Blarney Castle sits north of Cork in the southern part of Ireland, its most famous for the Blarney stone which if kissed give you the gift of the gab! There is a queue to enter the castle and kiss the blarney stone, to give an idea when we arrived it took 35 minutes for us to make our way causally through the castle up to the stone. However once we left I noted the line to kiss the stone extended well past a 2 hour mark, so early is essential to avoid a morning in queue and there is plenty of other things to see.
The castle itself is quite a fascinating structure, while the walk up is enjoyable yes lots of stairs and tight spaces they have off shoots into the various rooms used by staff when it was a functional castle. Its a good idea if you can spare a few minutes to check out a few nooks and crannies as they are unique but also give you a bit of breathing room from the line of eager rock smootchers.
The poison gardens on the grounds is worth a wander around, if you are into botany or want to notch up your survivalist belt on which plants not to eat this is the place to do it. A had a good giggle over how some of the plants were in tiny protected. Mandrake, Wolsbane, Nightshade⦠all deadly and in little cages; however, Cannabis Marijuana is kept in a playground sized bubble! On last glance back at the castle⦠through a rock⦠oh Ireland is the Emerald Island, but also the land of unique rocks.
Quick post about this Irish dancing and music concert I went to along with most of the people on our tour. The cost was 30 Euros for a ticket and our Bus driver drove us to and from the venue. So here are some photos of the show and a quick review. The performance is a combination of Irish step and tap dancing as one would expect to see in larger travelling productions we sometimes get in North America along with traditional Irish Music and Singing of Celtic heritage songs.
All told its quite a variety show that is put together on a single stage. One of the favorite segments for me was a series of songs performed on uilleann pipes Irish bag pipes that use an arm pump for air rather than breathing into the chanter.
