Springfort Hall Mallow

During a chance telephone conversation with my life long friend Donal McClement, he told me that the recession in Ireland was not doing much for his sales as a yacht broker and that he was going away next year for up to six months with Cork architect Stephen Hyde on his beautiful Oyster 56 yacht 'A Lady' to participate in part of the World ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers).<br><br>I fortunately knew Stephen quite ...

... are what one would imagine when thinking of Ireland. Kissing the Blarney Stone was a strange experience. As most of you know, you bend over backwards and kiss this stone. What I didn't know is that you are practically doing a back bend and could possibly fall down backwards. Luckily, there was a spotter there who was listening to a soccer game and took away from the ancient castle like feeling. <br><br>The previous two nights held a lot ...

... jealous of this; Armagh is a small town on the border with the Republic that was once the capital of the Church of Ireland (the Anglican church in Ireland). Two things make this place interesting. One is its proximity to the border, rugged country side, and majority Catholic population made it a hot spot during the Troubles. The IRA used Armagh as a primary smuggling point, and it earned the charming moniker of "bandit country" by the British forces in the ...

Today we got up to a yummy breakfast and then out again towards Cork, about 100km south. On the way we stopped at yet another historic site, The Rock of Cashel is a religious site and is perched on the top of the hill looking over the town, it is also known as St Patricks Rock, it has quite majoe his historical significance in the region and the ruins of the Cathedral and other buildings date back to the 12th Century. We had a ...

... de l'autre en dernier perd son bateau. Nous étions 12 dans notre groupe. Mike allait avec les extrèmes (le plus à droite avec le plus à gauche, le 2e + à droite... vous voyez le genre). J'étais malheureusement la 2e plus à gauche, ce qui veut dire que j'avais du chemin à faire. Et puisque je ne voulais pas marcher sur les jambes des autres et leur faire mal, j'ai "couru" jusqu'au bateau de Martin sur le devant des kayaks. En fait, j'étais plutôt à quatre pattes ...

... peu plus tard Ok, j'ai oublie ma camera lol. En fait, j'avais oublie mon porte-feuille, j'ai du retourner le chercher et vu que je n'avais pas le temps de marcher pour prendre le bus, j'ai quete un lift et j'ai fini par me ramasser dans une voiture, un enfant de chaque cote, un sur moi lol. En tout cas. Tout ca pour vous dire que je n'ai pas visite la distillerie finalement... Non, au lieu, je me suis promenee et j'ai decouvert un centre d'achat o_O Ok, c'est plus petit que ...

... guts en modusse pour se lancer dans une histoire de même! Surtout que c'est pas comme si j'avais "rien à perdre"... Oh well! Faut faire des folies quand on est jeune! Au moins j'ai du fun icitte, pis ça me fait découvrir plein de choses! Par exemple, j'ai découvert cette semaine que c'est vraiment pas cool quand on n'a pas de moustiquaire... Si je laisse la fenêtre fermée, il fait 25 dans ma chambre, mais si je la laisse ouverte, tous les insectes se sentent les ...

... cultures all bumping into one another on the sidewalk. Cork just has a different feel, not as touristy, and certainly not as rainy. all good here, except for our room... i´d guess the dimensions to be about 10 x 15 ft. not bad, except that there were four sets of bunkbeds. so actual space to move around? about 3 x 15 ft. oh, and there were eight guys in the room... sweet.

... Lissyclearig turned out to be &#8211; whitewashed stone with a thatched roof on the outside, timber furniture on the inside, all built from scratch by the owners Carmel and Davey and now the domain of their English sheepdog. After staying in perfect little places like this I don&#8217;t know how I&#8217;ll ever manage going back to characterless and charmless hostels, and was clearly deserving of our silver medal of favourite B&amp;Bs.<br>

(Originally published at http://www.troysgonewalkabout.com)<br>< br>First thing in the morning and we were back at Kilkenny Castle, but this time for a tour inside. The tour was of course packed with the usual interesting facts and figures of its rooms, furnishings, portraits and antiques rote-learned by the guide which you instantly forget, so they&#8217;re probably not really all that interesting at all. But, I really like castles, and this one was old ...