Maggie's Malarkey: South Trip

April 8 - 10, 2011

This weekend, the entire group went on a trip to Southern Ireland. We left Friday at 7am and took the bus for 5 hours until we arrived at the Rock of Cashel. The Rock of Cahsel used to be the seat for the kings of Munster, but then was given to the church. It now lies in ruins but was still very cool to see. There are many different elements to the Rock of Cashel, the most interesting being the frescos that they have been able to uncover in two different places. After the Rock of Cashel, we took the bus to Cahir Castle where we had a guided tour and time to walk around the castle grounds. We went up into the tower where they kept prisoners and also into the rooms where people would have lived. Cahir Castle is also where the filmed most of the movie Excalibur. We had a lot of fun walking around the castle walls, so much fun that I ended up having a fake sword fight on the castle walls with one of the girls in my cottage. After Cahir Castle, we walked along the grounds to the Swiss Cottage. The Swiss Cottage was built in 1810 and was a place where the owners of the estate would host parties.

Saturday we woke up and after breakfast loaded the bus and then went on a tour of the Dingle peninsula. We stopped periodically to get out of the bus and look at the amazing coast line. One of the stops we got out at was also along the coast, but there was a path to walk down to a small beach, so we all walked down to the beach and we surrounded by beautiful cliffs. We also stopped at the Gallarus Oratory, an early Christian church. The church looks like an upside down boat and only has one door and one window. We also saw old bee-hive huts and ruins of churches throughout the peninsula. After our tour of the Dingle peninsula, we went and had a tour of Muckross House. This used to be a private home and is where Queen Victoria stayed for three nights when she came and visited Ireland. The house was magnificent and beautiful, but my favorite part was walking around the grounds. There was a beautiful lake we walked down to and various gardens along the way. After our tour of Muckross house, we made a surprise stop at a waterfall. It was absolutely gorgeous and I climbed up the path to the top of the waterfall! After our stop at the waterfall, we went back to our B&B and went out to dinner with one of my cottagemates parents and then I went back and watched the masters.

Sunday we drove to the Burren is a region in Ireland that is mostly covered in rock. We stopped and saw a portal tomb which is on the Burren and also stopped in a city and saw an audio-visual about the Burren and the wild life and plants which can be found there. The Burren is possibly where they filmed a small part of the most recent Harry Potter movie. After the Burren, we went to the Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs are absolutely gorgeous and I was in awe the entire time. I was disappointed that you cannot go very far out onto the cliffs themselves. It had been cloudy all day but the last few minutes we where there, the sun came out! After visiting the Cliffs of Moher we drove back to Tully Cross, stopping a few times to take photos along the way.

Overall, the south trip was amazing and I had a lot of fun and learned a lot about Southern Ireland.