I made the decision last night not to worry about breakfast and it was a slower start to the day. We needed to check out by 11am so the focus was on achieving this. Julie and I did a run to deliver some of Brid and Alex's things to the homeplace and then when we got back, a group of us decided to head to Cahir for some lunch. By the time we got to Cahir we needed to order and eat quickly, as we were running out of time because the Christening of Charlie was due to start at 2:30pm. We said goodbye to Cormac & Jen, as they were ... read more

Alex arrived to collect Steph this morning at 9am - which I don't think anyone was quite ready for haha. We then headed up to the hotel for breakfast and was joined by Julie and also friends of Alex's, Ian and Stephen. After breakfast we checked out of our lodge and David & Nick did a run with all our bags to the new accommodation at Kilshane House (location of the wedding!). Once all this was done, Carol, David, Nick and I headed off to the town of Cashel to see the castle. The oldest building one the Rock of Cashel is the Round Tower that dates back to 1100. Cormac's Chapel commenced being built in 1127 and was consecrated in 1134. More buildings were erected on the site over the next century or so, including ... read more