Ty and I managed to switch up breakfast and had beans-on-toast when we woke up this morning at Ennis, Ireland. We are in the rainy and windy lee of Huricane Katia
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Hurricane-Katia-brings-gales-and-floods-to-Northern-Ireland-129559118.html
with dark and foreboding skies chasing us all day today. We decided to take a leisurely drive down the south coast of Ireland and went to Limerick for lunch, stopping for a kiss at Blarney. There, we toured the Blarney castle, explored some secret passageways under the castle and kissed of the famous stone, reportedly to gift us the gift of eloqent speach.
http://www.blarneycastle.ie/
http://www.blarneycastle.ie/videos/view/ByTaHTv5HQM
Then we went and walked around Cork doing a wee bit of shopping and stopping at sights as we saw them. All of the shops in the smaller towns were closed and the weather was less than forgiving when we did get out of the car.
After lunch we drove on to a nice little market town called Dungarvan where we have a B&B for the night.
For dinner, we drove through hurricane force winds and slanting rain that came in cascades, overwhelming the highest speed of our window wipers. We had a 3-course meal of Irish Chinese Food which was excellent in every respect. From there we ran through the rain to the local pub where, if words, don't fail me, I will paint you the scene. We entered through the front door of the liquor store and were confused because we expected a pub, but no... there through a narrow unmarked door came the sound of Irish singing. As we opened it slowly, we saw stone walls, low ceiling and through the darkness, a sea of drunken people, few younger than 60 years old. One beautiful yet toothless old woman with her cheeks rosy, happily belted out song after song taking hearty gulps of Guiness for lubrication. The tables were completely covered by glasses of amber nectar to varying depths as they sang their hearts out. Ty and I order a couple pints from the lady barkeep and a local joked that we had to sing a song first. We took a perch along a stone wall and enjoyed our pints listening to them sing.
