The Keys: Ireland Day 2

The first stop during day 2 was The Rock of Cashel. It is one of the oldest castles in Ireland where the High King was crowned. It is the sight where the King was Munster was converted to Christianity by Saint Patrick. It was a castle for many years, but then it was given to the church by some other families. It was a great place to visit, and we learned a lot about Irish history. The tour guide was amazing and knew so much! He told us about the next place we went.

Rock of Cashel from the road.

There were sheep and cattle all over the fields and hillsides. We could really smell the cattle at one point and the tour guide said that was the smell of money.

This was an abbey seen from the castle.

The abbey through the castle wall.

The Irish are known for their round towers. They originated in Ireland and this is the oldest one from around 1100.

The plaque we found inside with the letters E & K on it. We thought that was pretty cool!

Here we are sitting next to the plaque.

Inside the cathedral.

They are currently trying to restore the fresco that were painted on the ceiling in the chapel.

On the ground in this section the of the cathedral over 1000 people were killed when the English stormed the city.

Full view of the castle. A big portion of the ground are used a burial ground. Only two more living people have rights to be buried on site.

One man buried here wanted a huge Irish High Cross to mark his grave called Scully's Cross. It stood for almost 100 years before it was struck by lightning in 1976 and was broken. All the broken pieces just lay on the ground.

The cross pieces were once on top is this.

One of the cool arched doors into the chapel.

St. Patrick's Cross

One of the exterior doors.

Here is a little of the tour guide talking about the history of Ireland and Saint Patrick but more specifically he was talking about the people who had power over the castle before it was given over to the church.

Kilcooley Abbey

We found this place because we asked our tour guide if there was somewhere unique or different that a lot of people don't know about. He mentioned this place, and we went. It was perfect! We barely had to go out of our way, and we had the entire place to ourselves. No one else was there!

One of the beautiful windows

Kenney is a high window.

Cool ceiling inside.

A tomb with cool engravings.

Stairs leading up to the window, but the second story was locked unfortunately.

A beehive type hut on the grounds of the Abbey. We were joking that there were his and hers houses.

That's me in the window looking out.

Some more beautiful windows.

The 'Her' house.

Mitchelstown Caves

Kenney really enjoys caves and we found some in Ireland. These are the biggest caves there. There are 3 rooms in the cave going from smaller to larger. There's a big lake that the professionals crawl to twice a year. It wasn't the coolest cave, but it was worth it just to do all kinds of different things.