Ireland: Part 3

Our third day in Ireland got off to a rocky start. We had signed up for a tour to Blarney Castle, and the bus was supposed to leave at 7am. After getting approximately 4 hours of sleep, we dragged ourselves to the pick-up spot and had to wait an hour to leave. The bus driver never showed up, so they had to call another driver in. The driver was in a bad mood and didn't know how to work the heating system on the bus. So it was about 85 degrees F the whole way down. However, the views of Ireland's "rolling hills" were spectacular. I saw so many cows, horses, and sheep, and everything was so green! It was beautiful. Some guy asked the bus driver to turn off the heat twice, and the second time, the bus driver was distracted and screamed at the guy for scaring him. Luckily, everyone on the bus was going to the Cliffs of Moor except for me and my friends, so at the rest stop, we switched from the bus to a van and got a really friendly tour guide named Yvonne.

It took about 3 1/2 hours total to get to Blarney Castle. The castle was great; it was very old and made basically of rock. There was no furniture and no rooms. I felt like it was a giant playground; we had a lot of fun exploring the dungeon and the cave and climbing up the narrow spiral staircase.

Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle

Watchtower

Meg and Nate in front of the watchtower
Diana in front of the moat

So the legend of Blarney Castle is that the Lord of Blarney, Cormac McCarthy, was a big gambler and owed a lot of people, including the queen of England, a lot of money. The queen was planning to take the castle to free him from his debt. McCarthy and the queen met, and he sweet-talked her out of taking the castle and promised to repay his loans. The queen apparently said, "Blarney, blarney, blarney; it's all a load of blarney." (Blarney means flattering talk.) Hence, if you kiss the Blarney Stone, you will gain oratory skills and be able to talk your way out of anything.

Winston Churchill kissed the stone. I kissed the stone. Therefore, I kissed Winston Churchill. (lol OK yeah my logic is pretty flawed there.)

The stone is above the highest window. You stick your torso across the hole and kiss the stone on the other side.

The top of Blarney Castle. You can see the legs of a guy laying down to kiss The Blarney Stone. His wife (in a white top with gray vest) is standing over him to take a picture. Meg has a picture of me kissing the stone, so I'll steal that from her and post it eventually.

View from the top of Blarney Castle

Blarney Castle was a lot of fun and I hope I picked up some blarney skills! The tour guide told us they disinfect the stone four times a day (but she'd never seen them do it); however, she also heard that drunk guys urinate on the stone on Saturday nights. And we went on a Sunday, of course, haha. But getting up the narrow staircase was difficult enough sober, so I can't imagine anyone drunk getting up there. Oh, another funny thing: it started raining about an hour into the bus ride and continued until we got to Blarney Castle. However, right after we got our tickets and started walking toward the castle, it stopped raining. And when we got to the top of the castle, the sun came out and the weather was beautiful. We definitely lucked out.

On the way home, we stopped in the towns of Adare and Limerick. We also drove through Cork, which was cool because Grammy's family is from Cork, and so I was imagining being on the same road that my ancestors had walked on hundreds of years ago.

Thatched Roof Cottage

View of St. John's Castle and a bridge in Limerick

After we got back to Dublin, we went to a couple of pubs, which was fun. We got back to our hotel around 1am and went to bed because our flight was at 9am. After another night with 4 hours of sleep, we headed to the airport and had an uneventful trip home.

All in all, I had a great time in Ireland. We were only there for 3 days, but we certainly made the most of it. We got to see the city (Dublin), the bay, and the countryside; we saw historic sites in Dublin, castles, and also just fun touristy things. It was a great way to spend the weekend.