Saturday, March 16, 2024

We slept pretty well in the Cobh house and Charlotte and I (but mostly me!) made crepes for everybody. It was a bit challenging without a proper crepe pan but we made it work. Genevieve arrived from Dublin nice and early on the morning train but decided to stay back from Blarney Castle, our destination for the day. The rest of us went to the train station and took the train back to Cork where Kaitlyn went home and Oscar continued on with us to Blarney Castle. The Uber driver suggested that we go to lunch in the town before we went to the castle so we went over to Blarney’s Woolen Mills where Christy’s Bar was. After a nice lunch we headed to the castle and even though it was raining there were a lot of people there so the line to kiss the Blarney stone took about an hour. But we did get to see the castle while we waited so that was good. After that we walked around the very nice grounds for a while and saw an impressive house that was unfortunately not open to tour. Then we returned back to Cork where Genevieve joined us for a nice dinner at Sonflour. We went to a pub in Cork and Oscar wished he’d brought his backpack so he wouldn’t have to return to Cobh for it but alas, he did have to go back with us. We stopped at another pub in Cobh on the way back to the train station with Oscar which was much more lively and friendly than the pub on the first night! And Oscar made it to his train and we returned to the house.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland! We woke up and had breakfast and then headed out for our tour of the Fota House that Mark had discovered would be opening up that weekend for tours after being closed for over a year. We got onto the train with no problem, man that train is so convenient. A guy ran on at the last minute but then had to get off quickly a stop later when the train police got on to check tickets. I guess sometimes if you’re running late there’s no time to tap on, so bummer for him wherever he was going he was now going to be that much later as trains only ran every hour. We got off at the Fota stop and walked past the Fota Wildlife Park seeing lots of wallabies, one kangaroo, and the red panda on our way. We got to the Fota house and discovered the front was covered with scaffolding and a tarp, so there goes that photo opportunity! We got coffee and “teacakes” from a food truck. The teacakes were in fact chocolate-covered marshmallows but there are worse things. The grounds were so nice, and then it was time to head back for our tour of the house. We learned about the history of its creation, how after the last owner died UCC bought it to use for its agriculture students, and it became the first property of the Irish Heritage Trust. The house is gorgeous and one thing that struck me is how much of the footprint is dedicated to servants’ quarters and workspaces. Maybe even half the house?

We got an Uber back to Cobh and had a nice lunch at The Waters Edge Hotel. We missed the start of the St. Patrick’s Parade mostly because we are dumb but we did get out of the restaurant in time to see a group of kids dressed up as astronauts? And then a phalanx of Irish Dancers. Then “classic cars” (one was a 2000’s Mercedes, the same year as my car that got smashed the summer before). Next, inexplicably (for an American anyway) all the work trucks of all the businesses in the town, with horns and sirens blaring. Apparently, this is a normal small-town Irish thing. We went over to the park and the girls and I bought four pairs of earrings and then got to pick out three more pairs for free (!). So that was a lot of earrings! We then went over to St. Colman’s Cathedral by way of the “deck of cards” houses. We got our photos, all of them very nice, and then went into the Cathedral. This is a very beautiful cathedral and I definitely appreciated the modern touch of a payment terminal for donations, which I used so we could light candles. I never got any euros for this trip–two weeks with no cash at all, just ApplePay. So convenient.

The girls and I next found a pub that wasn’t too crowded for a proper pint. On the way back to our house, we got in the middle of a huge group of middle schoolers. One of the boys noticed this and shouted at all of his fellow students “hey, you idjits, get out of the way” and then apologized to us. Very charming and funny. Nice view of the town from up there. We hung out and then Charlotte made us dinner because we thought it would be too crazy to go out. Mark and I had a little after-dinner walk and we touched the Irish sea and I got photos of some of the murals around town. And then we got a nice view of the fireworks from our big front window. Nice day!

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