Week 31 - Ireland - Bantry to England - Stoney Stanton

It was raining when we woke on Monday but it had stopped by the time we left for the day. We drove out on the Mizen Head peninsula to Crookhaven with a famous harbour and stopped at O' Sullivans Bar for lunch. It was blustery and cold outside which made it so cosy inside even the Old English sheepdog came inside. We felt like we were at the end of the world. Then we drove to Schull which was another fishing village. We walked around the harbour and the main street where we stopped at Newman's Photography to look at the photos of the Fastnet Lighthouse, a perfect construction of interlocking Cornish granite blocks which has withstood the Atlantic storms for over 100 years. Then we drove to inland Skibbereen on the Ilen River which was founded after coastal Baltimore was sacked by Algerian pirates in 1631! It had a statue to Irish rebels and a nearby Abbey with mass graves of thousands from the Famine of the 1840s. We walked around town enjoying the scenery of colourful shops, hotels and restaurants. Then we drove on to Cobh (pronounced Cove), the port for Cork, on Great Island. It was linked to the mainland by a causeway and faces Haulbowline Island, once the base for the Irish naval service, and Spike Island which houses a prison. After checking into a room at Ard na Laoi B&B, we walked around the harbour and had dinner. Then we went into the plush Commodore Hotel for an Irish coffee which entitled us to use their Wifi to book accommodation in Dublin, and the ferry to Holyhead in Wales.

After a full Irish breakfast on Tuesday morning, we checked out of the B&B. We walked up some steep narrow streets past brightly coloured terrace houses to St Colman's Cathedral which was perched on a hillside terrace overlooking Cobh. The cathedral was in French Gothic style with crenellated spires, flying buttresses, gargoyles and statues and contains the largest Carillon in Ireland with 47 bells. The largest bell was 3.6 tonnes! Inside the cathedral were mosaic floors, beautiful stained glass windows and marble columns. We walked back into town and paid a quick visit to the Cobh Heritage Centre, housed in the old train station which had a lot of information on the massive emigration out of Ireland.

Then we set off for Barryscourt Castle – the 16^th century seat of the Barry Family. First we visited the beautifully sculptured herb gardens and apple orchards (with 58 varieties of apples). Then a staff member gave us a guided tour of the renovated castle. It was built in typical Irish style – with a main tower house building with smaller adjacent buildings arranged around a courtyard and surrounded by a protective outer wall. The staff member guided us through the main rooms and halls in the castle and pointed out the defensive features of the castle before leaving us to browse through an exhibition on the ground floor.

After a quick stop for lunch at Midleton we drove towards Cashel. On the way we stopped at Lismore for a five minute walk across the bridge over the river and to admire the Lismore Castle and gardens in some precious sunshine. At Cashel, we parked the car and walked to The Rock of Cashel – an archaeological site on the top of a limestone hill surrounded by a sturdy wall. At first we joined a guided tour which concentrated on the main buildings – the round tower, roofless abbey, 12^th century Romanesque chapel and Gothic cathedral. Unfortunately much of Cormac's Chapel was inaccessible because it was covered in scaffolding and undergoing restoration. Then we wandered around the site ourselves. It was scattered with monuments, Celtic crosses, ornate tombs and had sweeping views of the surrounding countryside. We visited the Hall of the Vicar's Choral where we watched an audiovisual presentation (in Italian), and visited a small exhibition of Bronze Age axes and blades, stone carvings, silverware and St Patrick's Cross.

We drove to Kilkenny where we were checked into the Kilkenny Tourist Hostel.

On Wednesday morning we walked through town to Kilkenny Castle. The castle was set amidst stately gardens and parklands on the banks of the River Nore. The castle had three remaining corner towers with connecting walls which gave it a unique horseshoe shape. The fourth tower and enclosing wall was damaged by Cromwellian forces during the siege of Kilkenny. It had an impressive entrance gate with the Butler coat of arms leading into the central courtyard. The interior of the three wings were lavishly furnished including 22 carat gold leaf on the ceiling, hand painted Chinese wallpaper and the piece de resistance, the Long Gallery with partial glass roof to let in light, hammerbeam wooden ceiling painted with Celtic designs supported by intricately carved stone corbels. The room was hung with huge oil paintings and furnished with velvet covered antique benches down the centre to sit and enjoy the paintings. There was an enormous white marble fireplace carved with various significant scenes from the family history including the purchase of the castle, acting as butler to the Irish king, the exile after defeat of Royalist forces by Cromwell and triumphant return on restoration of Charles II. There was also a beautiful Moorish staircase with double columns and arches in red and white. After our visit we picked up our luggage from the hostel and left Kilkenny feeling a little sad that we hadn't had more time to enjoy it fully. We drove on a super highway to Dublin, arriving a couple of hours later at the Castle Hotel. This was a lovely small Georgian hotel on the edge of the city centre and a step up from most of the hostel type accommodation we had been staying, thanks to a Wotif voucher present from our friends Andy and Holly. It was filled with old prints and paintings from Irish literature. We walked around the city centre including O'Connell Street, Trinity College university, Parliament House, St Stephen's Green and Grafton Street – where saw the statue of a rather voluptuous Molly Malone wheeling her cart. After having dinner in an Indian restaurant, we walked home via the pub area of Temple Bar and over a fairy tale bridge over the river Liffey. We slept like babies in our luxurious bed.

