Saving the Best for Last!

I can’t believe that this weekend marks the first of many lasts for our group in Ireland.  We now only have two weeks of class left-followed by a week of finals before we say good bye to our homes here in Spiddal.   This past weekend was our last group excursion  and we have now been to all 32 counties in Ireland.  The excursion was one of the best ones yet! Our Archeology professor, Jacki, came along for the weekend to give us information on many of the sites we saw over the last four days.  It was a busy four days!

View from the Rock of Cashel

Thursday: We headed South to the Rock of Cashel.  This chapel dates back to the 5th century!  It was here that St. Patrick baptized the King of Munster.  Though we have seen a lot of chapels, cathedrals and round towers it was exciting to see a Cathedral that was so pivotal in the spread of Christianity throughout Ireland.  After lunch in the village of Cashel, we continued to Kilkenny.  Here we had time to walk around, shop and explore Kilkenny before our group dinner. Most of us then went out to a couple of pubs with live music with our professors.  One of the guys on our trip, Michael, stepped up to sing with the Irish musicians!  He was certainly a hit and the couple from Wisconsin at the pub was proud to meet some Americans!

Friday:  Off to Waterford! We got to tour the Waterford Crystal factory!  While most of the crystal is not made at this facility anymore, they still make over 50,000 pieces of crystal each year.  We were able to walk through the factor and watch crystal be molded, blown, cooled,  and carved.  The 7 glass blowers there are considered the best in the world.  They all have at least 30 years of experience at Waterford.  They also had on display the backup pieces to many famous sculptures-the Superbowl trophy, NCAA basketball trophy, a London Olympic awards vase and dozens of others!  For every contracted specialty piece that is made they make a second one in case something is broken in transit or once it is delivered.  After the tour we headed back to Kilkenny for a tour of Kilkenny castle followed by another delicious dinner with the group!

Irish Harp made by Waterford Crystal

 Saturday:  Heading even further south we stopped in the port city of Cobh, pronounced Cove.  This was the last port of call for the Titanic!  We had beautiful, warm and sunny weather and after looking through the Cobh heritage center we were able to explore the village for a while.  We then headed to the big city of Cork!  The third largest city in Ireland, Cork was quite the exciting place!  We got to look around University College Cork-where a group of CSB/SJU students will be studying in the Spring! We then had the afternoon off before another group dinner! We had a wide selection of meals to choose from-I had spinach, gorgonzola tortellini.  It was delicious!  Cork was a beautiful, but very busy!  We all were excited to get back to Galway.

Port of Cobh

Pub life in Cork

 Sunday: Perhaps, one of the most exciting days of the semester! To start the day we had absolutely beautiful weather!  We left Cork and drove to Blarney to see the famous Blarney castle and kiss the Blarney stone! We had a couple of hours to explore the castle, caves, gardens and  grounds of the Castle.   We then went zip-lining!  The Blackwater Outdoor Activity center was located on the grounds of another private castle built in the 15th century.  We each got to “zip” three times across a the river!  It was a great end to our final excursion!

Exploring the Caves!

Kissing the Blarney Stone

View of Blarney Castle

Getting ready to zip line!

I can’t believe in month I will be headed home!  It will be wonderful to be home, but until then there is still a lot of exploring and learning that is to be done!