Cahir Castle and the Rock of Cashel (Day 7)

On our last full day, we went to see Cahir Castle and the Rock of Castle and then we went to our hotel in Dublin.   Our first full day, we spent flying down.  Our last day we spent flying back.  So we had 7 days of touring around on a 9 day trip.  I wish they could just transport us there and back so we could have had 2 more days.  Haha.  

We liked Cahir castle a lot.  It was a self guided tour, but it was a really neat castle.  The guys almost didn't make it in through the portcullis.   

It was raining so I had my hood up a lot, which the guys thought was funny.  Whatever.  Try having my curly mess of hair and tell me if you'd use your hood.  

This castle had a real moat!  Kinda neat.  

Ducks in the moat.  Must not me many alligators.  Or pirahnas.  Bummer.  Haha.

On the castle wall.

The inside was restored really neat with beams, white washing and neat old old  furniture on display.  A family had lived in it for years and years and it's only recently become open to the public.  This was a banquet hall.

Here you can see some of the plumbing they worked into the castle.  The pour spout from the top.

Then the splash pad at the bottom.  Haha.

Another restored room.  Neat to see how things look with the floors and ceilings in place.

Cool furniture too.  Each piece had a plaque saying when and where it came from.

Pretty impressive walls.

Another view of the moat.

I just thought this shot of the town was cool.  I think this is in between Cahil Castle and the Rock of Cashel but I'm not sure where.  We stopped for scones and I snapped this. 

Here's the Rock of Cashel.  I was expecting a castle like the others.  It was actually a church.  It was a castle or stronghold intermittently but never owned by a single family or royalty.  It had absolutely beautiful views and you can see it from miles around.

The cathedral part was really gorgeous.

There were some really really old tombs outside and, surprisingly, some really new ones.

I found scads of Bridgets over there.  Kinda neat, kinda depressing!  Haha.

They also discovered some really amazing bright artwork that the church had deemed inappropriate at some point and tried to paint over (and then plastered over).  They are in the process of restoring it, but it's more than a 1000 years old.  Slow work.  Most may never be recovered.

This was the cross from the top of the cathedral that was supposed to have some mystical powers.

It's being restored in many places.  Here's a shot from further away.

They had some cool displays of what life was like in the 1500s.  Check out the doorway behind Whit.  People must have been really short then...

Here's a popcorn popper!! (Haha, kidding.  I have no idea what it was.)

This is all being restored, but it looks awesome.

The chapel area.

A tomb.  They were pretty intricately carved at some point.  I think these people stopped paying their dues though because these areas are pretty unkempt.  ;)

Gorgeous views from the cemetery.  I think I want to be buried here.  LOL.

All in all, it was a good way to end the day.  We then went to the Castle Hotel in Dublin.  Also kind of hard to find, but it was an interesting last hotel.  Here are the guys in the reception area.

We also saw this hotel--called Cassidy's hotel.  Since Whit's sister is named Cassidy, we thought it was worthy of note.  I had no idea she owned a hotel in Dublin!  I would have stayed there instead! 

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Here we are at the airport the next morning.  It was so sad to go home, but I really really missed the kids.  Really missed them.  Sorry I needed one more really!  What a fun trip!! 

Waterford

I loved Waterford.  It's a town, but you can also go take a factory tour.  It was pretty impressive.  I'm not really a big fan of crystal, but now I think if it's not waterford, it's crap.  ;)  Seriously though, what makes crystal is the lead content in what would otherwise be glass.  Most crystal is around 23-25%.  Theirs is 33%, which is why it costs more but also looks better.  :-) 

There's a fancy showroom where I was almost tempted to buy some super overpriced stuff (haha.)  

Here I am examining a glass they planned to melt down.  They waste nothing--everything that's "imperfect" (this had a tiny glass bubble in the base) is melted down and reused.

I thought that it was interesting how hard it is to become a master.  5 years basic apprenticeship and then 3 more years to Master.  In the old days, they had 3 chances after completing the 5 years to make a perfect apprentice bowl.  If they couldn't do it, they had 2 choices.  Start over and redo the 5 years completely, or leave.  Wow!  

Here's the apprentice bowl.  If I bought anything it would have been that, but it was like $500!!  Oh well.

 Waterford Clock.  COOL!!

They make all the custom orders here in Waterford.  So their mold maker does all the wooden molds.  I think you can use a wooden mold like 4 times before it burns out.  Literally.  At that point you have to make another one.  So for all their non custom order work, they use cast iron.  Neat.  

They had a lot of really cool molds.  

 This looks like a horse kind of to me, but it's a bear apparently.

 Justin Timberlake award mold!  haha.

 sports trophy--they do a lot of these.

 They burn this furnace non-stop.  If they turn it off, it takes like 3 weeks to get back up to the right heat.

 Then they fire it and blow and pre shape it.  It was REALLY cool to watch.

 See?  He's blowing it here.

 Then it goes into the cast iron mold and gets spun and blown a little more.

 I think you can see it at the end of his stick.

 Here it is, out of the mold (cooled by spraying water.)  Then they detatch it with more cold water.

 It's yellow up there in the photo above because it's not cool yet.  It cools to clear white.  Then they are in here--to be shaped.

 Then they draw lines on them and do all the cuts and then later acid polishing.  If it needs it (design dependent) it can get etched, too.

 Here's Whit.  He and I both got to smash an imperfect glass.

 That's Whit's hand smashing it.

 A master cutter doing his work.

 I talked to this guy for a long time.  He's really cool.  First they do a rough cut.  Then they go over the same rough cuts with another blade that's smoother and the cut is smoothed out.  Kinda neat.  It's so precise, the work they do.

 This was the custom area where they etchers work.  They also piece things together for like the football, the carriages, etc.

 This was a September 11 memorial they sent to NYC and they always keep a duplicate for themselves in case it gets messed up.  Then they have another to send out right away.  Kind of neat.