Kilkenny

me, Maggie, and Brittany in front of Kilkenny Castle

I apologize for the lack of creativity with my post titles but that has never been my strong suit.


Saturday morning the Quinn School of Business organized a trip to Kilkenny, considered the most beautiful inland city in Ireland, and I brought my “cousin” Maggie who also brought her friend Anna. Dorothy, the nicest woman who organized all this, said that it would be ok if I brought my “cousin” because the bus was not going to be filled with Quinn Students. I was so glad that they could share that with us because seeing Dublin is cool but you really get the Irish flavour when you head out of the city and see the small Irish towns.

The drive was about an hour and a half and we arrived at Kilkenny around 11:30. Our tour of Kilkenny Castle was supposed to start at 11:45 so we just went to the bathroom and walked around the courtyard of the Castle and took pictures. It was a really nice castle remodeled in the late Victorian style but the downside was that we couldn’t take pictures of the inside. There was no tour guide but there were two experts in the castle that gave us some information about the castle and its inhabitants. One elderly male expert started talking about the Battle of New Orleans and how he thought that fighting a battle after the war had ended was something the Irish would do; I was cracking up.

Stacy me, Maggie, Brittany

After the tour we headed over to Kyteler’s Inn for lunch with everyone. Dorothy ordered us all chicken and chips, plus we got desert! The inn itself was founded in 1323 and we ate in what was like the basement. The whole room was stone and had stones arches giving you the feeling that you were in the catacombs. The food was great and we even got a little history with our chicken and chips.

The inn was founded in 1323 and passed down to the Alice Kyteler, who had four husbands that died of mysterious causes; it is thought that she poisoned them. She was tried for witchcraft and found guilty after her maid confessed that Alice was a witch and she was a follower. Alice was sentenced to be burned at the stake but escaped, so her maid was burned at the stake instead; talk about bad luck. This was the first burning at the stake for witchcraft in Ireland.

Alyscia, Stevie, Stacy, me, Brittany, Maggie

After lunch we went on a walking tour of Kilkenny with a historian. It was very cold but I still enjoyed hearing about the history of the town.

The Black Abbey. It is called the Black Abbey because the Dominican friars that live there were black cloaks over their habits. This church was left as just a shell after Oliver Cromwell came through (the Irish are not a fan) and was rebuilt after. The stained glass window, called the Rosary window, shows scenes from Christ’s life and contains 10,000 pieces of glass! We got a lot of this information from a friar that we met when we went in; I love the Irish outgoingness!

The tour ended just in time for us to catch the second half of the rugby game being played at Croke Park which is in Dublin. Rugby is a very big deal here, as are other sports, and this match was Ireland v. Italy. We found a pub in Kilkenny and cheered Ireland on with the locals. We are still a little unclear of the rules but it was fun to partake in such a slice of Irish life, and Ireland won!

Maggie watching Rugby. Go Ireland!

We headed back to Dublin around 5 o’clock that night and when we got back we got ready to go out for dinner and the pub life. Brittany, Maggie, Anna, and I headed into the city centre to find some grub and ended up going to The Gourmet Burger Kitchen, which had good food and continued my streak of burger eating (I’ve had a burger every day for the last three days because they are cheap and I love beef.) We ate outside on the heated patio in the Temple Bar area and it was nice to soak in the atmosphere.

After filling ourselves up with “gourmet burgers”(I had the Cajun burger to compensate for the lack of flavor in most Irish cooking) we walked over to the Porterhouse because they always have live music and they also brew their own beer. We sat there listening to the band White Chocolate until we very tired from the day’s adventures and took a cab home.

Dsig Love!

Now we have been worried that the cabbies of Dublin have been ripping us off because we’re American so I hatched a plan to pull out my brogue and pretend to be a local (although I am a local.) So we got into the cab, and I said in barely passing Irish dialect, “UCD Belfield please.” We rode along in silence until “Wonderwall,” a personal favorite of mine, came on the radio. If you know me, you know that when I song comes on that I know the words to (and sometimes when I don’t know the words to) I must sing along. That’s when I bust out “Today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you” in my brogue, causing the cab to cover their mouths as they hold back laughter to avoid blowing my cover. Now, I don’t know if my “Irish local” identity saved us any euros, but they cabbie did tell us exactly why we took that route, so I like to think it helped.

Maggie left today around 5 am and I was so glad that she could spend time with us in Ireland. It was a comfort to have someone familiar here and to show her around our city. She is such a fun girl and I wish she was going to be in Paris when we are visiting, but if she wants to come back to Dublin my couch is always open.