The breakfasts at Anam Cara B&B were spectacular! We split a full Irish breakfast and it was still more than plenty to start our day.
Just as cats seem to be drawn to Coco, so are dogs to Brian. :-) Here’s Elliott asking for a scrap of food without success.
Today’s excursion will take about two hours each way and fortunately, Kilkenny is a mid-point to Rock of Cashel. It was a wet and rainy morning, and driving was more challenging on narrow, winding, and sometimes soggy country roads.
On our drive to see the extraordinary ruins at the Rock of Cashel, we’d see other ruins on the roadside. What an amazing country!
Coco in front of Brewery Corner 29 in Kilkenny, where we enjoyed a craft beer later in the day.
The scale of Kilkenny made it easy to walk from one side to another, and at the far end, we decided to go into St. Canice’s Cathedral. It was a nice respite from the rain, but we discovered it has many treasures that stand out. It’s home to some of the finest medieval effigy tombs in Europe; St. Kieran’s Chair which has been in continuous use for 1,500 years in the inauguration of Bishops; and a round tower that is one of only two in Ireland that can still be climbed by the public (we skipped the climb, as the rain and wind that day kept it closed). The tower is 100 feet tall and leans about 2 feet to one side; the foundation is only 18 inches deep.
The cathedral features a scale model of itself inside, as is apparently the custom in Ireland. (This is probably not true. Still, 100% of the cathedrals we visited had models of themselves inside, so what would you have us make of this?). The model gives a good sense of how the headstones completely cover the grounds of the church, which is in fascinating contrast to most of the U.S. The most recent date we found was from the 2000s, albeit this was one line on a family plot marker. The actual graves were much more interesting than the model, but we didn't get any photos of them, so you're have to take our word against this model builder's.
But wait, there’s more! St. Canice’s Cathedral also houses a model of Kilkenny from 1642 (during the English Civil War), when it was a walled city. Again, St. Canice’s is featured here to scale, at the upper right. This model is about 1/8 the scale of the first one, leaving it too small to include all of the headstones.
The model is really pretty well done, making Brian wonder who in the clergy was a miniature war-gamer / model railroader. St. Canice’s is in the right foreground here, with its round tower, and Kilkenny Castle is in the distant center of the photo.
The gorgeous 1,430-pipe organ, installed as newfangled technology in 1853 for just £600 by a bunch of troublemakers who wanted to crank up the music from German punks like Brahms and Liszt, had just been restored in 2009 for €650,000. Seems fair that if you spend 1000x the purchase price on maintenance you should probably get an upgrade. (Somehow they doubled the number of pipes to 3,000 when they restored it, which sounds like some of Brian’s projects where he takes something apart and ends up with extra pieces when it’s put back together.)
Brian wanted to point out that the clergy are awesome, and they would like everyone to consider becoming... an organ donor! Wakka wakka! He's here all night, kids.
Even with the clouds and rain, the stained glass was breathtaking.
Taking leave of St Canice's Cathedral (Church of Ireland) at one end of Kilkenny, we immediately walked past St Canice's Parish (Roman Catholic), built from 1824-1839. This was not the same building as the one we just visited, but you could probably throw a bouquet from one of them and hit the other. The wind was not making an April wedding look like a fun time.
A few blocks later we passed a wedding in-progress at St. Mary's Cathedral (Roman Catholic), built in 1857. Did we mention that we heard on the tour yesterday morning that 90% of Ireland's residents identify as Catholic?
Having temporarily run completely out of churches for a few blocks, we popped into to a grocery store downtown, where we noticed that some of the staples in Ireland are a little different than in Iowa...
Surprisingly, this was the first "American-style" restaurant we saw on our adventures! We'd been expecting to find something worse - this actually looks a lot better than Little Caesar's.
After grabbing a few pints at a Kilkenny pub - and again being reminded that we were happy to not be on a bus, as a tour group rushed in, ordered drinks, and left their last-to-be-served friend behind trying to slam a cabernet or get left behind ("no, ya can't take your glass outside with you love, you're just gon have ta neck it, dear"), we headed out to the Rock of Cashel!
Like all proper castles in Ireland, St Patrick's Rock of Cashel contains a scale model of itself inside.
It's true, that last photo was not a scale model, it was just a floor plan. Since the Rock of Cashel hasn't had a roof since 1749 thanks to Arthur Price, an early foe of historic preservation, they can't leave the scale model out in the rain, so instead it's found over in the 'new' restored 15th century Hall of the Vicars Choral. There appears to be an allowance in this custom for leaving new additions out of the scale model.
Remember the excavation in Christchurch Cathedral in Waterford that we saw yesterday, showing the columns between windows of the previous church built in the 1200s? Were you wondering, "how did they figure out when that was built?" Well, here's the same detail, from the part of the Rock built in the 13th century! Conveniently it's easier to see here, without another church built on top of it.
The scale of Rock of Cashel was very impressive and we tried to capture this with these two photos. Coco had been to Tintern Abbey near Chepstow, Wales, during graduate school back in 2002. This was Brian’s first visit to monastic ruins.
The Celtic crosses that Ireland is known for...and a symbol that you might recognize as the Command key on a Mac keyboard.
The ever present daffodils we saw on our trip...and will look forward to blooming in central Iowa.
The town names in Ireland were making us laugh during our driving - Brian kept yelling “THURTLES!” (like turtles) because he couldn't read whilst driving.
We made some excellent pour decisions at Brewery Corner 29 and stopped for a pint before heading to Kyteler’s Inn, which has been in operation since the 1324. At St. Canice’s Cathedral we learned about Dame Alice Kyteler, a weathly, well-educated woman who outlived all four of her husbands. She was accused of witchcraft but fled to England and escaped the punishment of torture and being burned at the stake. While we read about Dame Alice on the walls of the restaurant, we listed to traditional Irish music and dined on beef stew.
On the way home, we stopped to pick up the gold at the end of this rainbow near a roundabout, Brian’s favorite part of driving in UK and Ireland.
