When we left Dublin we headed to Cork. I was not particularly excited to visit Cork. When I visited years ago we stopped in the city for a few hours and I felt like that was enough for me. Clay convinced me to visit again and stay for a few days. I’m so glad he insisted on spending time there because I completely changed my view of the city. Just another reason that life is better with someone by your side. During our time in Cork, we visited a jail/radio museum, ran into a ghost hunter, visited a castle only to find out it was a children’s science museum, visited an actual castle and most importantly we listened to our fill of Trad (traditional) music.
During our first full day in the city we made our way to the Cork City Gaol. I think this was our only prison/jail tour of the whole trip ((I’ll get my fact checkers to verify)(Fact Checker: You also visited a dungeon in Meknes, Morroco.)) The prison was open for nearly a hundred years. It housed men then women then men again. Later it became a radio station. The museum highlighted particular inmates and their stories. As you can imagine not all the criminals were that menacing. The museum does an excellent jobs with their tours and displays in the cells. They did such an excellent job that one “ghosthunter” was prowling about and was convinced that he found a ghost. He told every employee that would listen that he was going to come back with his more advanced tools.
The employees mention to us that this sometimes happen but it just a trick of the eye from some of the glass they have in place to block other, dilapidated hallways.
To escape the creeps (both people and eerie feelings) we headed to the city center. In the city is the English Market. I remember waltzing through the market during my first visit to Cork. Clay had other plans. After doing some research he decided that he wanted to eat at the restaurant on the upper level. Another good choice from my partner in life. Lunch was a delicious corned beef and hash. Just look at it:
After lunch we caught a city bus to the Cork Castle. After making our way out there, taking pictures in front of it and talking to the ticket office, we realized that is in no longer very castley on the inside and instead is a children’s science museum. Great for kids, not so great for travelers like ourselves. We decided to head back to the main part of the city and call it a night with a little Chinese for dinner.
Our second day in Cork wasn’t spent in Cork. I had been looking forward to the this day for a while. The Blarney Castle was one of my favorite spots from my trip years ago. I knew we could spend the whole day there so we packed a picnic for lunch and caught a bus to Blarney. One of the reasons I was excited to go to Blarney Castle was to go to the Blarney house. Blarney Castle (famous for the Blarney stone that bestows the gift of gab to anyone who kisses it) is actually private property. The family who owns/inherited the castle and grounds live in a beautiful house on the property. The house is only open a few months out of the year when the family goes on vacation. We happened to be there when the house was opened so we got to take a tour of the house.
Although the house is beautiful and somewhat dated (one of the burdens of living on historical property) it was a lot a fun to see. The house had some modern touches – current family photos, a tv hidden by a screen, modern books lying about – but it also had older pieces – original desk that had a slit for people to deposit money into, double doors, bathrooms with carpet.
Once we had visited the house we set out to examine the rest of the grounds, the castle itself, the fern forest, poison garden, fairy garden… We saw it all. We decided to have our picnic in the fern forest. It was a little Jurassic Park like with large ferns and a flowing waterfall.
It would have been the perfect spot for a picnic if it didn’t include a couple of loud Americans and their four children trampling and yelling all through the forest (this family was also yelling at their kids of varying ages to stop touching the plants in the poison garden). We Americans are really the most obnoxious travelers. I apologize to everyone for being so loud. I will make it my mission in life to correct this in the future.
After our picnic, it was time for Clay to kiss that rock. We traversed the thin stone stairwells to the top of the castle, ducking into rooms as they appeared, and queued up to smooch the stone. Clay wasn’t really enthused to bend over backwards from the top of a castle to kiss a stone with fictitious powers, but when you love someone these are the sacrifices you make.
He kissed the stone and hasn’t quit talking since…
After we explored every area of the Blarney Castle we caught the bus back to Cork.
Clay finished off each night in Cork with traditional music. I only joined in a couple of the nights. On our last night in Cork we stopped in again to Sin é to listen to the music. We stood in awe as the band grew and shrank, a flute added, a guitar player left for refreshment, a man playing spoons added, another guitar player showing up and jumping in. The music and the band were fluid and ever changing. If you ever visit Ireland, be sure to experience the Trad music.
cornetravel 
You 2 have no idea how excited I was to see another blog post!! So happy Clay kissed the Blarney Stone to help with his gift of gab😊
LikeLike