Ireland, part 3

Thursday, Sept. 25th. Our first big sight-seeing day. We went to the Rock of Cashel (a big castle ruin on a hill), a nearby abbey that was also in ruins, and Cahir (pronounced care), another town with a castle ruin. I think this was probably my favorite day. I love the ruins, so much better than the restored castles with the furniture and everything. It became something of a running joke during the trip – “Oh, this place has furniture. Sorry, Laura.” I just love running around on the parapets and climbing the towers and stuff. Way more fun than touring a stuffy mansion where you can’t touch anything because it’s way old.

Friday, Sept. 26th. Today we went to Kinsale, which is a pretty ritzy town, at least compared to all the other places we visited. It’s a town almost entirely of B&Bs, so our hopes of shopping were somewhat dampened. But they also have a lot of restaurants (and it’s known as the gourmet capital of Ireland or something), so we did have an excellent lunch at a place called Fishy Fishy. To get to and from Kinsale, we had to take a ferry from the town of Cobh (pronounced cove), which was an adventure in and of itself. We’d taken a ferry to get to Dingle, too, and it’s kinda fun. They’re the kind where you just drive your car on, and it’s like a floating parking lot, not fancy at all. The operator guy comes around to collect the fare, which was hilarious, because Aunt Lynne still didn’t know what all the buttons did in the car and she put the window up in the guy’s face. Then he joked about us not wanting to pay him.

Friday night was our first adventure at the Marine Bar, one of the two pubs recommended to us by Mary (the other is Mooney’s, which we never made it to). We called to make sure they were having music, and they told us yes, at 9:30. My mom, Meghan, and I show up a little before then (Aunt Lynne stayed home), and the place looks mostly empty, except for a few old guys at the bar. So we’re thinking, uh-oh, this is gonna be just like Dingle, but then we go further in and see that there’s a whole back room, and it’s full of teenage boys (the drinking age there is 18, and I’m sure some of those guys were juuuust making it). We take seats near where the sound equipment is set up, figuring we’ll have good seats for the music, and as the night goes on, more and more young guys show up. By the time the music started (at about 10:30, remember what I said about punctuality?), the place was packed. And it turns out it’s Shane’s 21st birthday party, and every single person in the bar knows everyone else but us (even the old guys! There were a few other older people, who we think were Shane’s family).

So, we’re listening to the music (which was excellent, but mostly not traditional songs) and giggling at the drunken boys (and Meghan and I were picking out the cute ones we liked), and then the musicians announce they’re taking a break. We’re all set to leave, but then these three girls (who we later found out worked at the bar) start passing around platters of tea sandwiches and baskets of chicken fingers and sausages. We’re all like, “Free food? Do they do this every Friday night in Ireland?” but it was for Shane’s birthday, of course, and even though nobody knew who we were, they offered us food, so of course we stayed. We listened to more music, and then when we finally got up to go, my mother went up to an older man, who we think was a relative of Shane’s. She wanted to say thank you for the free food, but she wasn’t sure who to talk to, and as she’s talking to this guy, he stops and says, “You’re American! I knew there was something wrong there!” I don’t think he understood what we were saying (he had hearing aids in both ears) but he told us we should’ve joined in and talked to people, instead of sitting by ourselves, and then gave us hugs when we left.