Our next stop was to Dolman Chnoc an Bhrúnaigh in Gaelic or Brownshill Dolmen in English. I had a huge headache by the time we got here. Tiny windy Irish roads in a big bus and the driver was jerking and braking hard. That’s alright though. It’s this huge giant wheat field. It’s actually probably more than one, probably several, but I’ve never seen so much wheat.

What it was most known for is the Brownhill Portal Tomb. This tomb has not been excavated so they don’t know much about it. In other tombs they have found artifacts. They also know other tombs have had burnt and unburnt burials. A portal tomb is called a portal tomb because the entrance to the tomb is noted by two huge tall portal stones and has a huge single capstone one on top and slopes down towards the back of the tomb. The capstone on this weighs about 150 tons alone and is said to be the heaviest of it’s kind in Europe. It’s hard to say when this tomb was built here but if they had to guess base on the artistic touch, this tomb looks as how it may have looked around 5,000 years ago. Pretty neat.

From here we traveled and went to the small town of KilKenny. The highlight of the town is KilKenny Castle which was built around the 11th and 12th century. It was owned by the Butler family, a wealthy family. They had a line of Earls. The castle changed hands a few times, being renovated and updated many times. Eventually after the castle had been abandonded and left, the last owner sold the castle to a restoration cpany for 50 pounds. Since then they have been working to restore the castle to it’s various original states and is also used as a hotel. Across the street the old stables have become shops but if you walk through and past the stables you will fine the Butler family home and garden. The Garden was huge, beautiful and had like no flowers. Holly explained about how she took a Brit Lit class and had to learn about how with different time periods came different kinds of gardens. She couldn’t remember the name of that type, everything was asymetrical, but it was still interesting to learn and beautiful to see. We chose to lay on the grass a bit before heading back to the bus and going back to Dublin.

That night we decided to go to a pub and listen to live music after a cheap meal. We went into Trinity, a pub Holly had been to before. It was pretty empty, it now being a Monday night and all. People work and have jobs so they were all back on their daily grind. It was cute intimiate setting with everyone and enjoyable. This guy kept staring at me so I kept moving my seat, eventually to where he couldn’t see me. I don’t think he meant to come off creepy, he clearly has a mental disease of some sort, but it was still uncomfortable having a pair of eyes just staring at me. The waiter who kept running around was named Maciej (sounds like magic). While the live musician was taking a break, a song came on that I recognized as did Holly but we didn’t know who sang it. I asked Magic who went to the back to look for me. He came back with a name on a piece of paper and I said “I can’t pronounce that” he said Im not sure and then spelled it out I’m sure because some of his C’s and L’s looked like the same letters. Holly didn’t really realize his writin but responded with “I know how to spell” and he got this “oh okay miss sassy” look on his face and crumpled up the paper. We laughed and I said “no I will keep this since Holly can spell.” he laughed and asked if we wante other drinks and told me mine now cost 5 euro which was a guiness and 5,50 when I got my first one and said Holly’s was 5,50 still, haha! He was just joking with her.

Eventually our live singer comes back and he’s a nice guy. He’s 26, cause Holly so directly asked, and very talented. He was taking requests all night so when he came back Holly said “she wants Taylor Swift” and pointed to me because I had been joking about making that requst.

The singer said “Taylor Swift?!” and Magic yelled from behind the bar “Who asked for that?” my response was “The speller!” and of course we are all laughing. The guy performing says “I would rather do Spice Girls than Taylor Swift.” and that’s when we got the all accostic Irish rendition of “If You Wanna Be My Lover” it was sooooooooooooo funny, I wish I had recorded it. The entire pub applauded at the end as we all laughed.

He was a good singer. Played all sorts of music and requests. At the end of the evening everyone kept chanting one more one more and he ended up singing like five more. He ended with Champagne Supernova by Oasis.

It was great. We headed home and Holly meowed Ho Hey by the Lumineers. Ridiculous and too funny.