Ireland, The emerald Isle, certainly are 40 shades of green

Ever so happy to have had a really smooth crossing over to Ireland.  Sea like glass is always a blessing when you suffer from severe motion sickness.

And so onto our journey in Ireland.  After an overnight stay in a caravan park near to the harbour, our first stop was in the city of Waterford in the county of Wexford, famous for Waterford crystal.  We stopped for a look in at the gigantic Waterford crystal shop but declined the option to take a tour through the factory.  Just enjoyed the huge range of crystal on display in the shop.

 Next stop in Waterford was a visit to the museum inside a tower from the Viking era which has been restored and houses the museum to learn something of Viking and roman history.  On the top right on the outside of the tower, is a cannonball still imbedded in the wall from some time approx. 1000 years ago. (Go figure)

The weather was still incredibly warm, so for our overnight stop we headed to the coast and spent the night at the seaside town of Tramore.  A very busy holiday town with no shortage of families out enjoying the unusually warm summery weather.  There is a local specialty to the area of Tramore called a Blaa, which is a floury bread roll.  On the insistence of the friendly shop keeper, he made us some breakfast blaa's to try.  He also gave us some recommendations of places to stop into on our way to County Cork.

There were some very picturesque little coves along the coastline.  Couldn't resist taking a photo of this sign just to remind us what we were not supposed to do.

On our way to Cork we stopped at a town called Cobh, pronounced Cove, which was the last stop off point the Titanic made to pick up passengers before setting off on her only voyage.  There is a newly opened display in Cobh with lots of history about the fateful journey and the connection to passengers who lived around the area who boarded her there.

It is also the harbour where many of the Irish convicts set sail for their passage to Australia.

This is the remains of the original wharf where the Titanic passengers boarded the tenders to take them to the ship.

The town of Cobh today overlooking the harbour.  

We stayed outside of the city of Cork near to Kinsale.  The camping ground was in the grounds of a partly restored manor. Must have been very grand in it's day.

With the continuing beautiful weather, we spent a few nights on the coast near Kinsale.
Had some yummy food for dinner from this cafe parked at the beachside.

On our day trip to Cork city, there was the Buskers World Championship final day.  The first act on the list was an Australian guy called Alakazam who we had seen before at the buskers festival in Coffs.  It's a small world.  The street scene looked just like it does during the buskers festival in Coffs, only bigger crowds.

Just taking it easy climbing through 2 tennis rackets and a toilet seat

After Cork we went onto Killarney in County Kerry, a town well geared up for visiting tourists with several dozen tour coaches per day stopping for the day in the city.  Killarney is the stepping off point for the trip around the Ring of Kerry.  We decided not to drive the extra 200 kms to do the trip as we felt we did not have the time to really appreciate the effort and there was plenty to keep us amused in Killarney itself.  The traditional Irish music in the pubs is very big in Killarney, so as well as visiting areas of the Killarney National Park and taking in some music venues in the evenings, there was enough to fill up a few days.

We visited Muckross House which is a beautifully maintained home.  The last owners of the house, The Vincent family, donated the house and the grounds to the Irish nation to maintain the house and manage the park as a National Park.  The original family who owned the house had the great honour in 1858 of hosting a visit from Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.  They only stayed for 2 days but had given the family 6 years notice of their visit and brought 100 of their own staff with them when they visited.  The family who hosted them had pieces of furniture made for the visit and these pieces are still on display in the house.  There was no photography allowed inside the house, so sadly no pics of the beautifully decorated rooms of Muckross House.

We also visited  Ross Castle, on the shores of Lough Leane.

There are boat trips to be taken on the lake and each boat driver has his own dog along for company. By the looks of it, the dogs seemed to be an important part of the team.

Leaving Killarney, we set off for the next stop in Limerick.  Just before Limerick, we passed through a little town called Adare which is known as Ireland's prettiest village.  The village history dates back to the 12th century, the main street is lined with original thatched roof buildings.

Along the way, we stopped to take some photos of the countryside, it is hard to convey the extent of the depth of colour on the rolling hills as far as the eye can see.  (Note to self,  get better camera equipment for any future trips !!) Hopefully these photos go some way to show the many shades of green to be seen all over the island.

When we arrived in Limerick, we also had our first bad weather since collecting the camper van in London.  We were so happy to have been on the road nearly 3 weeks before having any rainy weather. We had decided to check into some accommodation while in Limerick so it worked out well.
We took a look around the city on our first night expecting to find lots of Irish music in the pubs as it had been in Killarney, but there was no music to be found on the cold and rainy Tuesday night.

I had been looking forward to taking the Angela's Ashes walking tour while in Limerick but the rainy weather had me rethinking my plans. So we settled on a tour through King John's Castle set on the banks of the Shannon River.  It has recently been reopened after a multi million pound refurbishment and was a great tour to take.

Just incase there was a need to defend the castle against invaders as they had to in the 16th century.

The bridge built by the Romans over the Shannon River

 So after a rainy visit to Limerick, our next stop takes us further north to Galway.

Bye and will post the rest of the Ireland highlights soon.