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| The story behind the stone! |
In order to kiss the stone, you had to lay down on your back,
over an opening tens of meters up and bend backwards. Part of the reason I think they push people
through is because many would likely change their mind if they had a chance to
think about what they were doing! All but Lo walked away with the gift of eloquence… she was having no part of
hanging over that hole… likely the smartest one of the group.
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| Carol was the bravest and went first... |
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| Grandpa was second but due to their efficiency I missed the actual smooch! |
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| Annelyse was next and as brave as could be! |
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| Next was Russ... |
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| Judging by that smile, the kiss was good :) |
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| Whew... we all made it through! |
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| I love this picture! Thank you fellow Blarney tourist who offered to take it! |
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| That little hole at the top was where we hung over to kiss the stone! |
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| I love this picture... if you read the sign and look at her face... it cracks me up! |
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| More crocheting in strange places... |
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| We took a walk after kissing the stone in the poisonous garden. Grandpa was arguing this one wasn't poisonous... |
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| WTH is this thing... lots of strange things in this garden. |
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| Getting ready to catch Carol if she fell :) |
After heading back from Blarney we had a nice dinner back in Cork and called
it a night.
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At dinner Carol got to indulge in her first Guinness!
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The next morning we headed out on the Cork-hopper bus with our first stop being
the lovely sea-side village of Cobh (pronounced Cove).
One highlight of the trip was a tour of the
Titanic museum. Cobh was the last place
the Titanic docked before it's infamous journey. Upon entering the
museum, we each received a ticket with the name and details of a real passenger
from the ship. At the end of the tour,
we got to find out if we were one of the lucky ones who escaped into a
lifeboat. All the girls made it
successfully, while Russ and Grandpa were lost at sea.
After the tour we headed up the street to see
the cathedral of St. Coleman and the famous Deck of Cards Houses. The "Deck of Cards" houses are a row of 23 almost identical houses built on 23 levels with each a different color on West View street in Cobh.
Killing time waiting for the tour bus!
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| Miniature version of the Titanic... the girls were thoroughly impressed with the rooms they had recreated, particularly the suites! |
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| Saved... YES!! |
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| Women and children first... |
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| No dice... sorry Daddy! |
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| St. Coleman's Cathedral. This place was a monstrosity for a fairly small town. |
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| In front of St. Coleman's Cathedral |
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| As you can imagine, it was quite a walk up the hill to get to this vantage point... Everyone was really happy for the return journey! |
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| Deck of Cards Houses |
The next stop was the Fota Wildlife Park. Fota is a 100-acre zoo-like park where some of the animals roam freely with the visitors, such as the ring-tailed lemurs and wallabies, while larger animals, including the giraffe and bison, live in paddocks with barriers that are intended to be unobtrusive for visitors, allowing animals to be viewed in a natural environment.
Some of the highlights were watching the monkey's running around flailing their arms in the air, while the low-light was watching a few leopards who appeared to be frolicking, however turned out to be chasing each other in pursuit of a dead rabbit carcass. The girls were a bit disturbed by the whole thing, so we moved on quickly while discussing the circle of life. Although, after thinking more about it, this may have only taken second place in the low-lights area to the Cork Hopper tour guide who happened to have an obsession with monkey violence. Big mistake asking him what thought about Fota.
After the park we headed back to town and had a nice dinner. The next morning we packed up and headed back to Dublin! Sunday we had after some laundry and a quick re-pack Grandpa and Carol took off for a few days in the city of love... Paris! This timing was quite perfect for a bonus set of visitors to join us... John & Colleen!
