Trip to Ireland -- September 2002

September 6
Kenji and I arrived in Dublin on different flights and got together at Dublin Airport. We took a bus to the main bus station in Dublin -- called the Busaras -- and waited for the bus that would take us to Cashel in County Tipperary. When we arrived in Cashal, it was about 5:30, and we stopped by the tourist information center on our way to the B&B. After we checked into the B&B, we walked around town a little and saw the 13th-century Dominican Friary. It is a ruin, but it is locked. There is a sign saying that the key is available at a nearby house, but we never were able to find anyone at home.

Cashel Palace Hotel

We decided to have dinner at the Bishop's Buttery in the Cashel Palace Hotel. It is in the basement of the hotel. Part of it is in what looks like it was once the kitchen. In fact, Kenji was actually seated in what looked like it had been a huge fireplace. (In the picture at the Bishop's Buttery Buttery web site, you can see the fireplace we sat in.) It was a nice atmosphere, and the food was good. (Kenji ordered salmon, as he did at almost every opportunity; I ordered chicken.) This building was originally built as the archbishop's palace, and it is now a hotel. It is a beautiful building and looks like it would be a nice place to stay. By the time we finished dinner, Kenji was almost falling asleep, so we went back to the B&B.

September 7

B&B

For breakfast, we had a traditional Irish breakfast, which included sausage, bacon, egg, orange juice, black pudding, white pudding, and a grilled tomato. We had the same thing almost every day that we stayed in a B&B, so I won't mention it every day. We often ate enough for breakfast that we either skipped lunch or just had soup at a pub.

We tried to go to the Rock of Cashel first, but it did not open on time, so we decided to walk across the fields to Hore (Hoar) Abbey. I followed the map, so we ended up doing it the hard, short way, walking across the fields and climbing over stone fences. (We obviously weren't the first ones to do so; there was a well-worn path.) Hoar Abbey was one of the last daughter houses of Mellifont Abbey to be established in Ireland. (The Archbishop dreamed that some monks were going to harm him, so he gave them this abbey to get them away.) As we were walking across the field, there were storm clouds behind the abbey, but the sun was shining -- a very striking sight. It was interesting to walk around and see the identifiable remnants, even though there were no roofs, and the walls were partially knocked down.

Cashel is most famous for the Rock of Cashel. The Rock is a limestone hill with the ruins of a monastery on top of it. It's difficult to describe how amazing this looks, as if the monastery is growing out of the rock. There is a round tower that was a structure in Irish monasteries, a cathedral that has lost its roof, a chapel that is pretty much intact, and some graves and Celtic crosses. The round tower, built in the early 12th century, is the oldest structure on the Rock. The chapel, also built in the early 12th century, is particularly impressive. It is small, but it is nearly intact. The doorways are elaborately carved Roman arches. Inside the chapel is a carved arch, and also carved faces. Some of the faces apparently represent contemporary people. Other faces are distorted, and they may have had the purpose of protecting the chapel from demons. There was also a museum with the original of a 12th-century cross and some of the artifacts that have been found on the site. This was in a 15th-century building that was once used for the choir. Parts of it, including the chapel, had been restored.

The grave of a former archbishop of the Church of Ireland is found on the side of the cathedral, to the right side of where the altar would have been. He was quite notorious for having switched from being a Catholic archbishop to the Church of Ireland. I don't know if he was paranoid or had real enemies, but he was so worried about being attacked that he had bodyguards and even wore armor. In spite of his fears, he lived to be 100. So either his precautions worked or there never was anyone after him. Or maybe he just outlived his enemies.

We walked back to town via the private path of the Cashel Palace Hotel. There is a nice garden behind the hotel.

Near Cashel is Cahir, which has a well-preserved castle, which is built on an island in the river. We had a really interesting tour of the castle. One of the things that I found particularly interesting was the variety of defensive features. It has a working portcullis, a gate that can be raised and lowered. (Soldiers would allow enemy soldiers to get past the portcullis and then close it behind them, trapping them between two doors. Then they'd pour or throw unpleasant things down on them. This particular one is the only working one in Ireland, so when the makers of a movie needed the sound of one for their movie, they came to this castle to record the sound of the chains that control the portcullis.) It has three walls that attackers have to fight through to get to the main tower where the family would have retreated in case of an attack. The stairs up to the keep were uneven, so that attackers were likely to trip on them, and the direction of the winding stairs put a right-handed swordsman at a disadvantage fighting up the stairs. There were a lot of clever types of defense, but the offensive fighters could be clever, too. For example, they sometimes flung carcasses of animals over the wall, which spread disease within the castle. By the late 16th century or early 17th century, these types of castles were obsolete, because of the development of cannons.

After seeing the castle, we walked to the Swiss Cottage. To get there, we walked about two kilometers through the countryside, along a river and by a golf course. We didn't really have time to linger, but it was a pleasant walk through lovely, idyllic countryside. The Swiss Cottage was a "rustic" cottage built by Lord and Lady Cahir at a time when it was fashionable for upper class people to play at being peasants. The cottage is simple by the standards of the upper class, but it is fancier than anything a peasant lived in. Lord and Lady Cahir never actually spent the night here, but they would come with friends and go on picnics, etc. The cottage emphasizes natural materials and irregularities. Each of the four rooms has three windows, but each of the windows is different. In some cases, the top of the window was not parallel to the floor.

The weather was really strange, both on this day and the next day. It would cloud up and rain, and then it would clear up, and the sun would come out. And then it would cloud up and rain again, and then it would clear up and the sun would come out again. This must have happened six or seven different times through the day.

We returned to Cashel and visited the folk village museum. It has various types of buildings, including a blacksmith's shop, a shop, a penal chapel, and a museum. Penal chapels are very small chapels that were built by Catholics, often of stones from other religious buildings, during the time when it was illegal to practice Catholicism. The museum also showed a video about Ireland's War of Independence and Civil War.

We stopped and saw at a visitor/craft center to see an audio-visual show about the history of the city. It had a model of the city as it appeared in the 1600s, and an explanation of the city as it was at that time. John Street, where we were staying, was there the wealthy merchants built their houses.

Bolton Library

We tried to get into the Cathedral and the Bolton Library, which has manuscripts, but they were closed.

old city walls

However, we did see part of the old city walls behind the Cathedral. Four effigies are set into the wall in that place.

In the evening, we had dinner at a place called Baileys, which was excellent. Kenji had salmon again, which he said was the best salmon he had on the entire trip. (Salmon is the most common seafood in Ireland.) Later, we went to the Bru Boru Heritage Center and saw a show of traditional Irish dancing and music. (We were lucky, because it was their last show of the season.) It was a really good show, with a large cast of dancers. It was the dancing that I enjoyed most. They did a variety of dances, in pairs and groups. One of the dances seemed to be based on American square dancing. After the regular show, they had kind of an informal session in another room, in which they played music informally. Apparently they were going to dance later, with volunteers from the audience, but we decided not to stay.

As we walked back to the B&B, we could see the illuminated Rock of Cashel. It was very striking.

This was a busy day, one of the best days on our trip.

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