Cahir Castle, Rock of Cashel, Dunmore Caves.

Our second St. Mary's trip began at Cahir Castle. The tour guide led us through the castle as if we were attackers, and talked about all of the defense techniques implemented throughout the castle. I liked taking the tour from that perspective, it made it a lot more fun than just learning the history alone.

Here is the adorable town of Cahir.

And Cahir Castle.

The entrance we all went through with the royal family crest above it. Although the doors were huge, they opened in a Willy-Wonka-ish fashion. A very small square of the huge door opened, forcing us to crouch low to climb in.

This was the next way to could get further into the castle. As the tour guide was explaining how enemies would attempt to penetrate these gates, two crows entangled in a battle with each other fell from the tower and swarmed around her. She screamed and took cover, and it was difficult for her to finish that part of the tour because she was constantly watching the birds. She said that she could see all of our startled faces as we gasped, watching the birds flying towards her from above as she obliviously continued the tour, but she thought we were just impressed with her descriptions of the defenses of the castle. She watched our faces closely from then on just in case she saw the same looks of horror because the crows were barreling toward her again.


They would dump boiling water or sand on top of attackers coming through this doorway through the shoot above it. Ouch.

Apparently this gate was used in the filming of Braveheart!

These stairs were scarier to climb down than to climb up. They were narrow, close to the wall, and there was a steep drop off of the side. This is Laura, a new friend from Notre Dame who is studying in Rome, Megan R., and I. Laura visited us for the weekend.

We found a small room at the top of the stairs.

Here I am bravely exploring the dungeons underground. I didn't make it very far because I was the only one who was willing to explore it, and there was no way I was going any further into the darkness by myself. Not a chance.

I'm sure Meagan will appreciate that I put this on here.

After our lunch I wanted to take a scone with me in case I got hungry, but we were afraid I wouldn't be allowed to. Therefore, I grabbed the scone on my way out and coughed all over it. I figured not only would they not want a scone I had been touching, but they also wouldn't want one from a sick girl. We called it the 'Victory Scone.' In reality, they probably could care less if I took a scone from the open bar of food that we had access to.

The next stop was the Rock of Cashel. Apparently St. Patrick himself converted the King here in the 5th century.


The inside of the monastery was missing some of the roof, and obviously was not in the same condition as it once was, but remained stunning nonetheless.


Sitting on a tomb.




In 1961 Johnny Cash visited this site and said that when he admired the landscape he saw "Forty Shades of Green." Then he wrote a song about it.

The view of the St. Mary's Abbey.


In the cemetery the raised mounds made us the most uncomfortable..

Meagan Drone was able to capture our faces at the perfect moment: We were avoiding walking on the mounds and the grave stones when the tour guide told us not to bother because there were so many unmarked graves in the cemetery that we were walking on bodies all of the time. Upwards of 500 corpses everywhere. These were our faces at that very moment. Priceless.

This was a replica of the statue of St. Patrick, the real one was indoors where the weather wouldn't damage it, and we got to see it later.

According to the tour guide, if you could wrap your hands around the rock and touch your fingers, you would never have to go to the dentist again.

My low porus made that very difficult. He also said that if you could hop on your right foot clockwise around the statue nine times without stopping you would be married within the year. I was too superstitious to attempt this, because I'm very good at hopping and am too ambitious for marriage at this time. In fact, no girls were foolish enough to tempt fate and try it.

Here is Megan and I at the site.

Outside of the Rock of Cashel in the parking lot was an interesting statue of some dancers. We tried to look as graceful as they were, but didn't quite make it. We did our best.

The last stop on our tour was to the Dunmore caves. I didn't realize that we would be spelunking on our trip, although one might argue that taking the man-made stairs into a cave isn't really "spelunking" at all. It made me remember when I first signed up for the St. Mary's Ireland program, and the woman recommended that I get a rabies shot. I asked her why, and she said "Just in case I get bitten by a bat in a cave." I thought it was funny at the time, because I never imagined that spelunking was popular in Ireland. Little did I know that within a month I would be in a cave myself!

This is the cave from above. The stairs were narrow, so it seemed a little daunting at first, but it was worth it.

Here is Laura and I making our descent into the depths of the Dunmore Caves.

This was the view of the entrance from the inside.

The first column he showed us was the "buffalo" column.

This was one of the largest and most impressive columns in the cave.

The guide said that if you look carefully at the bottom of the column you could see the three colors of the Irish flag, which are green, white and orange. Then if you look at the rest of it you can make out the shape of a hand wrapped around a pint of guinness. How very Irish.

The climb back up out of the caves was difficult and exhausting. There were over 700 steep stairs, no place to rest, and by the time we reached the top all of us were out of breath and had sore legs! It was worth it though!

Sláinte!