1^st October 2013 – our last full day in Ireland.

We certainly made the most of the full Irish breakfast at our hotel today. When we looked out the window of the breakfast room it was raining heavily outside, but it eased off by the time we headed out. We wandered in to Kilkenny via a park with a view of the castle and a walk beside the river.

There are various old bits of castle and tower all over the place around here.

We saw many funny little narrow houses but surely the one in the back corner there can’t be as narrow as it looks.

We did read something about this church but couldn’t find the information or remember what it was when we saw it, so we made it up. Apparently it was founded by pirates, taken over by Vikings, and then captured by chickens. Hmmm...

After another few hours exploring Kilkenny, we checked out of our hotel and headed out. We didn’t take the most direct road to Dublin, because there was still one more place to see. This was Glendalough, a religious site originally founded by a St Kevin in the ?????????? Century. He went there because it was a wild and isolated place where he could live as a hermit, in touch with nature and away from distractions. However, within a few years, many other people came to join him, to learn from him and live and work in this beautiful location.

There is a good interpretive centre there, explaining various aspects of the site and the lives of those who lived here over the years. As at Clonmacnoise, they have several of the most precious monuments protected in the centre.

It was raining as we drove to Glendalough, but stopped while we were there. It is up in the Wicklow Mountains, and low cloud was clinging to the hills around the monastery.

There is a big round tower, as well as a small church with a round-tower-like spire. This church is known as St Kevin’s Kitchen because the tower looks like a chimney.

This is another amazing site to visit, in a spectacular location.

As we were walking back to the car park, the rain started back up – and it was absolutely pouring. This was around 4 in the afternoon so we stopped for some afternoon tea and by the time we finished the weather was not so bad. We headed up to Dublin where we got thoroughly stuck in peak hour traffic on the way to Andrew and Ramona’s but eventually made it in time for a late dinner.