Ireland - Day 4 Monday

On Monday all of us were a little sad to say goodbye to Dingle.  We had such a wonderful time in Dingle, so good that none of us really wanted to leave.  But we did want to see more of Ireland so we sadly said goodbye and headed to our next destination.  The one touristy thing that I wanted to do was to go see the Blarney stone.  My grandma talked about it when she went to Ireland and it was one of those I wanted to check off the list.  So we headed up to check out the castle.  It is said that Queen Elizabeth I is credited with introducing the word "blarney" to the English language.  Her emissary, sir George Carew, was charged with persuading the MacCarthy chieftain to abandon his ancient rights and accept the authority of the English throne.  Every time he tried, he was met with long and eloquent protestations of loyalty and honeyed flattery of the Queen - but also with no agreement.  In frustration, Elizabeth exclaimed, "This is all Blarney.  What he says he never means."  And so a new word was born.

 

The boys outside Blarney castle

 

AJ in the dungeons.  We thought about leaving him, but then decided he was too cute and so we let him come along.  There were two holes on the side of the castle in front of this, one for the watch men and one for the watch dogs.  The dogs had their own place to stand guard.

 

Looking back at Blarney castle - the Blarney stone is on the left side of this picture at the top of the castle.  You had to walk up 100 stairs (which was nothing compared to our earlier walk up over 700 in Ulm, Germany) to get there.  They weren't very even and were small and wet so on the way down we made sure one of us was in front of the boys just in case. 

 

This David and I thought was cool, interesting, not sure what word to use, but it is called a Murder hole.  This was in many of the castles that was saw in Ireland.  It was always above the entrance and it was for a better vantage point if invaders were coming into your castle.  Pretty smart.  David thinks we need one in our retirement home--just incase.

 

The boys were checking out the scenery behind them, it was beautiful, especially the farther up we went and the further we could see.

 

This is to give you some perspective of the stairs and how small they were.  Boys do love the castles and exploring them, they were running all over the place. 

 

This is the view of the Blarney house from the top of Blarney castle.

 

So once we got to the top of the castle, we were close to the Blarney stone.  Here is another history lesson for you on the stone.  :-)  For over 200 years, world statesman, literary giants, and legends of the silver screen have joined the millions of pilgrims climbing the steps to kiss the Blarney Stone and gain the gift of eloquence.  Its powers are unquestioned but its story still creates debate.  Some say it was Jacob's Pillow, brought to Ireland by the prophet Jeremiah.  Here it became the Lia Fail or "Fatal Stone", used as an oracular throng of Irish Kings and a kind of Harry Potter- like "sorting hat" for kings.  Legend says it was then removed to mainland Scotland, where it served as the prophetic power of royal succession, the Stone of Destiny.  When Cormac MacCarthy, King of Munster, sent four thousand met to support Robert the Bruce in his defeat of the English at Bannockburn in 1314, the Stone was split and half was sent to Blarney.  Some years later, a witch saved from drowning revealed its power to the MacCarthys.  There is a stone there, that whoever kisses, Oh! he never misses to grow eloquent.

 

So David was first up to kiss the stone - they have installed the metal bars for safety in case somebody falls

 

And then it was my turn. 

 

I absolutely LOVED this tree.  So of course I had to get a picture of it!!

 

Here is the Blarney house up close, it is under renovation so we weren't able to go in and see it.

 

This was one of the guard towers around the castle.

 

Another thing I found interesting is that they had a poison garden there.  They had many different kinds of plants, including a couple from Harry Potter movies and rhubarb.  I never knew rhubarb was poison, maybe that is why I don't like rhubarb pie.  :-)

 

They also had escape caves underneath the castle.  We were only able to go a little ways since the rest of the tunnel was caved in, but it was pretty cool and small. 

 

One of the signs at the castle was neat I thought, it stated "The difference between blarney and baloney is this:  Baloney is when you tell a 50- year old woman that she looks 18 and Blarney is when you ask a woman how old she is because you want to know at what age women are most beautiful.

 

After that we went to a town called Cork.  This was Dara's stomping grounds for quite a few years.  He took us around to a couple of the really high end hotels in the area and they were really neat.  They of course were way over our budget to stay in but it was neat to go and check out the architecture.  One was newly built but still kept the old look to it.

