April 17- Kennedy Homestead and the drive to Waterford

We caught a taxi to the airport car rental place to pick up our car.  From here on we will be driving most of the trip.  The weather is doing a bit better today so we are hoping for better pictures and better sightseeing.

We made it around the city and over for a drive along the coast before heading inland on the more major routes. 

We eventually left the major routes and headed out south of New Ross to find the homestead of John F. Kennedy’s ancestors.  The road was a typical one lane road with two way traffic.  I think we came in the back way.

The place is still owned by JFK’s distant cousins.  They have a nice display there with good family trees, information about JFK and his siblings, and other artifacts.  The lady there gave us a very nice presentation.

Then we headed farther south to Hook Head to see the lighthouse there that was built during the Middle Ages.  The rock walls had been plastered over and the entire structure painted in black and white stripes so it looked pretty modern.  It is still in use.           

Then it was on to Waterford for our first night on the road.  We decided to eat at the bar in the hotel.  We had a great table overlooking the river.

April 18 – Waterford and Driving the Copper Coast

We finally got sun today…real sun.  It is still a bit cool but much better than it has been elsewhere.

After breakfast we checked out of the room, stored our luggage with the front desk and headed out to find some sights to see.  The area directly across from the Hotel is the Viking Triangle. There was some church ruins...

and the world's longest wooden sword at 20 meters long (65 feet).  Carved out of a Douglas Fir trunk, it was inspired by a Viking Sword dating to about 850 AD.

There is a Viking Museum that we couldn’t find so we headed to the Waterford Crystal Showroom and Factory where we took a 50 minute tour of the manufacturing operation.  The guide first showed us some of the wooden molds used to help in the creation of specialty pieces.  They don't last very long as the heat of the molten glass pretty much chars the wood.  The production molds are of iron and last much longer.  This wooden mold was used in the creation of a trophy for the Irish Open.

We saw glass (crystal) blowing (all by hand and mouth),

marking the pieces so that the cutters will know where to cut,

and cutting (they have only one woman master cutter).

They had a display of bowls in the various phases of production.  There was the blown bowl,  the same bowl with cuts and the final polished bowl.  We were allowed to pick them up to see the difference in weight.  The original bowl was extremely heavy.  They obviously have to cut a lot out of the bowls to make the final pieces.  The final piece was much lighter.

All of the major production is conducted at this plant although they have a plant in Eastern Europe where the colored glass is manufactured.  We also visited the room where custom pieces are handmade.

And of course the tour ended in the showroom.  It was all very tempting but eventually we got out of there without buying anything.

We stopped by Christ Church Cathedral on our way back.

Then we headed back through the Viking Triangle (the area where the Vikings used to have an enclosed fort in the 900’s).  We found the replica of a Viking boat...

and the entrance to the Viking museum in the Reginald Tower that is right across the street from our hotel.  They had many interesting artifacts and a lot of information about the development of the area from the time of the Vikings to present day.

We then picked up our luggage and headed out to drive along the south eastern coast, much of it called the Copper Coast.  This is an area where copper was mined centuries ago.  We found some remains of some copper operations.

There weren’t a lot of towns along the way and it took us a while to find a lunch stop.  This one was one of our more unusual eateries.  The place, called the Copper Kitchen, is obviously geared to munchkins as the entire back was a petting zoo, children’s museum and very large paved area for riding the large number of kiddy rides…cars, trucks, tricycles, etc.  Food was pretty good, we both had soup and some very good Irish Brown Bread.  

We had some very good views of the coastline as we drove along.  

One stop was the beach outside of a little town called Annestown.

And we also stopped at Kilmurrin Cove.

We ended our day’s drive in the town of Kinsale, south of Cork and on the coast.  It is a pretty little place that will require a good bit of exploring.

When we arrive in our room we were greeted with towel swans, heart shaped chocolates and a note from the staff wishing us a happy honeymoon.  

We have been married for almost 46 years and it isn’t even our anniversary.  We thought it might be Tara's (our travel agent) doing, as she is always reminding the hotels of our birthdays,and such.  But we later asked her about it and she said it was not her...the local travel company must have made a mistake.  

We thought about telling the local travel company, but decided that the most likely outcome of that would be that the hotels would cancel our reservations instead of just cancelling the honeymoon greetings..

April 19 – Wild Atlantic Way and the Ring of Beara

The weather is much better today but everything is pretty hazy.  However, there is much to see so we are off after breakfast to drive a small part of the 1500 miles of the Wild Atlantic Way, including the Ring of Beara.

Our first stop was Timoleague...

to visit the Timoleague Friary.  Founded in 1300 it was used well until the early 1600’s when Queen Elizabeth I decided to minimize the Catholic presence in Ireland.  It is mostly ruins now…

and has been used until recently as a cemetery.

They even had a sign posted warning against grave robbers.

We also stopped at the small Church of Ireland nearby.  

This church is well known for its mosaics that cover almost all of the interior walls.  We haven't seen many mosaic walls in churches.

And there was a verrrrrryy steep ladder that is used to go up into the belfry.

When we arrive the ladies of the church were just bringing in flowers to decorate the church for upcoming Easter services. 

The Wild Atlantic Way follows the coast line from Kinsale in the South to the Inishowen Peninsula in Ulster on the north coast.  We will travel it as much as possible but will likely not be able to see nearly all of it.  Today we saw cliffs and beaches and beautiful coastline and more interesting villages.

We also stopped at the Drombeg Stone Circle, an Iron Age stone circle on a beautiful hillside overlooking the hills and coastline.  The circle was in good condition and not that big.  The best part was the gorgeous location.

There were a lot of stone "fences" between the fields in the area.

From there we headed on to Bantry where we had lunch.  There was a local flea market going on so parking was pretty limited.

We eventually hit the Ring of Beara. Beara is one of several peninsulas on the west coast, another of which is Kerry…the Ring of Kerry is one of the major tourist drives in Ireland…we will be doing that later.

Stops on the Ring of Beara included Castletownbere…

If you are driving, do you think you could find which direction to go?

and at the very tip of the peninsula we had views of Drusey Island.  There is a cable car that one can take to the island.  There are a few farms on the island and only a few semi-permanent residents.  The island is known for its hiking trails and bird watching.  The channel between the mainland and the island looked to have pretty treacherous currents.

From there we headed back going along the northern coast of the peninsula.  We stopped to take a few pictures of some rainbow sheep…they all seem to have been spray painted, probably for identification purposes.

We hit a bit of “traffic” when we came across some farmers moving a small herd of cattle down the road.  Too fun!

Parts of this area look very different from the green fields we have seen elsewhere.  Some of the mountains in the area lack much in the way of vegetation.  At one time copper was discovered and mined in this area.