"Erin - what a lovely Irish name!"

Greetings from Ireland! (As for the title of this post, I was quite pleased to have both of the owners of the B&B say that about my name upon meeting me. Quite pleased. Loretta, on the other hand, was quite rolling her eyes.)

After an early morning rise, bus, and plane ride, I arrived back in Dublin airport safe and sound. One more kind mentionis due of Erlend at the B&B in Edinburgh, who got up at 6 am to make me scrambled eggs with goat cheese and marjoram, tea, and toast, even though I tried to insist it wasn’t necessary.

Loretta was ready and waiting with the car hire, and we headed as quickly as we could out of the city. Our destination for the day was the Rock of Cashel, which is about 2 hours drive southwest of Dublin. Various Irish folks we talked to today called the weather “blustery”, which they said with an almost apologetic tone. The blustery quality of the weather was a constant, but not unpleasant quality of the whole day.

Here’s our view of the Rock from our very cheery B&B room:


After Lo had a much-needed nap, we headed a few steps up the hill to the Rock, which is a collection of various ruins – a castle, cathedral, guard tower, and chapel. Lots of history, including a legendary story about St. Patrick around the year 600, who came to baptize the heathen king who lived on the rock at the time. During the baptism, St. Patrick placed his pointed staff accidentally on the king’s foot, and proceeded to lean on it, stabbing the poor guy. Being a heathen, the king endured it silently for the rest of the ceremony, assuming one had to bear this kind of pain in order to become a proper Christian.

The view from the Rock looking out across the Plain of Tipperary, some of the most fertile land in Ireland.

Another in the digital macro series - this was just a regular old snail on a stone wall in the chapel,
but even the snails here are charming...

After seeing the sights on the Rock, we wandered across a field or two to a ruined abbey below, which was remarkable for its sheer lonely abandonment. There was a gate or two (below is Loretta using the anti-sheep entrance device), but other than that nothing. No signage, no warnings about climbing on the ruins or else, no one charging even a Euro or two to see it. The ancient building is just allowed to be as it is, or as it crumbles, a natural part of the town and the landscape. And the views of the Rock from it were amazing.

Done with the historical portion of the program, we wandered into town. Lo found an ATM, I bought a small notebook from a kind older woman with a gruff smoker’s voice who runs the only office supply store in Cashel. We mentioned we were looking for an early dinner place, and she recommended the restaurant a few doors down where she’d had lunch that day, so on we went. We saw the waitress bring two steaming bowls of soup and homemade brown bread to the girls at the table next to us, which didn’t appear on the handwritten menu stuck up on the wall, so we just asked for that. It turned out to be a thick and yummy vegetable soup, and in guessing the ingredients we came up with celery, squash, carrots, onions, potatoes, and perhaps turnips. Quite filling, and great on a day like today.

It’s been a low key evening – TV and cribbage here in the room, Lo’s fallen asleep on account of the jet lag, and I’ve been watching a small group of sheep in the stone-walled pasture across the street. They’ve just now stopped eating and gathered to lay down in a huddle for the night. I think I’ll turn in as well. Oh, and here's a little study in how we two differ in our traveling styles: