Shamrocker tour of Southern Ireland 1st - 3rd May

After really enjoying our Haggis tour of Scotland back in August last year, we decided to do a wee tour of Southern Ireland with their sister company, Shamrocker.

Day One; Dublin to Killarney
Our tour guide was Murf, (Murphy, classic awesome Irish accent too!) and unlike Haggis tours the Shamrockers also have a bus driver so the tour guide doesn’t have to navigate and talk/guide at the same time. It rained leprechauns for a while but then thankfully the weather was amazing for the rest of the trip. First stop was the Rock of Cashel, a castle built on an ancient Viking holding fort, and was the seat of the King of Munster.

Next were the Mitchelstown caves, owned and run by the family who discovered them so was quite an un-commercialised and different experience. Massive caverns underground have great acoustics so they run underground choir concerts, wine and cheese evenings and the like. There are even fossils in the caves of equatorial coral from 350 million years ago, proof they reckon that Ireland used to be near the equator under a shallow sea. We weren't allowed to take photos though.

Highlight of the day was visiting Blarney Castle and the Blarney Stone. This was special for Hamish as his mum has been there and done the same thing! Kissing the Blarney stone supposedly gives ‘the gift of the gab’ or the gift of eloquent speech. There are a few theories as to where it came from;
1)Faeries made it magical (this can be an answer to anything).
2)Queen Elizabeth I coined the phrase ‘load of Blarney’ after trying to take over Blarney Castle but being frustrated by the cunning language of the owners in their refusal to hand it over
3)The stone is said to be half of the stone of destiny, upon which Scottish Kings were crowned, as a token of comeraderie towards the Irish who had found alongside the Scots.
Me kissing the Blarney Stone. It's actually scarily exposed and there's enough gap to fall through to your death for sure!

Hamish's turn... he went after me so he got my goobies mwhahaha

The queue to kiss the Blarney Stone.

We stopped for the night in the town of Killarney which was buzzing with young hooligans in town for a rally. We all went out for a proper pint of Guinness, and then a pub theatre session with a local storyteller. His message involved stories of pubs and a song about syphilis, and various other ‘interesting’ topics. After that it was on to a ‘dishco’ where the dance floor lights were ragin’.

Our tour group in Killarney