This morning we left Kinsale and headed up north towards Dublin. Rather than drive all the way to Dublin, which is almost a five hour drive, we chose a halfway point to stop overnight. The town of Cashel is home to the famous Rock of Cashel and not much else. It wasn’t any bigger than say the town of Avon or Bailey in Colorado. We weren’t expecting much other than a place to spend the night.

We got into town early around noon and walked the town in the first ten minutes. We decided to eat lunch at a place called Feehan’s, which turned out to be a happening bar at lunch time. We both had the Club sandwich, which was a delicious three tiered sandwich with chicken salad, egg salad, bacon – everything bad for you! It, of course, came with chips and a small side of coleslaw (their version of a side salad). I had a Baileys & coffee and Jeff had an Irish coffee and more Guinness.

Then we decided to tour the Rock of Cashel. I wasn’t too enthused because it wasn’t a castle per se, but more of an abandoned, somewhat decrepit fort that the town was revitalizing. So I was thinking there wasn’t going to be much to see. Boy was I wrong. We took a self-guided tour that began with a short movie about the history of the town. And what a history! The fort was home to the Kings of Cashel and families warred over the title of King. Until one family gave the fort to the Church. The fort was then lost during the turbulent times when Ireland fought and lost to England.

The walk around the inside of the fort was amazing. Stepping into each old building and imagining it during its heyday literally amazed me. Walking around the cemetery and reading headstones that dated back to late 1700’s up to last year (apparently people are still buried there but only if their families bought the plots by the 1930’s) was also very cool. And the view from the Rock of Cashel into town presented awesome picture taking opportunities for J. Plus we spotted an old Abbey that we also visited – just the ruins but still amazing. It was called the Hore Abbey, which inspired giggles out of J.

Afterward we spent the evening in town eating dinner and drinking at a different pub with the locals, who were so nice and wonderful. We even got to hear a local sing Johnny Cash for us. J found a redhead to chat with and was quite content for most of the night. We also sat with a bunch of regulars, one of who was the town drunk – and he was quite amusing. There was also a couple of women from California and a group of school lads still wet behind the ears and guzzling beers and shots like there was no tomorrow. Cashel turned out to be more than we expected and a great ending to a wonderful trip.

We didn’t have wireless in our last bed and breakfast (Sunday  night), but thankfully, we are in Kilkenny, Co Kilkenny, Ireland and our hostess does indeed have wireless!

Yesterday we got into Bushmills mid-afternoon after an interesting drive up to Northern Ireland.  J got a navigation system to ease our drive around Ireland.  It is programmable and you can choose from a variety of female and male voices with different accents.  J choice the American (Jill) so that we wouldn’t get confused… but apparently some of the roads have changed and the navigation  system has not been updated.  Jill took us off the main road and through some small towns where the road was really a one laner and yet fairly well-traveled in both directions.  It led to some harrowing close calls – at least in my eyes.

It did take us to this little town called Moira, where we decided to stop and take some pictures (yes, I will load them shortly) and we grabbed some lunch and a pint.  We sat talking with the locals at a pub called Mary’s, where the bartenders wondered why we chose Moira to visit.

Finally we got back on the road and into Bushmills.   After a quick nap, we went driving around to explore.  We ate dinner at The Royal Court, which overlooked the bay.  My dinner wasn’t anything really interesting to write about (steak and stout pie) but J chose the traditional fish and chips – it was delicious! After dinner we went to Giant’s Causeway, which was breathtaking. We walked around the cliffs, taking photos and marveling at the beautiful sight. We passed the Smuggler’s Inn (which was the place we should’ve eaten) and drove into downtown Bushmills to drive by the distillery.

We decided against the tour since we’d done the Jameson tour and were considering the Old Midleton Distillery later this week in Cork (shout out to Middleton, wassup!). We went back to the hotel to sleep – but alas, our internal clocks woke us both up at 230am and we both found it incredible hard to fall back asleep. We woke up to a traditional Irish breakfast (egg, bacon, sausage, toasted soda bread and to-mah-to) with coffee before heading out for the four hour drive to Kilkenny. J is resting now before we head into downtown Kilkenny for some exploring.

I’m a wee tired meself… so I think I might join J on that short nap. Ireland is beautiful but jet lag, my dear friends, is a real bitch.