 

 

This is St Fin Barre's Cathedral.  It was built between 1865 and 1879.  According to legend, a monastery was founded here in the 7th century by St Fin Barre.  There has been continuous Christian worship on this side for over a thousand years.

 

It amazes me the history and how far back it goes.  In the US we just don't have that long of a history and it is really neat to see that.

 

 

After lunch we went over to The Jameson Experience.  This was one thing for David because he does like his whiskey.  He normally is a Jack fan, Jack Daniels that is, but about a month before we left he picked up a bottle of Jameson and was very impressed.  So we decided to take the tour of the old Jameson factory. 

 

The old Distillery was founded by the Murphy brothers and in 1867 they joined forces with four Cork City distilleries to form the Cork Distilleries Company.  They used the Old Distillery until 1975 when they opened the new one right next door. 

 

 

 

The building ahead of us was where they dried out the grain.  It was dried out in the kiln using anthracite, a smokeless fuel.

 

 

You can see the bottom here, on top is where the grain was and it had to be turned by hand.  So these holes let the heat come up and then there were some men up there walking on the hot tiles moving the grain around.

 

These were the shoes that they used for walking on the hot floors so their feet didn't burn.

 

 

Here is where they stored the grain once it was all dry.  It is the tallest building on the site.  Before the pulley lifts were installed, the men had to manually carry the sixteen stone (224 lb.) sacks to the upper floors of the storage

 

This is a look at that building from the outside.  The black metal disks were support beams.  Each of the 5 stories in the grain store held 250 tons of grain.  Also they had so many windows because if the grain got to hot it could cause an explosion, so during the summer months especially, they were all open.

 

 

This was a really cool water wheel that was built in 1852 and was the main source of motive power at the distillery.  It still works to this day.

 

This is where they used to weigh the barrels.  There was also a the office behind this one where they tested it.  If the whiskey was too high or too low in proof the workers were able to drink it.  So you imagine there was a bit of celebrating when that happened.

 

This is the largest Pot-still in the world, which has the capacity of 32,000 gallons, and is made of copper.  You can see the boys standing behind it.  They were able to pull the rope and ring the bell.  It was used to tell the workers if it was lunch break or the boss might be coming by.

 

 

I just thought this was a really cool picture - the old trains they used to use to deliver the whiskey.

 

This was really interesting.  The first barrel is when they initially put it in the barrel, the 2nd is 3 years, then 5-7 years, then 12 years and finally 18 years or more.  As you can see the level goes down the longer it stays in there and the liquid gets darker.  By the time it is 18 years or more they loose almost 50%.

 

 

At the end they had a whiskey tasting.  David enjoyed this.  They had Jack Daniels, Jameson and Johnny Walker black label.  When you tasted them one after the other there was definitely a different taste.  The boys had orange juice while we were there.

 

After that we headed to Cobh (pronounced Cove).  This was the last place immigrants left from to travel to America.  This was also the last place that the titanic was berthed before her fateful journey.  The name of the town was changed in 1849 to Queenstown when Queen Victoria visited.  They did change the name back to Cobh. 

 

This is what the old station might have looked like

 

Mr Dara and the boys watching a video about immigration and the boats.  There were also convict boats that sailed to Australia and many boats were called coffin ships when they set sail for America because sometimes 50% or more of the people on board died.  During the famine in Ireland more than 1.5 million emigrated between 1847-1849.  Between 1848-1950 there were 6 million immigrated, so you can see how many went in those two short years of the famine.

 

 

A picture of the titanic before she left port.

 

Up on the hill from the museum was a beautiful cathedral.  This is the last place many families worshiped together before they left for America, never to see there families again.

 

The outside was almost as beautiful as the inside with all of the statues carved on it.

 

Some of the stained glass window on the inside.

 

This was the front of the church - amazing!!!

 

 

All of the churches had these marvelous pulpits!!!  Look at that woodwork! 

 

After a long day of walking and driving and the boys being so good, they decided it was time to wrestle with Daddy!!!  It was great!!!  We went walking after this to find a place to eat and ended up just getting some yummy pizza and chilling the rest of the night.