Day 8- Sep. 10- Ballyhannon Castle, Quin, Clare, co.

Today was castle day!!! Before we left for Ireland, we had rented a tower house castle called Ballyhannon, just outside of the little village of Quin in Clare county. So in the morning, after a very full breakfast at Ashville House, we headed out to the long awaited stay at our castle...

Shannon Bay

We were going to take the ferry over Shannon Bay to cut down on travel time as driving up around the bay by Limerick takes longer. Sadly, we didn't end up going over because the wind and waves were too strong for Mom's comfort. Oh, well... The drive around the bay was beautiful despite the rain, mist and fog!

Aldi!

Aidabm

I thought that Leon would like to see these name trains. :)

As we were driving through Bunratty village, we remembered that a famous tower house castle, Bunratty, was in that town. We'd been seeing signs for it, so were expecting it any minute. The castle was right on the edge of the road, and as it turned out, we were all looking in the wrong direction. We felt pretty stupid for almost missing it when it was basically under our very noses. :)

We stopped at Bunratty castle, but it was 15 euro a person to get in. Ouch. But the gift shop was neat! 

Ballyhannon Castle

It took us awhile to find the driveway. As we wound up the long lane, the castle just rose up out of the trees and hills. We were so excited!

Coach House

You could also rent the old coach house that was a little ways away from the castle. Even though it was cheaper to rent the coach house, we weren't going to be satisfied with a halfway castle, we wanted the real thing!

Backside

This is the back of the coach house. You can see the castle over to the left.

Inside the Fortress!

After our hostess arrived and turned all the lights on for us, she let us explore. We had so much fun running around laughing and giggling (even Gram!) like little kids. It was the moment we'd all been waiting for for a long time. This is Mom making a list. :)

Lady Patricia

Another dream come true!

Irish Laddie

Droll Jocularity

I wanted to have a photo shoot of all of us. While I was setting the camera up, I had to take some test pictures. This is one of them. :)

Down to Business

Ok, here's the real picture!

Aw...

Wow, that's bright!

This was another photo attempt, but this time it was in Gram's canopy bed. The pictures really didn't turn out very well. I thought that this picture was too funny to pass up. :)

Kitchen

Steamy Windows

Entry

Addition

The part that juts off the side of the castle is an addition. The kitchen is located in that part, along with a bathroom in the entry that was very, very cold!

Rose and Lichen 

Lane

Notice the castle over on the left?

Castle Gateway

Ponies

There were some ponies in the pasture next to the castle. 

Door of Mystery

This small door was padlocked. We could push it open just enough to see what lay beyond, only to be thrown into deeper curiosity. Some stone steps ascended and turned a corner to... where???

Shadows

Squares

Repose

This is in the "Great Room".

Keys

Irish Spiders...

... are HUGE! That's my hand beside one. jk :)

Who's Lying in Wait Around the Corner?

This castle was perfect for scaring each other, shadowy corners, spooky noises...

The Great Beyond

I don't think this door was supposed to be open. It led back to a sort of storage area.

Murder Hole

This is on the other side of the door from above. 

The castle had two murder holes. The second one was located on the floor right at the bottom of those steps. We were disappointed that they had it blocked off... There had been some plans brewing for dumping something on TJ.'s head... :)

Second Flight of Stairs

Twist

If you climbed up the whole flight of stairs in one fell swoop, you'd start to get dizzy. 

Silhouette

Great Room

The whole castle was quite damp and chilly so we brought all the heaters up to the great room and kept the door shut. It actually stayed fairly pleasant.

Sheepskin Rug

Balcony

There was a balcony that overlooked the great room. This door led onto it.

Majestic Gloom

The master bedroom was on the top story.

Dead End

Another disappointing locked door... This part was just across from the master bedroom, but several steps higher. It was the highest we could go in the castle.

Bathroom #1

None of us wanted to take a shower in these bathrooms. As ventilation, they just took a pane of glass out of the small window. Burr!

As Night Descended

These were the windows in Mom, Abi and my bedroom. They had both of the windows open. 

Stone Hall

Sound echoed off these walls very well. You could stand at the bottom of the first flight of stairs, raise your voice just a little and whoever was in the great room could hear you almost as if you were right there.

Gram's Room

Another dream come true! She got to sleep in a four-poster canopy bed! 

After we got settled in, we went back to Bunratty to do some shopping at yet another Blarney Woolen Mills. We were able to get quite a few little gifts for loved ones back home.

Supper!

Here's an excerpt from my journal about our first supper at Ballyhannon,

"Mom, Aunt Carol and Abi went to shop in Quin for some grocery items (this is a self catering castle, unless you want to pay for them to feed you!), while TJ., Gram and I stayed back to get ready for our medieval feast. They got grilled cheese fixings for us. So, we had grilled cheese and chips, on paper plates with china tea cups set at a medieval banquet table. :)"

Well, that concludes our first day as Lord and Ladies of our very own castle!

If you want to know more about the castle you can just click here.

Day 7- Sep. 9- Ashville House, Tralee, Limerick co.

Sep. 9, being Sunday, we decided to take the day easy. We listened to a sermon on Charity's website and sang several songs for our church service. It was a blessing!

We packed up soon after our church and headed for Killarney (or, Kilkarney, as Mom kept accidentally calling it:) where we were going to take a horse cart ride through Killarney National Park.

