Ireland - Paddy Wagon Tour #2

 After a delicious meal at an Irish restaurant in the Temple Bar area, a good night's sleep we then headed off with Paddy again, this time to the south of Ireland towards County Cork.

First stop was at the Rock of Cashel.  Rumours have it this is where St Patrick's used to hang out so it is often called Patrick's Castle.

Further south to one of the most famous castles in Ireland - Blarney Castle, home of the infamous Blarney Stone.  If you kiss it, you get 7 years of the 'gift of the gab' but all three of us didn't think we need any more opportunities to woffle so used the time to explore more of this wonderful place rather than stand in line for 2 hours!!

Instead we found lots of interesting places around the Blarney Estate - a poison garden, a druid's cave (home to a religious hermit)

and some druid's stones and a sacrificial altar that snakes played a central role in many of the mystical rites and that is why St Patrick was keen to so famously banish them.  Myth or fact??

Some wishing steps.  For hundreds of years the Blarney Witch has taken firewood from the estate for her kitchen.  In return, she must grant the visitors' wishes.  If you can walk down and back up these steps with your eyes closed, making a wish, then that wish will come true within a year.  I won't tell you what I wished for!

The witch's kitchen legend tells us that the Blarney Witch lit the fire every night to stop shivering after her nocturnal escape from the cursed witch's stone.  Otherwise, historians will tell you that this was home to the first Irish cave dwellers.

Then we found the Dolmen, a megalithic tomb portal.  What magic and mysteries has it guarded over the millennia?

Lastly, we come across a ring of stones called The Seven Sisters.  Let's see if this legend is similar to NZ's Seven Sisters myth.  This is about a famous King of Munster who once ruled these lands.  He had 7 daughters and 2 sons.  His rival was also a powerful clan chief and the time came when the king had to defend his lands. One fateful day the army rode out to battle with the king and his two sons at the head of it.  Although victorious, it came at a great cost, as both sons were killed in the fighting.  The army marched back to the castle, on route passing the ancient druids stones circle that had stood for millennia. 

The king dispatched a contingent of men to the sacred site and in his grief he instructed them to push over two of the nice standing stones.  This would forever commemorate his two fallen sons.  The seven sisters remain standing to this day...

We then were dropped off in Cork, second biggest city in Ireland.  Found a pub with great food,

traditional Irish music and timed it nicely to see some Irish Dancing.

Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication with the pick up time for day 2 of the tour, we missed the bus!  Lucky for us, we found a nice public bus driver who took us all they way back to Dublin.  Spent the afternoon wandering around the busy streets, exploring the inner city of the capital.

Fortunate for us we were able to get back onto Paddy's bus for a day tour to the Cliffs of Moher, one of the great natural features in the world.  These sea cliffs are located at the southwestern edge of the Burren region in County Clare.  They run for about 14 km with a maximum height of 214m.

They were absolutely magnificent and we were lucky that the rain didn't come to much as it often does!

One noticeable feature of this fertile land are the rock and stone fences on the farms.  They have been there for centuries because a)  they cleared the land of the rock and stones so could plant crops or graze their cattle and b) mark the territory between farmers' lands.

That is about the end of our Irish adventure, we have loved it here and how they are embracing their very ancient Gaelic/Irish language with bilingual signs and most schools teach the difficult language in most of the schools.

Definitely will come back another time but now, another country awaits us....