Waterford/Wexford/Kilkenny

On Monday and Tuesday, we took a drive down south to see the counties of Kilkenny, Wexford and Waterford.

Kilkenny is a cute little town with an 800-year-old castle in it. The Castle belonged to the prestigious Butler family of England. We had a tour of the castle, ate lunch and went into town to look around at the shops.

Next stop was Jerpoint Abbey, an ancient Benedictine turned Cistercian monastery that’s ruins have been pretty well preserved (It’s exactly like Mellifont Abbey, except Jerpoint has walls). Our tour guide was kind of crazy, so the tour was relatively tolerable. Here’s a coffin (I think) with the apostles carved into it. See if you can recognize them.

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Our last stop of the day was Hook Lighthouse in County Wexford. The Hook Peninsula was the reason for Cromwell’s famous phrase, “by Hook or by Crook,” (Crook is another peninsula, according to Dr. Harbin). The lighthouse is over 800-years-old and is one of the oldest operational lighthouses in the world. Here’s a photo of the lighthouse:

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We spent the night at a YWCA in County Waterford called “The Cliff” (yeah, that name made me homesick). It was basically the YWCA Vance described to us in Upland. It was right on the beach with the mountains in the background, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Here’s the view from The Cliff:

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Tuesday morning we toured Waterford Crystal. It was interesting to see the process by which they make their products. Here’s a guy preparing molten crystal to be blown into a mold:

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Our last stop was Enniscorthy near Vinegar Hill, the site of a decisive battle in the 1798 Rebellion. We went to a museum in Enniscorthy dedicated to the 1798 Rebellion. Then we went back to Greystones for dinner in Coolnagreina.