Into the Castle Bellies

On March 24th, Thursday, we visited Blarney Castle. Blarney Castle was probably one of my favorite places for this trip because it was just oh so awesome. I greatly enjoyed all the nature and such that we got to see. The castle itself was rather cool, not as put back together as the Bunratty Castle, but not a complete ruin. I definitely liked seeing the contrast of the two castles. Blarney Castle actually has people that live on the estate at the Blarney House, which sadly was closed to guests but I'm sure was super cool and richy richy looking. We climbed the 100 steps to the top of Blarney tower and watched a bunch of people kiss the Blarney stone, which apparently gives you the gift of eloquence. I already have as much eloquence as I can handle so I didn't kiss the stone, plus the fact that you have to basically be suspended over the edge of the Castle (100 steps up) in order to kiss the stone. I also heard the locals pee on it, which seems slightly unlikely since it seems to be pretty well guarded, but you never can be too sure! Since I didn't need eloquence or a picture of me kissing it, I decided against it. Then we got to explore the grounds of Blarney Castle and it was gorgeous! I loved the grounds and really wish we had more time at Blarney than anywhere else because there just wasn't enough time. We had about 2 hours or so at Blarney to walk around and explore, but one of the trails we could take was over half that time and by the time we were ready to walk it we only had about an hour left, bummer. It was definitely somewhere I could hang out for days at a time though... #naturegurllongastherearecleanbathrooms

Photo Cred: Mildred
Blarney Castle Grounds

Photo Cred: Mildred
Blarney Castle Grounds

Photo Cred: Mildred
Blarney Castle Wishing Steps

There's a story at Blarney Castle that anyone who would walk down and back up these stairs thinking of only one single wish with their eyes closed would have that wish granted to them in a year. Or the story is something close to that, obviously it had to do something with wishing since they were called the wishing steps. A witch used to live near there or something and would steal something, I think it was for heating, from the Blarney Castle so in payment she would grant wishes.

Photo Cred: Mildred
Blarney Castle: No big deal we were at the top of that...

Once we were done with Blarney Castle, we did a quick perusal of the 3 story shop called Blarney Woolen Mills. It was huge and my mum found some nice clothes for real cheap (I managed to steal one before we parted ways at the end of the week). Then we were on our way to the Cobh Heritage Center in Cobh, which is pronounced Cove. They literally just took the British town's name and changed it to a "bh" because there is no "v" in Irish speak or something like that. Gaelic in case anyone wanted to know the technical term of Irish speak. 

I wasn't super impressed with the Cobh Heritage Center, it was cool learning about the people that boarded the Titanic in Queenstown (Cobh) but I've been to so many Titanic museums now that they sort of just blur together. I did get to survive the Titanic as some musician guy, something Daly. We also learned that the Titanic story with Rose and whats his face decaprio was a story from the two hours that the Titanic was docked in Cobh. A girl decided to run away with someone she loved and her brother chased them around the ship with a gun or somewhere along those lines was how the story went. They had a cool quilt that was dedicated to the Irish passengers. 123 passengers boarded the Titanic in Queenstown (Cobh) and 44 survived the sinking. We had lunch at the center too which consisted of a red velvet muffin and a lemon muffin, they both were great.

Then after Cobh we headed to Cork to see the Rock of Cashel. It was super windy up there and just a lil bit wet. While it was very much so a religious sight, I was very intrigued by the story behind the place. The tour guide was great at giving out information for sure. He even warned us to be careful where we stepped because rocks are slippery and we may wipe out, I promptly wiped out after he said that. I was the only casualty though so its k. So the chapel at Cashel is currently being covered by a temporary roof because the building was so saturated with water that it would eventually collapse on itself. Once the roof dries out more, they are going to label all the bricks, and take apart the building to rebuild it with some protection seal to keep the water from doing damage. I mean it rains all the time up there, so obviously there will be damage galor. The tour guide also basically informed us that the monks that lived there were badasses. It was freezing up there and the monks wore the bare minimum because they were in the monk life ya know. They had to protect their Cashel so even more badass there. And the architecture of the place was just great. They had a pathway, as seen in the last photo of the Rock of Cashel photos, around the interior of the building to protect it that went up and over the arches in the middle. It was grand and I wish it was in a state we could have climbed through the arches, but sadly they aren't open to the public. 

Photo Cred: Mum
Rock of Cashel

Photo Cred: Mum
Rock of Cashel: Wall Holes

Pay attention to the holes in the walls in this picture, that I kindly labeled as wall holes. Back in the day when they were all about building tall structures, they would just throw wood beams in to stand on while they built upward. Obvious the beams had a piece of wood laid across because no one has that large of arms. But once the building was complete, they would chop the wood off to the edge of the building and just leave the rest in there, covering it up with something but I forget what. Eventually it would rot away because the something that was covering it would fall off. Pretty snazzy story ik. 

Photo Cred: Mum
Rock of Cashel: Arches that have secret tunnels in there

Photo Cred: Mum
Rock of Cashel

Back in the day when glass was first discovered to be a thing, Ireland created a window tax. So Cashel being cool and all that, covered up parts of the window so they didn't have to pay as much of the tax. We also were told something was imperfect about these windows, but I don't remember what it was. Back in the day, they always would throw something off in their works because it showed that not all humans are perfect. I was pretty impressed with them going through such great efforts, probably not that great an effort but still, to get this message out there by leaving imperfections in their works. 

Photo Cred: Mum
Rock of Cashel

Photo Cred: Mum
Rock of Cashel: The secret passageways

After that we headed to Kilkenny, had dinner, and then mum and I went on a random walk of discovery where we saw a tour group of witches. They were seriously dressed as witches. It was a pretty great Thursday, I will admit, and we didn't get cursed by the witches, at least I hope not... Knock on wood?