Day 4 - Always remain open to Surprises

In my head I saw today as trip from the Village of Blarney, to the Village of Glengarriff.  Our transition from inland to coastal.  I thought we would get up, get breakfast, go do the very touristy "kiss the Blarney Stone" thing and then make the 70 km (43 miles) drive to Glengarriff. Simple, just something that had to be done to get from point a to point.

As you may guess from the todays title and the tone of the first paragraph, today turned out a bit differently - much so for the better.

(In case you want to look at pictures without reading this whole dissertation, here is the link for todays pictures)   Day 4 Pictures

Ireland has been a complete surprise right from the beginning.  The people here are friendly, fun, and wonderfully polite. They are inquiring in way that is not at all nosey or prying.  Their inquires are far more about them having a genuine interest in who you are and what you are doing here so they can help you out whilst you are here. They ask about were you are from, what brings you to Ireland and how you are finding Ireland. And then you get some suggestions - asked for, or not.  But the Irish seem to have an innate ability to sense whether your are open to hearing what they have to say or not.  Basically they seem to know if your interested in interacting with them. If so they will keep the conversation going.  If not, then they just go back to what they were doing. 

I do not want you to think that I had these deeply embedded preconceived notions of what people were like in Ireland.  I like to believe I fairly openminded about such things.  But I think, in general, we Americans tend be guarded and suspicious of open, friendly people we do not know. So many Americans are uncomfortable about having a stranger start up a conversation with them out of the blue.  I live for situations like that.  I am in my element in those situations.  I love to meet new people and get to know them a little bit and am not afraid to let them get to know to me a little bit.  So far Ireland has not failed to please on that account.

Back to today.  We had an very pleasant stay at the Muskerry Arms Bar and B&B in the Village of  Blarney.  Like I said, I thought we were just going to kiss the stone this morning and be on our way.  I found out today how much history can be packed into one Village, and in particular, one castle. Without getting into a long winded speech on the history of Blarney - suffice it to say Anita and I had a great time at the Blarney castle.  This place is so damn cool if you take the time to read the signs and look closely at the details .  

The Rock of Cashel we visited yesterday was a really cool castle - visually and historically. But it was a Cathedral, or church based, structure with all the history that goes along with it.  

But Blarney Castle, now here's a place that in early pre-Norman invasion time, a 1000 years ago, where Pagan Chieftain's & Kings lived.  Then came the Norman and English nobleman that followed them.  Families lived in this castle.  The castle served as the protection for the walled village and market adjacent to it.  There were soldiers living here and fighting off local tribespeople who refused to accept their presence.  THIS IS SOME REALLY COOL STUFF. 

The castle is technically what is called a Towerhouse.  It was meant to be lived in by a family and the servants.  It is basically a vertical house with big rooms on each floor and small rooms off to sides. There were literally thousands of these Towerhouses all over Ireland.  Not many survive above ground today.  And most of those that are visible are in pieces and falling down.  We have seen 3 of them while driving around just in the short time we have been here.  They just sit out on a high spot in a field, maybe behind somebodies house. 

The various owners of Blarney castle over the centuries kept beautiful gardens and imported tree's from all over the world that are still growing on the property.  Some of them are huge, with 6-8' thru trunks.

The current owners keep the place going by maintaining it tourist attraction.  I give them credit for maintaining the place as an historic site, without turning it into a trashy tourist trap.  

The coolest thing about Blarney Castle - YOU GET TO CLIMB AROUND INSIDE IT! You get tp go up almost 10 stories via a really narrow, stone spiral stair case.  You can stop and walk around the small rooms.  They even had bathrooms on several of the levels.  The bathrooms were nothing more than a hole in floor that lead immediately thru an opening to outside the castle, ran down the outside of the castle and landed on the ground. I will point them out on  picture or two. 

Medieval Toilet in Blarney Castle
There would be a wood bench with
holes in it over the hole in the floor (in yellow) 

...the circled holes in the wall are the
other side of the toilet holes.

