ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER CASTLE
October 12. I joined up with the "Tir Na Nog (Irish for Land of Eternal Youth) Tours", a backpacker's bus crammed with folks from far and wide, and we headed south and west. First stop, Dunamase Castle or at least its ruins from the 12th century. I've learned a few root words in Irish so far. "Dun" means fort, so most Castles have that root word, "Kil" means Church, so many towns names start with it (Kilkenny, Killarney, etc) and "Bally" means community....so many towns start with that root word, naturally. After Dunamase, we headed to the famous "Rock of Cashel" where St. Patrick, beginning in 432 AD, made Christians out of many ex-heathen mainly British, heads of Ireland. One giant piece of the castle, looking quite like a large rock (but not THE rock as the entire place is actually the Rock of Cashel) fell down 200 years after a fierce battle took place there in 1646 when Oliver Cromwell’s forces advanced here. Some of the Church's nave and choir areas have remnants of Romanesque frescos still on them, discovered some years ago by archeologists who are now trying to preserve them. Beyond, are some tombs inside and lots of gravesites scattered all around the grounds. Afterwards, we headed to Cork City by passing through my ancestors County Kilkenny, staying overnight at Sheila's Hostel. Cork is a rival of Dublin as such, citizens don't sell as much Guinness beer there as it’s brewed in Dublin. The locals drink more Murphy’s Stout here. I tried Murphy’s but it's not as smooth as Guinness. I didn't see too much of Cork but had a lovely meal at Scott's with some of the Tour gang, which served large portions...Three of the group are from Melbourne, Australia and one is an older woman from Pamplona, Spain who hardly speaks any English. The next day we headed out of Cork, making our first stop at the Blarney Castle. We walked up to the top and did the touristy, kitschy thing…kiss the Blarney Stone. A gymnastic exercise of lying down and heading up side down to peck on a stinky rock. Hopefully, it wasn’t’ full of pee as I'd been warned about....(Either way, I washed my face afterwards). As legend tell it, the stone is supposed to give you "the gift of eloquence....i.e. the gift of gab)....Since I already have that, I guess I’ll now be a non-stop gabbing fool. The Blarney Castle grounds, quite lovely with a scenic walks through tree-lined paths, around some ancient Pagan areas such as "the witch's kitchen, a druid cave, a dolmen (an ancient standing stone).