Day 6 – Kilkenny Castle, Famine Ships and Waterford Crystal

Kilkenny Castle

As promised, we toured Kilkenny Castle today and it was fantastic. Definitely one of the best castles we have visited. The castle dates back to 1195 during the Norman times and remained in private hands until after many years, it was  in a state of disrepair, it was sold to the town of Kilkenny in 1967 for 50 pounds. The castle is now managed by the Irish OPW (Office of Public Works) and has undergone quite a bit of restoration since the OPW took over. There is a magnificent dining room and an even more magnificent gallery.

Kilkenny Castle Gallery

One note of good news here is that the car rental company sent us to a local repair shop which replaced the blown fuse in the cigarette lighter outlet and the GPS is working now, which was a great relief. The rest of the trip would have been terrible if we had to drop back to maps and a spotty Google Maps service.

Dunbrody Famine Ship

From Kilkenny, we drove down to New Ross which is further down the Nore River from Kilkenny and not far from the coast. It is the location of one of the few remaining famine ships left from the time of the Irish Potato Famine which is also called the Great Hunger. The potato famine was from 1845 until 1852 when blight hit the potato crop and caused the crop to fail for several consecutive years. The Irish poor depended heavily on the potato for subsistence and hence were driven to starvation. The population of Ireland at the time was 8 million and during the famine 1 million people died and another million migrated to other countries, but mostly to the US. The migration continued for the next 40 years until the population declined to about 4 million and just recently reached 6 million again.

Passenger on the Dunbrody

The ships which carried the Irish to the US were called famine ships but they also were called "coffin ships" because as many 40% of the passengers died on some of the shops. The ship we were on carried as many as 330 people in unbelievably crowded quarters with as many as 8 people sharing a tiny bunk. The voyage took 50 days. In the photo to the left is a reenactor portraying a passenger from one of the voyages. She would have shared the top bunk with her husband and five children. No toilets, only buckets

Worker Hand Engraving a Vase

Our next stop was in Waterford to take a tour of the Waterford Crystal factory. The crystal products are still being made by hand with expert craftsmen and we got to see each of the steps in the process. Given all the detailed steps each product requires, it is easy to see why the finished product is so expensive.

Gift to Barack Obama from the Country of Ireland

Waterford still makes "one of a kind pieces" for special occasions. Some examples we saw were pieces from the Millennial Ball that was created to use in the ball drop on New Year's Eve in Times Square, the NCAA Basketball winner trophy, a gift from Ireland to Barack Obama, a gift from the queen and numerous trophies. By the way, the reason that we could see them is that they always make two extras in case the orginal gets broken by accident. I wish I could show more as there were some amazing pieces.