Friday, Killarney-Rock of Cashel-Dublin

I hated to leave Killarney.  I liked the hotel and the shopping district was really close, and I loved the gaily painted store fronts and all the flowers. 

More green hills on the way.

A lot of round-abouts, which must be a nightmare for US tourists, having to drive clockwise.

Collette really scraped the bottom of the barrel to put this day together.  Our first stop was a dairy farm where the wife served us tea, scones, and porter cake (a dry type of fruitcake but with raisins only).  Then the husband took us over to a small, very old house where we gathered in the living room and he told us clever stories about his family.  When the tour went to the barn, I went to the bus. It was a very chilly day.

The wife's flowers were photo worthy, however.

Our next stop was the Rock of Cashel, mostly ruins of a fort-cathedral high on a hill where St. Patrick preached.  The cemetery was rather interesting but the tour was boring and a chilling wind was nipping at my nose and sneaking up my pants legs.

 

The inevitable scaffolding.

A fantastic view from the grounds.

We had lunch at the foot of the hill at a little restaurant with great flowers.  I ordered the daily special; a chicken burger and chips.  It turned out to be a breaded chicken patty (formerly frozen) with not very good fries, Cole slaw, potato salad, and tomato slices.  Guess you always get potatoes with your potatoes here.

And off we went.

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving and got to our Dublin hotel at 5:00 p.m.  At 6:00 we left for dinner at the Guinness Distillery.  It’s a little off the beaten path, so not very busy.  The restaurant walls were covered with pictures of the distillery by different artists.

I got so excited because they served us a plain butter lettuce salad with a little shaved cheese and some croutons.  Next came a stuffed chicken breast in a tarragon sauce with a potato I believe to have been boiled and then roasted a bit.  The vegetable plate was no surprise: carrots, kale, and boiled potatoes, of course.

Dessert was chocolate mousse in a chocolate cup on a puddle of white chocolate sauce drizzled with raspberry sauce.  Yikes!

Then off to the Raggu, a skinnied down version of Riverdance with five musicians: drum, pipes, violin, guitar and flute.  There were only two male dancers and six or seven females plus a whiny female vocalist.  Small but mighty; in fact, so loud I left after thirty minutes and went out to the lobby and talked to the guy selling videos who’s a grade school teacher during the school year.  He told me that the “big” Riverdance shows record the tapping feet when the performers are well rested and then play the recording so any mistakes will be covered when the dancers are tired from performing night after night.

Too dark in the distillery for photos unless I used flash and annoyed the other diners, and photos not allowed at the Raggu, so nothing to show.

As it was the beginning of the weekend, the young people must have all come in from the farms and half of them stayed in a room just down the hall.  They were running up and down the hall, slamming doors, and yelling the “F” word.  This went on until 4:00 in the morning, even though I complained to the front desk. 

I talked about the Rock of Cashel somewhere in the past, because it was near where Peter lived at the castle, and when he saw the photos, he gave me all this great information:

Yes, the great cathedral ruin within the Rock of Cashel was the old Medieval Roman Catholic Cathedral of Cashel. At the Reformation under King Henry VIII, it became the Anglican Church of England Cathedral as did all the oldest church buildings in Ireland. Roman Catholicism was not really legal in Ireland or England for that matter, after that until the nineteenth century when emancipation was granted and most today’s Roman Catholic churches in Ireland were built. Oliver Cromwell in suppressing Roman tendencies in Ireland in the 17^th century sacked the old Cathedral at Cashel and in the Eighteenth Century a smaller Cathedral was built down in the town. The protestant Archbishops of Cashel built a fine mansion for themselves, today’s beautiful Cashel Palace Hotel at the foot of the Rock of Cashel. Archbishop Price hired a butler named Arthur Guinness who cultivated hops in the garden at the Cashel Palace and later founded the great Guinness brewery. The Archbishopric came to an end when many protestant dioceses were combined in the nineteenth century (remember only 5% of the country were protestant once Catholics were emancipated) The palace became The Deanery for the Dean of the Cathedral in the town. In the mid 20^th century the Deans stopped living in the old palace that became a luxury hotel and lived in a new Deanery in town. Although I did not live there, because I was living at Tullamaine Castle, in 1974, I was Acting Dean of Cashel Cathedral for nine months as a lay reader and preacher in the Church of Ireland with a Cambridge honors masters degree in theology, while the Bishop of Waterford, Lismore, Cashel and Emly was searching for a new Dean after the retirement of Dean Charles Wolfe. I have a sketch of the eighteenth century Cashel Cathedral hanging in a bathroom at my house here in Springfield. 

Peter retired and moved back to England a year ago, or was it two? Wow! How time flies. We miss you Peter.

To be continued. . . . .