We didn’t see any Leprechauns on this day, but we did see a 7’ tall one on Day 1.  And that was before I discovered the Honey Mead.

Our first stop of the day was at Inch Beach in Dingle Peninsula.  This is a beach that has many interesting rocks turned up by the collision of the continental shelves.  Just walking along the beach I found a quartz rock.  Supposedly geologist love this beach because of all the deep earth rocks that you can just find laying around.

After that we travelled to our final hotel of the trip, Dromoland Castle.  Now when I heard we were staying at a castle on this trip, I thought it was just a tourist trap type of castle.  Like Excalibur in Las Vegas or something similar.  But upon arrival at Dromoland Castle, I was proven wrong, VERY wrong.  This castle is a real castle that was built in 15^th or 16^th century.  Thankfully they’ve added running water and electricity, but it has still retained it’s “castleness” feel to it.  Our bedroom for the stay was in the northern tower in the 2^nd to top floor.  Our room was the entire floor of the tower.  This was easily the most impressive hotel I have ever stayed at.  The grounds of the hotel sits on 350 acres of land, which has an 18 hole golf course, a walled garden, skeet shooting, seasonal hunting, etc..  Everything you’d expect of a castle.

That evening we went over to Bunratty Castle, which hosts a Medieval Time style dinner and entertainment.  I was named King of Leinster for the nights festivities.  The royal table requested and received honey mead instead of the normal red & white wine that is normally served.  And this king partake mightily of the mead, and got exceedingly drunk… it’s good to be the king.  There was a bit of regret the next morning, but I recovered.

Word of the day—Limerick, an often humorous five line poem.

We spent a good bit of time on the coach today, and our movie of the day was “Darby O’Gill and the Little People”.  Our first stop of the day was Inch Beach were we spotted kayakers frolicking in the (cold!) water.  I picked up some shells that our local guide identified as cockles, clams, and a razor clam.  After another pub lunch, we picked up a second sheep for our guides—we had found out that lambs are often twins, and besides, a custody battle was breaking out over the first lamb between the guides.  The first lamb I named Lanolin, but got renamed Shlanolin (to go with Sheepie and Shmeary), and the second lamb was named Sean.  I picked up a lovely bit of Irish crochet lace for my china hutch at the visitor center, then it was off to Dromoland Castle which truly is one of the highlights of our tour.

We managed to get a tower room, and we feel like royalty!  It’s up a narrow little staircase which is behind a door.  It’s almost like staying in a secret room!  Since we’re in a tower, there’s just one room on our floor.  Our guides told us the rooms were assigned by chance, but we felt we’d gotten preferential treatment since we’re returning tourers—our room is fabulous!

Dinner was at a neighboring castle that does medieval style banquets.  Four kings and queens of Ireland were chosen, and David and I were the King and Queen of Leinster!  We sat at the High Table in thrones, except the “naughty” king and queen of Colchester who’d apparently been raiding his neighbors, and so had to sit at a regular table.  The kings got capes, and crowns that they were told to pass to their queens at the end of the meal.  There was lovely singing and music for we kings and queens of Ireland, and lots of wine and mead.  David got a bit drunk on the mead—tis good to be the king! 

Once back at the hotel, David and I went on a ghost hunt to the hermit’s hut, where we stood in total darkness waiting for any stray bubbling ghost cauldrons or hidden clergy.  We were disappointed—there were no spirits besides the one David had over-indulged in!