Kinsale and Blarney Castle (Ireland - Day 7)

Kinsale is a interesting harbor town on the southern coast of Ireland. I think it would have been a nice place to visit if we would have been about a month later. Unfortunately, as it was, we seemed to arrive right in the middle of their rush to get the town ready for tourist season. They had miles of marked trails that ran the coast line, but large chunks of the trails were closed for repairs. Most of the town streets were under construction, and half of the shops and restaurants were closed. That being said, you can see that it is a very pretty little town:




You can also see here that they apparently celebrated St Patrick's Day in style!


There were a number of very nice, traditional pubs in town and were were lucky enough to be directed toward one that featured some really great traditional music. The guy was extremely talented and definitely lived up to our expectations for live, traditional music!

About an hour from Kinsale was Blarney Castle. It was obnoxiously full of tourists, but despite this, we were both really glad we went. The castle and grounds were beautiful:





(We were in Ireland over "Daffodil Days" - we still aren't sure what this means exactly but it was very obvious why they are held this time of year. The daffodils were blooming everywhere we went and Jason quickly got tired of me stopping to photography them ever 5 minutes!)




While we were at the castle, we also had to kiss the Blarney Stone. I'll go ahead and fess up that I had heard of the Blarney Stone and knew that everyone who visited Ireland made a stop to kiss it, but I had no idea why. I thought for sure that after a visit to the castle, I'd learn what the hype was all about, but unbelievably I left still not knowing what the point was. I now know (because I just did a google search) that kissing the stone is supposed to bestow the "gift of gab," great eloquence, or provide you with the skill of great flattery. According to Wikipedia, the word blarney has therefore come to mean clever, flattering, or coaxing talk.

Here we are, going in for the kiss (and trying not to think about all the germs that have been left behind on the stone from all of the other kisses it has received...):







Another thing that was funny about kissing the Blarney Stone is that it seems to be something that only American's associate with a visit to Ireland. I've mentioned it to quite a few Brits since we've been back and none of them ever know what I'm talking about!

The grounds surrounding Blarney Castle also had some other cheesy sites that we spent a little time exploring. These included the witch's lair:


The wishing steps (if you could walk all the way up and back down with your eyes closed while thinking of nothing but your wish, the witch of the glen would grant your wish...I don't know how I managed to do this without hurting myself, you all know I'm not the most coordinated of people!):


All in all it was a fun place to look around, but there were way too many people for us. We much preferred the Dingle Peninsula where it was just us and the sheep!