Gram had dreamed of going on a horse cart ride while we were in Ireland, so Abi and she researched it and found one in Killarney. Another of Gram's dreams come true! The only downfall of the day, though, was that it rained most of the time, which made photography rather difficult. :(

Smothered

We saw this pretty little house along the way to Killarney.

Mountains

Equine

We spotted this odd statue of a horse up on a hill...

Old Fashioned Conveyance

Here we are, almost ready to go!

Our driver's name was "Johnny" and his horse's name was "Paddy."

Steeple

Thatch Roof

This quaint little cottage that we saw along the way had a rather fancy thatched roof, our driver, Johnny, informed us.

Repose 

Doe and Fawn

"Paddy"

Paddy didn't seem bothered by the rain at all!

Shadows

The Forgotten Road

I love how the road seems to stretch to nothingness.  

Foliage

Some of us had been wanting to walk the trail to Ross Castle, but our guide told us the trail was 5 miles long. I'm sure that you can guess what we all opted to do...

Mourning

There was one of those small roadside crosses along the the trail. It kinda makes one wonder how they came to meet their Maker in this out of the way place...

Solitude

Droplets

The water droplets bouncing off the horse's mane are my favorite aspect of this picture. You'll also notice Ross Castle in the background.

Blanketed by Mist

Ross Castle

Insanity?

We weren't sure, but to us it seemed a pretty miserable day to be out boating on the lakes around Ross Castle.

Ross Castle

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the castle, so we decided not to go in to it.

Moored

Killarney National Park

Muckross House and Gardens

Here is an excerpt from my journal of our experience looking for this place (I had to fix it up a bit:),

"Muckross House was in Killarney National Park and after riding the horse cart through the roads going to Ross Castle, we felt fairly certain that we could find Muckross House. Well, we couldn't. So, we drove around for quite awhile trying to find it. When we finally found it (by following signs, which weren't very clear), we weren't sure where to park! Once we halfway solved that mystery, we hit another brick wall. This time we couldn't find the house... There were maps of the property, but we still had no idea where we were on the grounds, so the maps didn't help at all!"

Muckross House

I'm sure that by now, you're wondering why we were let loose to wander around in a foreign country unassisted. But, hey, we were having fun out there in the rain, especially when Muckross House loomed out of the mist!  

Pillars

Breathing a sigh of relief, we stepped through the glass doors and walked up to the reception desk to get our tickets. Only to be told that the tour had just started and we'd have to wait another 50 min. for the next tour! Our only options were to sit in the reception area or explore the gardens (in the rain). We chose the latter.

Chimneys

Creeping

Beyond

Pathway to Paradise

Daisy

Snapped Snapdragon

Slate

Showers of Blessing

Lamps

Disused

Glow

I like how this picture turned out with almost a glow around the tree.

Mossy Wall

All these pictures were taken while waiting for our tour to start. It rained, drizzled and misted the entire time! It made for difficult photography, but I think we managed to get some good shots. We were definitely thankful for our rain coats! 

After getting nicely damp, we thought that we'd better go back and secure our places on the next tour. Well, we almost had to laugh when the receptionist told us that we'd have to wait another 10 min. as the tour that we'd been planning to go on was full. We quickly secured our tickets and waited...

Our tour guide wasn't the greatest, she just sounded as though she was reciting a lesson. But the house was pretty interesting. Here are some tidbits that stuck out to me that I'd jotted down in my journal.

Years ago, Queen Victoria planned to visit the Muckross household. They spent 2 yrs preparing for her arrival! Some of the things that they did were just amazing, such as, they had a huge buffet hand carved in Italy, just for the Queen's visit, whole rooms were revamped, papered and tapestried, and a fire escape was built outside the Queen's bedroom as she had a phobia of house fires. Wow! All that for one person! Queen Victoria ended up staying 2 nights with her 2 children and 50 servants!

The servants' quarters was very interesting. We couldn't get over how many servant's bells there were hanging in the basement. Our guide told us that a servant had to learn to recognize by the tone which bell went to which room. I don't think I could've done that! 

   

The kitchen was located in the basement and was very fascinating, huge cast iron cauldrons, hot wells to keep food warm, etc. It was amazing what servants had to do to please their masters... I can learn a lot on servanthood from those people...  

Curve

On our way to our next B&B, Ashville House!

Confusing

This seemed to be our day for getting lost. We got lost so many times looking for our next B&B that we began to get worried about not having a place to sleep that night! One funny thing that happened to us was something that Frank (our host at our first B&B) had warned us about. He said that sometimes young people think it's funny to turn road signs around so that they're pointing in the opposite direction. Well, I'm sure that those kids got a good laugh out of deceiving this group of unfortunate tourists! It took us quite awhile to figure out what was wrong, but the idea of a reversed sign eventually worked it's way through our thick heads! And, yes, we did find Ashville House, where we thankfully relaxed for the remainder of the evening. :) 

Triple Room

I always enjoyed it when we were able to get a room for Mom, Abi and I with 3 twin beds. It was always more comfortable that way.

Upstairs

It looked a lot prettier than what this picture reveals. We all agreed that Ashville was the nicest B&B that we'd stayed at yet, but not quite as homey, somehow. 

Too Pretty to Sleep In!

This was a bed in Aunt Carol's room.

Peonies 

So ends our first week in Ireland!