Counties Wicklow, Kilkenny, and Waterford

In county Wicklow we stopped at the Ballyknocken House cookery school, for a demonstration by the owner, Catherine Fulvio, on how to make scones. 

 Catherine has been on the Today show and currently has a show in Ireland. 

It was interesting, she did a few things differently than I do. I took some notes, so i will have to give it a try. 

She cut the butter into smaller pieces above the bowl and then would take handfuls of flour and rub it in with her hands.  Very interesting!

 After the demonstration with to "volunteers" from the group who helped her bake, we had Barry's tea with the scones and ginger rhubarb jam.

Back on the bus,  we headed to our next stop

Kilkenny for a less than two hour lunch stop. 

Katherine and I skipped lunch (we had the scones and breakfast that day already) and instead went to tour the castle. The original castle dates to the 12th century, but the interior is a Victorian redo. 

That took most of the time, unfortunately, so we didn't have time to explore more.  This was one of the few stops where I really had wished we had extra time.

At Waterford, we skipped the tour of the Waterford  crystal factory since we did it in 2013, and instead walked to two churches in town.  First we walked to Christ Church, which was pretty and had loads of chandeliers, Waterford I'm guessing. 

This church has the tomb of James Rice, a 15th century mayor of Waterford, who was buried and then planned for his body to be dug up one year later and the tomb to show what his body looked like at that point. The effigy of his decaying corpse has worms and frogs crawling over it. 

From there we walked to the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, which was also very pretty with chandeliers. 

(beautiful Waterford Passion scene)

 The stations of the cross were painted on pillars throughout the church, which was pretty cool. 

We even had time to wander in the Waterford shop afterwards. 

 After checking into our 18th century hotel building, 

we went on our second optional excursion pub visit, this time to the small town of Dunmore East. 

 This little fishing village was cute with thatched roof mud houses. 

 We traveled up via the bus to Hayes tavern (or Aggies) a thatched roof pub! The entertainer was really good, funny and had a good voice.

(The line for more booze)

After two ciders it was back to the hotel for a three coarse dinner followed by Irish coffee. 

 Another group of of women traveling together recommended that we go to a pub behind a 13th century tower and to ask for a Muldoon's shot. This whiskey was hazelnut flavored and delicious (they asked if we wanted to go with them to try one shot before bed). It was really, really good.

 On the way back, I took a few nighttime pics, including of the tower.

And then it was back to the hotel.