June 1 - Blarney, Waterford and Kilkenny

Today we left Killarney and headed to Kilkenny with several stops along the way.  This was the day we had the worst weather of the entire trip.  It didn't rain heavily but it never stopped raining until we got to Kilkenny late in the afternoon.

Our first stop was Blarney Castle.in the town of Blarney the home of the famous Stone of Eloquence better known as the Blarney Stone.  A wooden fort was first built on this site in the 12th century. This was replaced by a stone fort in 1210. It in turn was destroyed in 1446 but was rebuilt by Cormac Laidir MacCarrthy, Lord of Muscry.  It remained in the MacCarthy clan until the Williamite War of 1690 when it was confiscated by the Protestants.  Here we are walking up the path to the castle.

Here we are at the base of the castle.  As you can see in the photo, it's built on bedrock.

Here is Pat reading about the castle with her hood up as it's raining.  Her raincoat earned its keep today.  The opening just behind Pat is a sentry post and the smaller opening was to a kennel for guard dogs.

What you are supposed to do when you visit Blarney Castle is climb to the top of the battlements and then bend over backwards so you can kiss the Blarney Stone.  Legend has it that if you kiss this stone you will be blessed with the gift of eloquence.  Seeing as it was a long way up and the steps were wet an slippery we decided to skip this.

What the castle did have was a pretty garden with azaleas and rhododendrons in bloom as you can see in the next photos.

This is a pretty shot with the gardens in the foreground and the castle in the back.

Our next stop was the city of Waterford and the Waterford Glass factory.  People who work in this factory have to go thru a long apprenticeship program.  They select the specialty they want to follow, glass blower, glass cutter, mold maker,etc. complete their apprenticeship and then spend the rest of their career in that specialty.  Here is an example of a piece that a glass cutter has to complete to finish his apprenticeship.

Here are examples of the types of pieces they make.

Our first stop was the mold shop.  They have two classes of molds that are used.  If the piece being made is only one of or very limited quantities, then the molds are made out of oak.  As tthe molten glass chars the wood only a limited number of pieces can be made before the mold has to be discarded.  For pieces in permanent production, the molds are made out of cast iron.  This photo shows three examples of wooden molds and you can see the charring from use.

This mold is part of a three piece set for making a glass teddy bear.  This mold is just for the head.

This mold is for making the trophy for the Honda Classic Golf Tournament.

Here is a wood turning lathe in the mold shop.  You can see a sizable chunk of oak sitting just to the right.

Here we are entering the glass blowing area.  You can see the glow of the kilns that are used for melting the glass.

Here is a video of one of the glass blowers at work.

Here is another glassblower making the same piece but he is further along and you can see him using a cast iron mold as this is a regular production piece.

This is showing what they were making from the beginning stages to the final finished piece.

Prior to cutting the decorations in the glass, the piece is marked with lines to guide the glass cutters.

Here is a glass cutter at work.

And a finished football.  This is made from two pieces which are then glued together.

And a grand piano made from a number of separate pieces glued together.

Our next stop was a small pub in the town of Stoneyford just outside of Kilkenny for a lesson on thte Irish sport of hurling and another chance to listen to Irish music.  This is O'Grady which has been run by the family for five generations and over 200 years.

Here is the pub owner talking to us about hurling.  Hurling is big in Kilkenny.  It is considered to be the fastest field sport in the world.  He is holding a hurley which is used to either hit or carry a small ball called a sliotar.  Hurling is an ancient gaelic sport dating back over 3,000 years.  The Scots play a similar sport called shinty.  The ball is very similar to a baseball except that the seams are raised.  You can either hit or kick the ball.  You can only carry the ball in your hand for three steps but you can carry it on the end of the stick for as long as you want.  Goal posts look like American goal posts and you get one point if the ball goes between the uprights n over the bar and three point if it goes under the bar.  There are 15 players on a team and one of them plays goalkeeper in front of the goal posts.

Here we went outside for a brief demo, it was still raining.  I even tried it.  The ball is easy to hit as the end of the hurley is pretty wide and I grew up on stick ball.

We then went back into the pub to listen to music.  The gentleman singing is the father of the current pub owner.

After this we headed into Kilkenny.  Tomorrow we tour Kilkenny and then back to Dublin and the end of our tour.