Tipperary

So this past weekend Kristyn and I were invited to visit our friend Erica in Tipperary at the Gurteen de Peor castle that she’s worked at as an au pair for the past 4 months. Our first mistake for this little excursion was letting this kid Andrew plan it because he was the one we met Erica through and figured he could manage this small trip. Wrong!
First, he said he had found a B&B for €10 a night per person. I asked him where the hell he found such a cheap place and he said that we’d just get one room and put 6 people (our original party size) in there. Why he thought we could sneak 4 people past the B&B owner, let alone fit 6 people in a room for 2 is beyond me. Then he said he knew of a bus to Tipperary that would only be €16 roundtrip, so we figured we’d skip the B&B part and make it a day trip. Saturday morning Kristyn and I meet at the Dart station in Dalkey and get to Connolly Station at the exact time Andrew told us to meet, and don’t you know we sat and waited for him for 30 minutes. We called and texted him tons of times and nothing, so we had to leave and look for the bus station. As soon as we leave he calls us and says that he just got. When we asked where the bus picked up exactly he said, “I dunno. Some hotel that starts with a ‘G’ on O’Connell St.”
-“Um…ok? What town are we stopping in to meet Erica?”
-“I dunno…Kilshee-something.”
Great. We have 20 minutes to find a hotel that starts with a G’ on O’Connell to a town we don’t actually know the name of. Amazingly we found the Grishem Hotel and discovered that the bus to Tipperary picks up in front of it. We called Erica who told us we were looking for a bus to Clonmel and to ask the driver to drop us off in Kilsheelan, which we promptly misinterpret as Kilsheeny (we honestly have no idea how this started). We ask to be dropped off at ‘Kilsheeny’ and he responds, “I’m sorry girls, but I don’t know what the hell you’re trying to say to me…Oh! Wait. Do you mean Kilsheelan?” He gave us our tickets and we sit down for the 3-hour bus ride through Irish countryside. Halfway through Kristyn gets up and asks him to tell us when we’re in Kilsheeny. Yeah, the name still hasn’t sunk in for us.
The driver drops us off; we get off the bus and have our first look around. It is the ridiculously hick farming village. Let me set the scene for you ::banjo plays in the background:: One sad and dirty looking convenient store with a skuzzy bar and even skuzzier bathroom in it, one country road that leads into the actual village and mooing cows surrounding us. This was the first time that Kristyn heard a cow moo at her (she’s from Los Angeles).
We started walking into the village and met Erica, got a cab to Clonmel, get lunch, and discover in an Internet café that the last bus out on Saturdays is at 6:30pm. Since it was already 3pm, there’d be no point in going back so soon. We booked a B&B room and returned to Kilsheelan to walk around the castle grounds and take pictures. Then, as we were planning our fun ‘Girl’s Night Out’, Andrew calls and says that he’s in Kilkenny (about 45 minutes from Kilsheelan) and will meet up with us soon. We can’t believe that he came so late without a place to stay or any sort of plan (okay, so by this point we can believe, I guess). We book him a room in our B&B and when he gets there we go to the castle once more for him and then catch a bus to Clonmel for dinner (Doner or lamb kebabs) and a pint. We all went to a pub across the street from our B&B called Gleeson’s and listen to a band there, have a Guinness and some laughs. Afterwards we go back to the B&B, Erica goes back to the castle, and Kristyn and I go to sleep and dream of our delicious breakfast to come.
We wake to the alluring aroma of sausage and coffee and scurry to get ready to eat. It was glorious. We sat down to a small glass of fresh orange juice and hot French-pressed coffee for me, tea for Kristyn. Then the B&B owner brings us toast with butter and jam. And then! Our full Irish breakfast complete with eggs, bacon, sausage, hash brown, tomatoes, mushrooms, black pudding (alright-tasting) and beans. It was utterly delicious and satisfying.
Afterwards we walked around Clonmel until our bus picked us up to take us back to Dublin.

That was our weekend trip. Sorry it took almost a full week to blog this. I’ve had it written down since Tuesday, but didn’t have a chance to type it and post it on here until just now. The pictures in the previous post are some from our trip to the castle. Hope you enjoyed reading about our strange little trip to County Tipperary. My next trip will be October 4-7 to Galway and the Aran Islands. I hope that I’ll have a post or two between now and then, though.

Cheers!-Katelyn