Day 2 – Dublin to Wexford

The beginning of our second day in Ireland took us down through Wicklow National Park (170 Sq km).


Our first sheep of the trip!

The roads were tiny, the views were beautiful, and we would have never made it without the GPS.
About 300' top to bottom.
 

Lunch time rolled around, so we stopped in Kilkenny for a bite and a pint at Mark the Millers.  Good local beef burger and local chicken wrap.  John gave the Carlsberg at try…the first and last one of the trip.

 

Time to walk off lunch…so we spent some time walking and driving around the town.  Stopped in Dempsey’s Bar for a shortie (half pint).

Found the beautiful St. Mary’s Cathedral (c. 1857), parked in a no parking zone, and managed to snap a few pictures and get on our way before the meter maid ticketed us (she was headed our way).

 

Kilkenny Castle (1172 AD) looked interesting, but as we searched for a parking spot there were way too many tourists and buses and no spots to be found. We figured it would take too much time and be too crowded…and we were going to see lots of other castles anyways.

 

Going on another internet tip, we discovered the Kilree Monastic Site and Kells Priory.

Kilree boasted a 96 foot high Round Tower, a ruined church, and lots of crosses in the graveyard – the most impressive is the Kilree High Cross (c. 800 AD) which is covered with geometrical motifs including a hunting scene, the Magi and what is possibly Daniel in the Lions Den.

Kilree High Cross
Many of the castles and churches
had these support structures but
they varied in their construction design.

 

Kells Priory is a huge site with lots of rooms and towers.  We were the only people there (besides the sheep) which made it a little eerie.  The priory, though in ruins, is one of the largest and best preserved in Ireland.
It dates back to 1193 and was built by Baron Geoffrey FitzRobert under the instructions of Strongbow.
It contains the old parish church, the remains of an extensive and ornate cloister, and the living and cooking areas used by the priests.
There are also the ruins of a mill and brewery.
The towers would originally have had three or four floors of timber.
The recesses in the stone walls where the huge floor beams were inserted can be seen in the towers.
 

We arrived in Wexford by about 5:30 pm.

Wexford was founded by the Vikings around 800 AD.  It remained a Viking town for about 300 years until it was besieged by Dermot MacMurrough in 1169.  In the Middle Ages, Wexford was an Old English settlement and an old dialect of English, known as Yola, was spoken uniquely in Wexford up until the 19th century.

Erin’s wrong turn put us at a similarly named B&B which, after about 15 minutes of chatting to the nicest guy, who was also the owner, we figured out our mistake and got WAY too many directions containing WAY too many landmarks to the correct B&B (boy oh, do these Irish guys like to talk) – but the owner of the wrong B&B gave us a great recommendation for dinner.  Checked into the Rockville Bed & Breakfast, cleaned up, and headed back into town for dinner.

Wexford is full of one way roads and roads that you can drive onto but not out of. – lots of 1 way roads, took 30 minutes to get to restaurant, should have been 5 minutes!

Dinner at The Yard was simply delicious and HUGE.  We started with a sweet potato/pesto/microgreens bruschetta and a bowl of mussels followed by potato/leek/spinach soup.  The main course was steak frites.  Before departing, the waitress gave us a pub recommendation (although she was uncertain if we would find anything going on…she was right).
John just loved the Pharmacy's.
"Chemists"...how continental.


Hotel was actually "Whites" but you couldn't see the "W" when we first saw it.

We found our way Maggie May’s where a few folks were watching rugby.  We had a pint but then Erin decided that the bartender wasn’t friendly enough and we moved onto a new pub – which wasn’t lively at all so we headed back to the B&B to do some trip planning for the next day and we were in bed before midnight.

Weather forecast today was for rain all day.  The only rain we got was in Dublin.
Once we were south of Dublin the rain stopped and it was cloudy/overcast the rest of the day but still a nice day.

We’ve discovered many signs with the slogan “Probably the best <insert product/service here>”.
We eventually see so many of these that it becomes funny and a bit of a running joke.

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