Then, once you are at the very top of the castle, at the ramparts where the guards guarded, you get to hang upside down, 100' in the air and kiss the Blarney Stone.  Which I did.

In regard to the legend of the Blarney Stone.  The legend does say you will be granted the gab (gab in the sense of talking a lot.)  The legend says you will be granted "Eloquence" in your speech.  People will listen to you and want you speak more.

Now the whole thing about the Blarney Stone is actually quite funny.  No one that works at this place, or none of the literature, actually states categorically that there is any evidence the Stone has been shown to have any special powers over the last 800 or so years.  In fact, several stories floating around about it flat out call it a lie, fabricated by the 1800's owners just to make money.

In either case, as you have heard me say before, it is all just a matter of what you choose to believe.  And I like the story of the stone being an ancient blessing stone that pagan kings sat upon and ruled from.  I think that is cool story and choose to believe it - its fun.

So our recommendation is that if you get in this neck of woods.  Definitely stop by - with an open mind and keen interest in history.

The second part of Blarney Castle you should not miss are the gardens.  They are filled with not just flowers, but herbs and other plants used for medicinal purpose over the years.  Also, you can walk among the big tree's that were imported many years ago and taken care of.  The gardens are not just pretty, but interesting too.

There are a lot pictures of both the castle and the gardens.  I have them sorted so the castle pictures are all in a row and same for the garden pictures in case one or the other isn't your cup of tea.

We spent a little over 3 hours at Blarney Castle.  I was impressed enough to buy a little history book on it for $20.

So after Blarney Castle we had about a 1 hour and 30 ride over the coast to a small town we found called Glengarriff.  Anita wanted to go to a small fishing village and see the boats laying on their sides at low tide and floating again when the tide came in.  She also wanted to see cars parked close to the water at low tide and then flooded when the tide comes in - like she had seen in movies.  Well I found this little fishing village on the map and we arrived at just about low tide and I got an at-a-boy.

Cute little harbor when the fishing boats bring in fish, shrimp and mussels for the restaurants.  There was a mussel harvester at the pier when we went there.  Interesting engineering went into that boat.

After our stop at the harbor we headed down the road a mile into town to our hotel in Glengarriff.  The town is basically just village on both sides of the road for about 1/2 a mile.  Not a big place.  But a really neat little village with about 8 or 10 Pubs.  One of which was a tiny little pub called Bernard Harrigan's. Harrigan's had an old guy named Jon-O (in his 70's) and his guitar playing sea chanties, Irish Folk music, Willie Nelson, Grateful Dead, about anything.  He was bald on top and had a white pony tail behind and a full white in front.  He openly admitted to being an old hippie and not minding a little grass "when the occasion was justified it" He had quite the repertoire of songs  And as long as someone in the audience kept his Guinness Glass filled and his Powers (Whiskey) glass with a wee dram in it - he kept singing.  To begin with it was up to us to keep him oiled as we were the only ones there.

Not long after we got there though a younger couple - maybe in their 30's came in and we started talking and drinking with them.  It ended up Anita was talking to the wife and I to the husband.  And that is how the night went.  Everyone drinking and singing along with Jon-O.  Occasionally, a local would come in for a pint or two and then leave.  You could tell they were local because Bernard (the owner and I are on a first name basis) knew them by name and was pouring the drink before they got seated.

So that how Day 4 ended.  With us, our new friends Justin and Farrah and Jon-O all feeling no pain when at mid night Bernard declared it closing time and time to settle all debts.  Which we did, we all went back to respective places of sleeping.

Now here is the funny part of this story. Jon-O, the musician was born in Manhattan, NY.  Mostly raised in Houston, Texas  he had only been in Ireland for 10 years.  He came to get away and drink and play guitar in tiny little pubs.

Our other new friends, Justin and Farah, were on vacation from Wisconsin and were making their way around the ring of Kerry also.  So in point of fact we had an Irish Pub full of drunk Americans.  And Bernard was loving every minute of it.

OK that was our Tuesday - Day 4

Just so you don't have to go all the way up to the top again, here is the link for the Day 4 pictures:

Day 4 Pictures

Thanks again