Saturday, 26 May 2018

Day 34 Killarney – Cork - Waterford 20 May 2018




The bridge on the outskirts of Killarney.

Today we visited Blarney Castle and Gardens. It was overcast with the occasional sprinkle of rain which made photography better.  It was much better than we were expecting but we didn’t kiss the stone.  Not when 15, 000 people have beaten us to it.


 Blarney House


We had lunch in Cork which was nice but not much of a tourist destination.

We stopped at one of 35 unmarked cemeteries for Famine victims in Ireland when the potato crop failed. No wonder people are always eating chips. Crisps or spuds here, presumably they don’t want to caught short in case of a future shortage.  The burials usually took place on hills between villages as they tried to keep diseases like typhus from spreading as a result of malnutrition and starvation.



We arrived at Waterford and embarked on a walking tour. Our guide Jack Burchill was very entertaining and was able to explain quite a lot about the early Viking, Anglo-Norman and Napoleonic history.  He apparently had been a tour guide for the Obamas when they had visited.
Do a tour of the Viking quarter Richard De Clare known as Strongbow (yes the cider is named after him.) We scored today, our tour guide gave us a free box of chocolate and one of fudge as well as a free drink at the local pub.




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