It's lovely when the sun shines

This is what my morning walk with Mitzi is like when the sun shines. We both love it. I sit on the rocks and look at the ocean and try to just "be." And sometimes it even works 😊 I am present, here, and nothing else really matters.

This was what Friday morning was like. Actually it was the third sunny day in a row and, after being thankful and quiet, I was raring to go off somewhere for the day.

After much discussion, R and I decided that we would go to Lismore, a two-hour drive away, and then on to Cahir Castle.

The drive was so beautiful. I am getting good enough at driving that I can actually flick my eyes from side to side and appreciate the hills and the cottages and, yes, even the sheep at the side of the road.

It took a little over an hour to get to Lismore, which is the "seat" of the Cavendish family. They still live there occasionally so the only part of the castle that was accessible were the gardens. We decided that as we wanted to go to Cahir Castle as well, we would just wander around the outside of Lismore, see St. Carthage's Cathedral (and photograph the amazing memorial plaques inside) and then head to Cahir via the Vee Road.

This was the view of the castle from the bridge below.

An interesting tidbit is that Fred Astaire's sister, Adele, married Lord Cavendish and lived at Lismore for many years

 Lismore competes, as does Dunmore East, in the Tidy Towns contest every year. As the name suggests, many Irish towns and villages have committees that oversee projects to beautify their town. They take advice from a national Tidy Towns Committee and every year prizes are awarded for tidiest large town, tidiest small town, tidiest village, etc. There is even a Gum Litter Taskforce Award!! I am actually on the Tidy Towns Committee for Dunmore East. I will be out there this Saturday with my plastic gloves and bag looking for litter.

Anyhow, Lismore won several awards last year including the all-important Gum Litter Taskforce National Award (say that after a couple of pints of Guinness!!) Truthfully, I picked up a few empty soda bottles in the park while I was there but saw nary a wrapper of Dentyne.

Interior of St. Carthage's Cathedral

The cathedral dates from 1633 but the interior speaks of the modern decline of church attendance. The largest part of the church interior is devoted to a library and the most striking thing about the cathedral are the stained glass windows and the memorial plaques. And the churchyard stones are very difficult to read as most are at least a hundred years old and sadly neglected.

Still it was so peaceful and beautiful.

Many of the shops in Lismore were closed, boarded up. Perhaps it is just early in the tourist season and by June things will be bustling. We ate lunch at a local pub and as we were chatting to a man at the next table a very well dressed woman called across in an American accent "And where are YOU from?" I went over to their table and it turned out she and her husband had moved from Illinois to Ireland. We exchanged experiences and they solemnly told us that if we were to buy a house in Ireland, make sure it was no more than 20 years old and then be prepared to completely revamp the heating. Hmmm, not really a surprise.

The final moment in Lismore came when we caught sight of a jeweler's shop called "Joseph Ackroyd Fine Jewelry." Richard wandered in and asked the jeweler if he was related to Joseph Ackroyd. The man looked rather sheepish and said that, although his surname was Ackroyd, his father had only adopted that name during World War 2. As an Austrian emigre to England, he felt it might be politic to change his name. He picked Ackroyd out of a newspaper or something and that was the beginning of THAT particular branch of the Ackroyd family. We had a good chuckle over that.

Back on the road to Cahir, I decided to follow the Vee Road, that winds up a mountain to a lookout where you can see half of Ireland I think.

Yes, there was snow! It had actually snowed the day before. It was quickly melting and driving along the road I had a bit of a time differentiating what was a snow drift on the side of the road and what was a sheep. The sheep are fearless but they do hug the side of the road thank goodness.








Our final stop for the day was Cahir. Richard sketched the Castle while I wandered around a bit. I considered going in the Castle but there isn't much inside it. I learn as much history looking things up on the Web as following the tour guides so I just walked around the town and enjoyed the sunshine.

Copenhagen has its Little Mermaid and Cahir has its . . . Fish. Its full name is "Fish Abounding." It makes more sense than you may think, the ancient Irish name for Cahir is Cathair Dun lascaigh which means "town of the fort of the fishery."

Personally, I think there should be some kind of legend attached to this fish. He looks like he deserves one.

As I scanned through all of my photos, trying to catch my blog up, I realized that we went to Birr Castle this past Monday. So as it is well past midnight, I will once again reserve my pithy comments about Birr for another day.