Saturday 16th April - A bit of craic

We took a lovely walk this morning to breath in the lovely Irish air.
Dublin is the destination for this afternoon.   Sheila cocks up within the first ten minutes, but this allows us the opportunity to have a lovely drive through County Kilkenny and to visit Jerpoint Abbey.  We were lucky enough to arrive just in time for a tour which was really quiet fascinating.
 The abbey was built around 1160 by the King of Ossary, Donal MacGillapatrick for the Benedictine monks.  In 1180 it was taken over by Cistercian monks from Baltinglass Abbey.  It is said that there were about 36 monks and 50 brothers in the abbey.
The monastery was self-contained, and included its own gardens, watermills, infirmary, cemetery, kitchens, granary, stables and other outbuildings.
The abbey continued to flourish until the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII.
We then drove on to Howth, which is a pretty fishing and yachting port, and judging by the amount of people a popular suburban resort. Our interest in Howth is because Krissy’s little girl, Jesse sailed at Howth in the World championships some years ago. So of course we wanted to see where Jess had been.   From Howth Head we got fine views of Dublin Bay and the Wicklow Mountains.  In the bay is a rocky bird sanctuary and monastic island.  Cliff paths lead around the coastline, through the Howth village and the ruined abbey, and past Baily Lighthouse.  We had a lovely walk with an ice cream in hand and enjoyed the sights of Howth.
Then of course there is the manadory problem of finding our night’s accommodation, which seems to be a bit of a trial every afternoon, but it wasn’t to bad this afternoon.  Tonight we are heading off to a Traditional Irish Music pub crawl, sounds like a bit of craic to me!! 
Our first night in Dublin was a cracker. We headed for the Temple Bar area as that is where the Traditional music tour started.  Temple bar is obviously the city’s concentrated party zone, the pubs were pumping out grog and music to the very very animated revelers.  It would appear that most were tourists. It was lively and bustling and  fantastic.   There were hen’s and stag groups oozing out of the bars.  Our first pub we met a lovely little boy from Melbourne!!
The pub crawl was fantastic, it was led by two professional musicians who performed tunes and songs whilst telling the story of Irish music.  We went to three pubs along the way having a few pints at each and learning all about the different types of Irish music.  It is very regional, each county of Ireland having a bit different slant to their music.  We then went to another pub, fully primed and did a bit of boot tapping an irish jigging, thoroughly enjoying ourselves. 
We have driven through 18 of Irelands 32 County’s, not a bad effort, and we have enjoyed them all, except perhaps Limerick.  We absolutely loved the Kerry and Cork areas, but it’s all been great.  We now have 4 more days to explore Dublin before we fly to France.  All I can say is may god help us on the roads there if Sheila isn’t on her game.