Day off

Finally had a day off in Ireland, it was almost torture to see the other watch off running around having fun. Jesse, Doug and I went to the Butter Museum in the morning; there was a video from 1995 about how the butter industry got started. Ireland has always been big on dairy products and making butter, in the ‘60’s they started to actually think about their butter and exporting it, they made the brand Kerrygold and got started from there. In the museum there were all kinds of styles of butter churn, ones you swing or spin, glass ones for the table and even one they found in a bog. Doug had a good time remembering his childhood, he grew up on a farm and they got big chunks of butter from the dairy everyday.

At noon we meet Richard, Grant, Tenley and Chris at the bus station to go to Blarney Castle. It took a long time to get to the top of the castle, it was very skinny corridors, and a tiny spiral staircase, but mostly it was crowded which I hadn’t really expected. The castle was made of stone and it used to have wood floors, but not any more, so on the ground floor you could see all the way to the top, through three rooms. Finally we got to kiss the Blarney stone, you lay on your back and stretch you neck down a hole and kiss a blue grey stone that’s in the castle’s wall.

Spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the grounds, there was a poison garden with lots of poisonous plants, hemlock, wolfs bane, rhubarb. At an area called the Rock Close there were a lot of rocks related to the Druids, it use to be their settlement, wishing steps, a rock that looked like a witch, stone circle and a fairy glade.

After dinner a bunch of us went to see more Irish folk music, this time it was really good.