On Thursday, we headed out to the nearby Parnell Square with a mosaic lined pool in the shape of a cross and sculpture of Irish suffering and swans flying upwards. We walked over the Half Penny Bridge (same one as last night) where we saw a statue of two women sitting on a bench engaged in conversation with their shopping bags at their feet. We spent the morning wandering around, getting lost and enjoying all the architecture and atmosphere of which Dublin has plenty. After lunch we made our way towards the Guinness factory but subsequently discovered we were lost for the third time in the day. We finally made it to the Guinness tour which turned out be an incredibly slick marketing machine. It was a self guided tour through a refurbished industrial building on seven levels. It explained the brewing process, cooperage, history of the site and the marketing of Guinness. The tour culminated in a lesson on how to pour of a pint of Guinness and then we consumed this on the seventh floor Gravity Bar with 360 degree views over the city. Then we walked to Kilmainham Gaol which is one of the biggest disused prisons in Europe and is now a museum. Unfortunately, it was closed by the time we got there. Kilmainham Gaol has played an important part in Irish history as many famous people involved in the struggle for Irish independence have been imprisoned there. It was a long walk back to the hotel and we had just enough time to update our diary and have a cup of tea before it was time to go and meet our firends Colm and Niamh at the Odessa Restaurant at Temple Bar. We had a delicious meal and had a great time catching up with Colm and Niamh and then walked back to the hotel. We packed up as much as we could and it was almost midnight before we collapsed into bed exhausted from our day of walking.

Our alarm went off at 6.00 am on Friday morning followed by the wake-up call from the hotel. We got ready and packed up the rest of our things quickly before heading down to the dining room for a continental breakfast. After breakfast we drove to the Dublin Port. The streets were empty and the Dublin Port was well signposted so we found it easily. This ferry was enormous compared to the ferry we took from Cairnryan to Larne. Next to the ferry terminal we could see piles of containers and container loading cranes. After driving onto the ferry, we went to one of the restaurant areas where we spent the 3½ hour journey reading and catching up with our emails (free Wifi on board).

We arrived at Holyhead at around midday and we got caught in a bit of a traffic jam driving off the ferry before we could get onto the A55 towards Chester. After that the drive was really easy and we arrived in Chester at 2.30 pm. We parked the car in a 30 minute parking zone while we had a late lunch. Then we moved the car to the Forum Shopping Centre car park in the city centre and got a map from the Tourist Information Centre. We spent a pleasant afternoon wandering around town in the sunshine. This was Keith's first visit to Chester and he really loved the well-preserved Tudor buildings with intricate carvings, the Rows shopping galleries and the Eastgate Clock. After walking around a bit we went to collect our car. We parked our car outside the Chester Backpackers Hostel, checked into our twin room which turned out to have double bunk beds. After a rest and a cup of tea, it was time to drive to the Bengal Dynasty at Shotton to meet Suzie's friend Gwen from Hahn and her husband Ed for dinner. We had a lovely dinner and it was lots of fun catching up with Gwen and Ed. We didn't get home till nearly midnight and we fell into bed tired after our early start and long day.

We woke up early on Saturday because of the traffic noise but we stayed in bed for a while before getting up and having our breakfast of porridge with mixed raisins and tea in the kitchen. Then we loaded our bags into the car and walked into town. We climbed up a set of stone steps next to the Eastgate Clock spent a couple of hours walking around the Chester City Walls reading the information plaques at each gate. From the walls we enjoyed views of the River Dee, the Roman Amphitheatre and the Chester racecourse which was once the site of a massive Roman harbour. We climbed off the walls at the Eastgate Clock and walked to the Chester Market where we had lunch and wandered around looking at the cheeses and smallgoods. We bought a selection of cheeses, salami and hams to take to Talbert and Linda's (Suzie's aunt and uncle) house. After going to Tesco to buy wine, chocolates and crackers, we walked back to the car in the rain to drive to Stoney Stanton. We got a little bit lost because we took a wrong exit, but other than that we found Talbert and Linda's house quite easily with the help of directions from Google Maps. We arrived at Tal & Linda's at a little after 5.10 pm. We spent a lovely evening chatting and had our dinner with red wine from Australia, Italy, Spain and Argentina sitting in front of the fire.

We had a really restful Sunday, spending most of the day in Talbert and Linda's conservatory reading the South America Lonely Planet and the Sunday newspaper and watching the birds in the garden.