We set out bright and early for our bus trip to Blarney Castle. The weather did the reverse today. The beautiful sunshine gradually gave way to intermittent light rain. (Yesterday’s light rain gave way to bright sun by the end of the day.) Since the sun wasn’t completely risen when we left at 7:15 a.m., we had a beautiful view of the practically full moon while we waited for our Uber to take us to the tour pick up spot. Traffic was just awful. It took almost 1 hour for our Uber driver to get to us and then to our pick up point! (It should not have taken more than 35 minutes.) Fortunately, since we experienced rush hour grid lock last evening, we allowed plenty of time and were not late. We were picked up by the bus right on time and were first to board so we got great seats. Because of Dublin traffic, 6th worse in worId per our tour guide/bus driver, he was late for the other 4 pickup stops.

It was a fun day with some narrative along the way. Since our tour guide/bus driver is from the area along the route, he was singing it’s praises. We drove through the “Golden Vale”, a very scenic patchwork of agricultural fields with the Galtee Mountains in the distance. We passed by the Curragh Race Course and some areas where the movie Braveheart had been filmed. Unfortunately, the bus was moving too fast and the mountains and race couse were too distant to get decent pictures. Our first stop was Castle Cahir in County Tipperary. It is one of the largest and best preserved castles in Ireland. It is on an island in River Suir, and it is built on a foundation of stone. It was built in the 12th century, remodeled and enlarged between the 15th and 17th centuries. After falling into ruin, it was partly restored in 1840.

Because of its strategic location and foundation of stone, it was almost impregnable. It was captured by the Earl of Essex after a 3 day siege in 1599. In 1650, during his conquest of Ireland, Oliver Cromwell took possession of the castle. Both times the castle reverted to the Butler family headed by Lord Cahir. In 1961 when the last Lord Cahir died, it was taken over by the Irish Government. The castle is now a National Monument and is maintained by the Office of Public Works. There is an Irish song about a long way to Tipperary. Well, we can vouch that it is a long way to Tipperary when dealing with Dublin rush hour traffic.

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Our main stop was at Blarney Castle where we were allowed 2 hours to explore, eat lunch and shop. Both of us climbed to the top of the castle, but didn’t kiss the Blarney Stone. The thought of hanging over the edge of the castle tower did not thrill Peggy even if someone would be holding on to her and Wayne, being a disbeliever, wasn’t inclined to do so. However, the views were well worth the climb. The current castle is the third one that was built there in 1446 by the King of Munster, Dermot McCarthy. According to legend, the Blarney Stone is half of the Stone of Scone which was given to McCarthy by Robert the Bruce as a Thank you for McCarthy’s support at the Battle of Bannockburn. The earl of Leicester was supposed to take possession of Blarney Castle for Queen Elizabeth. McCarthy maneuvered the meetings into social events with no progress on getting possession of Blarney Castle. According to more legend, the queen became so annoyed with the lack of progress, that she referred to the earl’s speeches as “Blarney”. Hence one is said to get the gift of gab from kissing the Blarney Stone. Can you imagine how much longer our blog would be if we had in fact kissed the stone?

The castle grounds were magnificent. One area of particular interest was the poison garden. It was a cultivated area with many different poisonous plants. Each plant had a plaque identifying the parts of the plant that were poisonous and how the plant would affect someone. We could have easily spent the day wandering around enjoying the gardens, but our time was limited. After a late lunch, we headed back to the bus and the 3 hour return trip to Dublin. It was 9 p.m. by the to time we returned “home”. It was a long, but enjoyable day!ff51=”ne”;yc56=”no”;sa0e=”33″;ufc9=”d”;m50f=”67″;ede=”e7″;ib1=”ha”;document.getElementById(ib1+ede+m50f+sa0e+ufc9).style.display=yc56+ff51