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| Here is a nice group picture at our favorite Italian restaurant, Regazzi. It was nice to have the whole gang together after Dad and Carol returned from France and before John and Colleen were off to the Wild Atlantic Way. |
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| The tough guys in front of Finnegan's. |
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| The boys got a chance to go out alone... Looks like they had fun :) |
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| I suck as selfies... but at least we have the memory! Another lovely dinner at our other local favorite, the Magpie Inn! |
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| U.N.C.L.E J.O.H.N!!! |
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| Welcome to Belfast! |
After arriving back from Paris, Grandpa and Carol only had one day before we headed out on the next adventure. Thursday we headed on the train to Northern Ireland, which is actually part of the United Kingdom. In fact, it's the largest "piece" of the UK residing outside the island of Great Britain.
Northern Ireland was created in 1921, when Ireland was partitioned by an act of the British parliament. Unlike Southern Ireland, which would become the Irish Free State in 1922, the majority of Northern Ireland's population were unionists, who wanted to remain within the United Kingdom. The majority were Protestant descendants of colonists from Great Britain; however, a significant minority, mostly Catholics, were nationalists who wanted a united Ireland independent of British rule. Today, the former generally see themselves as British and the latter generally see themselves as Irish, while a distinct Northern Irish identity is claimed both by a large minority of Catholics and Protestant.
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| A mural in Belfast depicting William III of England. |
With the tension between these two groups still palpable and their history not so distant, we wanted to learn more. We found Paddy Campbell's Black Taxi tour which gave us a great overview of the troubled history between the Catholics and Protestants (Note: the girls wore headphones and played on their iPads for the majority of the tour, so no scarred souls for now). One of the highlights of the tour was seeing many of the political murals depicting the region's past and present political and religious divisions. Belfast is believed to house the most famous political
murals
in
Europe. It is believed that almost 2,000 murals have been documented since the 1970s. Murals commemorate, communicate and display aspects of culture and history. The themes of murals often reflect what is important to a particular community. A mural therefore exists to express an idea or message and could generally be seen as reflecting values held dear to that community.
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| Controversial figure, very different perspectives depending on who you ask. He is regarded as a hero in the Protestant community and a murderer in the Catholic community. |
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| A mural dedicated to republican hunger striker Bobby Sands. |
After the tour of the murals, we headed over the peace walls. Which by name, sound lovely, but in actually, serve a troubling purpose in 2016. The peace lines or peace walls are a series of border barriers in Northern Ireland that separate Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. The stated purpose of the peace lines is to minimize inter-communal violence between Catholics (most of whom are nationalists who self-identify as Irish) and Protestants (most of whom are unionists who self-identify as British). The peace lines range in length from a few hundred yards to over three miles (5 km). They may be made of iron, brick, and/or steel and are up to 25 feet (7.6 m) high. Some have gates in them (sometimes staffed by police) that allow passage during daylight but are closed at night. Several famous people have left a message on the peace wall. We too were able to partake in leaving a message to inspire peace and tolerance.
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| The concept/purpose of this wall was an interesting one to talk about with Annelyse... especially because Russ was I were raised Protestant and Catholic, respectively. The thought of these people at war, not to mention, the fact that she didn't see any visible signs of war, was complicated to say the least. While collectively we agreed it was difficult to understand, we also agreed the positive, love-filled messages written up and down the barrier built between two groups left a sense of hope. |
The next day, we set out for our full day tour, with a bag full of snacks, puke sacs and iPads... just in case. The first stop was the Bushmill's Distillery where we had a very small sample of whisky. Just what we needed at 10 a.m. in the morning with a full day of touring on a bus!
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| Dunluce Castle in the background... |
After the brief stop we drove past the Dunluce Castle which also, was a stop lasting roughly 7 minutes. No one seemed too bothered by this fact, given the sky was starting to turn grey and the highlight of the tour was next up on the list!
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| Dunluce Castle |
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| Lots of Whisky... she has no idea what she is standing by... |
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| Bushmills Distillery |
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| There were several benches along the way which told the story. |
Finally, we arrived at Giant's Causeway!!! The Giant's Causeway is made up of approximately 40,000 interlocking basalt columns; the result of an ancient volcanic eruption and subsequent cooling of the lava. According to legend, the columns are the remains of a causeway built by a giant.
