We spent our last morning in the south exploring Kilkenny and Carlow before dropping our friends off at Dublin airport and heading north to spend a few days with relatives in North Antrim. Kilkenny has a lot of history with a medieval mile starting at the castle. The castle dates from 1192 having been constructed on the site of an earlier wooden structure but has been remodelled several times, most recently by the Butler family.
We did not tour inside but walked around the park surrounding the castle and the garden around the Dower House.
The park was busy with the Saturday Fun Run so we walked over to the Castle Yard which hosts the Design Centre and several craft studios. One display in the Design Centre Gallery called ‘Lustre’ was of jewellery produced by students based on the Faberge egg concept. They explored this theme and produce their own works encased in the egg. I also looked at some copper plate etchings as this is something I have planned to do at some point.
We looked in at some of the studios and found some ceramics we liked. After a coffee in the restaurant upstairs it was time to leave the tourists gathering outside the castle and return to the hotel for a cocktail (non-drivers only) and to digest the Irish Times before beginning our drive northeast to Carlow.
This is another town I had visited many years ago while working but I could remember little about it. Just as we were getting out of the car I met an elderly gentleman walking up the hill who paused just to take a breath. He told me that he was 88 and knew everything that there was to know about Carlow. He was keen to tell me that the river used to be bigger and have ‘really big’ boats on it. Now rowing seems to be the main waterborne activity. We walked over to the ruined castle
and then along the river path to the Millennium Bridge. Swans and a rook were keen to befriend us in case we had any food for them.
In the park ‘Bridging’ an installation containing works by teenagers on a 14-week project exploring life as a teenager in Carlow was on display.
This is one of the panels.
Carlow does have an art institute and walking back to the car, we passed some street art entitled ‘Wall R Us: is it a wall or is it us?’.
Having dropped our friends off at the airport we continued on the motorway to the border. Just north of Dublin we noted that we had driven 700 miles on this trip so far. There were still tractors on the motorway and the six-lane road it becomes across the border. Summer seemed to be ending as we made our way to North Antrim in rain. Fortunately this did not last and the sun and blue skies returned for the remainder of our trip.
Tag: Kilkenny
Ireland: County Kerry – completing the ring
Before leaving to complete the Ring of Kerry we had another walk around Kenmare. the shortcut into town from our hotel is along a very short stretch of the Kerry Way a 200km long distance walk. Cromwell’s Bridge is a little further downstream from the current bridge over the Finnish River. Oliver Cromwell never visited the town although he gifted the whole area to the scientist Sir Thomas Petty in part payment for his mapping of Ireland. The name is thought to be a corruption of an Irish word. It was a single-arch rubble-stone stilted bridge built about 1700. The parapets were removed around 1900 and visitors are advised not to attempt to cross it as it is probably unsafe.
We purchased a couple of books in the local bookshop and after a coffee it was time to drive the last stretch of the Ring of Kerry: the portion between Kenmare and Killarney. The road first winds up to the Molls Gap, a pass named after Moll Kissane, who ran a shebeen (an unlicenced public house) in the 1820s, while the road was under construction. The summit is 262m and there are views of the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks mountains.
There is a shop here and it is a popular stop off on the route. The rocks are formed of old red sandstone. Further on, the road enters Killarney National Park and arrives at Ladies View which is said to be named after Queen Victoria’s ladies in waiting. It has views over the nearby lakes. A man was selling prints and photographs from a stall and there is also a cafe 100m further on.
The road descends into Muckross where Muckross House and estate are situated. They were given to the state in 1932 and can be visited. The National Park Visitor Centre is sited here. Available from here and other places along the road into Killarney you can have a tour on a jaunting cart which is horsedrawn. There are also trips available on the lakes and many other activities available around town. We took the road towards Mallow back in County Cork as the first stage of our journey to Kilkenny, the next destination on this trip. Like many towns in this area, Killarney has won a ‘Tidy Town’ award. Mallow is an administrative centre for the region and manufactures sugar (we did see a British Sugar tanker). It has a ruined castle which was burnt down in 1658. In the town centre, there were a number of closed shops like many towns in the UK but we had a light lunch in a cafe and continued on our journey. We reached Kilkenny around 5pm and found the hotel fairly easily. As we walked out for dinner a little later in the evening we crossed over the River Nore in the centre of the town.
On the return journey the evening lights were reflected in the water
and the castle was lit up.
