Day 5 - Kilkenny

The Irish House Party Band

I’m going to start with a photo from last night in Dublin. We went to something called the “Irish House Party” which, I suppose, was supposed to be like going to someone’s house for dinner followed by the group getting together and playing music and dancing.  Of course these were professional musicians and the young lady demonstrated some traditional dancing (think Riverdance) and also a dance with a push broom that they called a “brush dance.” I’ll point out some of the unique instruments they used. The guy on the left is demonstrating the Bodhrán (an Irish frame drum) and the guy to his left is playing the Uilleann pipes (pronounced “illin”). That is an instrument similar to bagpipes but you don’t blow into them and they have a much more pleasant sound, kind of like pipes or maybe a flute. They did many of the traditional songs tourist would think of such as “Danny Boy” and “Molly Malone,” plus some jigs and some drinking songs. The whole evening was very entertaining.

Smithwick's Red Ale

Now back to day 4. All in all a good day but we did hit some bumps here and there. The weather was fantastic again today and above 70F which is pretty unusual for here. It was our first day on the road and that’s where the problems started. We had to wait one hour to get the shuttle bus to get the car and then after we left the lot we realized that the cigarette lighter socket didn’t work and hence my GPS died when its charge ran out. We ended up driving blind through Dublin which was an experience. Not very happy with Sixt rental car right now.

The River Nore in Kilkenny Passing by the Castle

We did ultimately arrive in Kilkenny a couple of hours behind schedule. Kilkenny is a lovely small town with a medieval feel that is only about 2 hours from Dublin. With reduced time to tour due to the delays, we only had time to walk through a little of the medieval part of town, tour Smithwick's brewery and finally take a tourist tram around town. The ale tasting was great and the Smithwick's Red Ale is my favorite beer in Ireland so far. They also have a fine castle which we will tour tomorrow.