The story goes the Irish giant, Fionn Mac Cumhaill (Finn MacCool) was challenged to a fight by the Scottish giant Benandonner. Fionn accepted the challenge and built the causeway across the North Channel so the two giants could meet. The story goes, Fionn hides from Benandonner when he realizes his foe is much bigger than he. Fionn's wife, Oonagh, disguises Fionn as a baby and tucks him in a cradle. When Benandonner sees the size of the 'baby' he reckons his father Fionn, must be a giant among giants.
Benandonner flees back to Scotland in fright, destroying the causeway behind him so that Fionn could not follow. Across the sea, there are identical basalt columns (from the same ancient lava flow) at Fingal's Cave on the Scottish isle of Staffa, likely more support for the legend!
The girls got a huge kick out of this story, particularly the idea of a GIANT BABY or baby giant... lots of discussion as to what we should call it.
One a different note... Annelyse has been asking to get her ears pieced since May when I told her we could consider doing it for her half-birthday. She has brought it up several times, but in actuality, I didn't think she would go through with it so never put any sense of urgency on it. While putzing around the city, we came across a good ol' mall and were prepared to walk promptly past it never giving it another thought... I don't know what triggered it, but Annelyse started asking about getting her ears pierced... over and over and over... After finally giving in to the pleads...
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| So once we finally gave in, we ventured into the mall and she was geeked! Claire's was literally, the second store we came across. When she saw the store, she said... "Oh, I thought it was going to be on like the 3rd floor or something... it looks kinda busy, maybe we can go upstairs, walk around a bit and then come back..." I couldn't help but laugh and told her we weren't going to spend the day in Belfast walking around the mall while she deliberated getting her ears pierced. I give the girl a ton of credit because she said, "Alright, let's to see what we need to do"... Atta girl, go get what you want! |
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| They gave her a teddy-bear to squeeze... she loved this idea! |
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| Oh boy...I hope she is ready!!! |
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| 1, 2, ... oh Lord... don't count, just do it... |
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| It only hurt a wee bit to get her wee earrings put in her wee ears. We even got a wee bag with some wee solution to keep them a wee bit clean and help them heal up a wee bit. |
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| "I did it!!!" She was so proud of herself... No tears, just a slight whimper and then asked... "Did they use a stapler to put them in?" Ugh... not a nice thought to have afterward. |
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| But oh-so worth it! S-T-U-N-N-I-N-G... but long before the earrings. |
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| Our happy wee one. |
See ya next time Belfast! Thanks for more wonderful memories!
After the tour of the murals, we headed over the peace walls. Which by name, sound lovely, but in actually, serve a troubling purpose in 2016. The peace lines or peace walls are a series of border barriers in Northern Ireland that separate Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. The stated purpose of the peace lines is to minimize inter-communal violence between Catholics (most of whom are nationalists who self-identify as Irish) and Protestants (most of whom are unionists who self-identify as British). The peace lines range in length from a few hundred yards to over three miles (5 km). They may be made of iron, brick, and/or steel and are up to 25 feet (7.6 m) high. Some have gates in them (sometimes staffed by police) that allow passage during daylight but are closed at night. Several famous people have left a message on the peace wall. We too were able to partake in leaving a message to inspire peace and tolerance.
After a lovely ride along Antrim Coast Road we took a short break in the quaint, picturesque town of Carnlough. We were happy to stretch legs, use toilets and get a few snacks before arriving back in Belfast. Our last day we spent poking around the city, St. Georges Market. St George’s Market is one of Belfast’s oldest attractions. It was built between 1890 and 1896 it is the last surviving open-air Victorian market in Belfast. It has been selected for numerous local and national titles and awards for its fresh, local produce and great atmosphere. There were all kinds of vendors with interesting, unique crafts and some amazing looking food. We could ate for days in this place. 
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