Today Holly and I are taking a bus tour to the Rock of Cashel, the Blarney Stone, and the city of Cork. It’s actually raining in Ireland today, finally! Every Irish person we met thought the apocolypse was coming because of their “heat wave” which means like 75-80 degrees.

Our first stop was at the Rock of Cashel. Cashel is a huge stone and castle that was built in AD 1500. I was kind of asleep when the guide was talking about it, it was 7 am! I know Queen Elizabeth visited it. They framed the guest book she signed and the pen. I know they are trying to remove to salvage the artwork on the walls without damaging the walls. I also know it has what people say was once the most well kept cemetary in Ireland.

A saxton (graveyard guy) took care of it for the lady he loved.

This girl loved Timmy. Timmy didn’t have a penny to his name but they loved each other dearly. The father was trying to marry his daughter and he wouldn’t let her marry Timmy. Tommy from the other town had 300 sheep. “Who cares about love when you can have 300 sheep?” He said. One day the father told the daughter he would take her to town for the fair where we can marry Timmy. She was excited and they left and she noticed they were going the wrong way. The father said he just wanted to stop and see a friend. After a long while she knows they’re going the wrong way and the father admits he is taking her to marry Tommy. They were arguing and the father took a wrong turn toward Cashel and didn’t notice until late evening. They decided to stay in Cashel and the daughter ran away in the night but the father noticed and chased after her. They fought on and fell into the river and both died. They were burried at Cashel. Timmy got word and came to visit her grave and when he did they say her ghost came to him and asked him to stay and watch over her grave. So he did. And that’s why Cashel has the best kept graveyard in Ireland.

There wasn’t much signage in the castle, especially because it was being excavated so I made up a tour for Holly. It included archways blessed by the pope, the table where Kate Middleton’s baby was born, and a various other stories and memorabilia that I created, all in good fun.

Our second stop was Blarney Castle and kissing the Blarney stone!! This was the only thing I wanted to do in Ireland. Kissing the Blarney stone has been on my bucket list for a long time and I honestly thought there was about 50 other things I would knock of my list before this one. But my new years resolution was to knock at least two things off of my list this year and I’ve done one already!

It started raining even harder at the top of the castle. The castle was huge and the history is insane. Climbing the stairs to the Blarney stone is like climbing the stairs to the top of the tower on top of the Cathedral in Florence. If you have ever done that, I know you know what I’m talking about mom! It was like that but not as many stairs. However a lot of stairs, narrow and spiraled.

I got to kiss the stone so in theory now I have the gift of eloquent speech for the next seven years. Huzzah! The legend of the stone is this (keep in mind this is my rendition of the story): A rich king committed a horrendous crime. He was sent to trial but did not want to be sentenced. In search for what to do he asked a witch and she said when you wake up in the morning, kiss the first stone you come across. The king said thanks for the load of rubbish and left. The next morning when he was walking to his trial he thought “well why not” and kissed a stone. He went to his hearing, spoke his bit, and walked out a free man. The court knew he did something horrendous but couldn’t understand why they let him go free. The King ordered the stone he kissed to be removed and taken to the castle, voila the Balrney stone.

People from that town say they don’t speak of what the king did because it was so awful. Our tour guide thinks that he just spoke, confused, and bamboozled the people so much they just don’t remember.

Anyways, the grounds of the castle are huge! It has so many areas. A poison garden, a waterfall area, gardens- so much! They have wishing stairs that if you walk up and down them backwards with your eyes closed and think of the same wish and only that wish the whole time, will come true. I did this. Slippery stone stairs in the rain. I hit my head on the ceiling turning around, but I kept going haha! They so have a witch stone where they say a witch (some said who was the one who told the king about the stone) is trapped in a rock and her spirit comes out at night. It was amazing. We did not spend close to enough time there.

Then we went to the city of Cork. It wasn’t that exciting to be honest. We went to the English market where we had some bomb food. I ate a tart of mozzarella, pesto, and tomato with green olives on the side. It was delicious. After that we took the bus back to Dublin!

We decided to do a pub crawl, as it was our last night. Ireland was so good to us. Lets just say it was a grand ole time. We made lots of friends. It poured rain. I don’t want to leave.