Saturday in Ireland: ROAD TRIP!

Saturday morning Chris, Scott and I hit the road early! Our destination was Dublin but Scott suggested that we make a short detour to the Rock of Cashel. I was so pumped!

Rock of Cashel is also known as St. Patrick's Rock

According to local mythology, the Rock of Cashel originated in the Devil's Bit, a mountain 20 miles north of Cashel when St. Patrick banished Satan from a cave, resulting in the Rock's landing in Cashel. It's hard to describe this geographic feature--it's simply this giant rock with a plateau on which sits a castle, chapel, and cemetery.

The Rock of Cashel was the seat of the kings of Munster prior to the Norman invasion. Most of the buildings are from the 12th and 13th centuries! The oldest and tallest building is the round tower from around 1100 A.D.

Another building is Cormac's Chapel, the chapel of King Cormac Mac Carthaigh (now if that's not an Irish name, I don't know what is), from 1127 A.D. It has one of the best preserved Irish frescoes from that time period.

The cathedral wall, damaged by cannon shelling in 1647, lost a giant chunk during the "Night of the Big Wind" in 1848.

Chris and me next to the piece of cathedral wall

Chris and his coworker Scott

This stone sarcophagus is inside Cormac's Chapel, and it dates from 1125-1150. It may contain the remains of King Cormac himself.

Fresco

Then there's the Cathedral, built between 1235-1270. There are also several medieval High Crosses including the unusual 12th-century St. Patrick's cross, which has subsidiary supports rather than a ring around the cross head.

St. Patrick's Cross

Hore Abbey, one km north of the Rock of Cashel

After we explored the Rock of Cashel, we continued on to Dublin. It was surreal to be riding in a car on the left side of an Irish highway, sitting behind the driver on the right side of the car and watching the verdant scenery as we headed north to such a historic city!

Our first stop was the Guinness Storehouse at St. James's Gate Brewery. I was not that interested, but Chris and Scott really wanted to see this place and had heard good things about the tour. 

The Storehouse comprises seven floors surrounding a glass atrium shaped in the form of a pint of Guinness. The tour took us through the history of Arthur Guinness, a visionary who set up his brewery in Dublin in 1759 by taking out a 9,000-year lease (seriously??) on the brewery at St. James's Gate. 

The original 9,000 year lease, signed by Arthur Guinness

The Guinness Harp

Midway through the self-guided tour, we stopped at the cafe for lunch and I thoroughly enjoyed my sandwich on Guinness bread and my Guinness potato chips.

After later sampling the beer, I much prefer my Guinness in food form! At the end of the tour, we opted to redeem our tickets for pints of Guinness in the Gravity Bar on the seventh floor, where we took in the panoramic views of Dublin (there are very few tall buildings in Ireland).

We retrieved the car and headed for the hotel Chris booked, which happened to be, as it turned out, in the dead center of the blocked-off Gay Pride Parade route. So for the next hour or more, we experienced Dublin traffic and saw buildings within a square mile in slo-mo. Finally, exasperated, we asked the Garda (police) how in the world we were supposed to get to our hotel. Oh, we'll just move this barricade for you. WHAT?? (sigh)

After checking in and parking the car (for good!), we walked across the street to Trinity College, Ireland's oldest university, founded in 1592. 

We made it just in time to see the Old Library, built in the eighteenth century, and the Book of Kells, a famous ninth-century gospel manuscript.

Next, we decided to follow one of my guided walks for a cursory view of historic Dublin. Well, that was also somewhat foiled by all the revelry, especially as part of our route went through the famous Temple Bar area of Dublin with its pubs and party atmosphere. Once we got through there, though, we relaxed a bit and enjoyed the scenery, even finding a yummy restaurant that served tapas-style meals. We continued our tour after dinner, then tried to find a pub with some live, authentic Irish music and not too many out-of-towners. That was quite the eye-opener, let me tell you! One place we entered was so packed that I could hardly breathe, and keep in mind that most places don't have air conditioning in Ireland. I hardly got in the door before I motioned to Chris and Scott to get out of there. Another place seemed promising until we realized that it was full of American tourists, and the bands were playing songs like "Cotton-Eye Joe" and "Country Road." We were on the hunt for the historic Stag's Head Pub I had researched when we witnessed a VERY drunk Irish lad who forgot he was in public when nature called. Between that and the rain that moved in, I was done for the night so we headed back to our hotel.