Day Four - Crystal
- Erin Nixon
- Apr 27
- 6 min read
It’s time to say goodbye to Dublin as I start my circumnavigation of Ireland! The first stop is Kilkenny Castle, about an hour and a half drive from Dublin, and the castle opens at 8:30 am. So to make sure I have as much time as possible for stops today, I woke up at 6 am and was packed and checked out by 6:45.
The parking garage set me back about $100, but what are you going to do…parking for two days in the busiest part of Dublin. At least I didn’t have to go all the way out to the airport again to get the car. Time is money!
I got on the road right at 7 am and was on my way out of town in no time. This was my first time getting out into the countryside and it’s just as beautiful and green as you would imagine. I also got to really get moving, as the speed limit is 120 kmh (75 mph). Several roundabouts later I decided to stop for gas just outside Kilkenny, and y’all, we have to stop complaining about gas. It’s $7.97/gal here, and that was the cheapest I found. It’s a good thing this country is fairly small. This fuel tab is going to hurt.
I found some street parking outside the castle and bought a ticket online to tour the castle at 9:15. Kilkenny Castle has been carefully preserved and restored in places, and it’s fascinating to see the way they’ve carefully preserved not only what’s left of the house’s original decoration, but painstakingly redrawn wallpaper, had the original designs remade by the original manufacturers of the carpets, and used scraps of wall hangings to have new ones remade. Just amazing restoration work that took decades and I can’t even imagine how much money.
I was today years old when I discovered the extinct Irish Elk were an actual thing. And this set of antlers unearthed from a bog is going to haunt my nightmares. 10+ feet is ENORMOUS.
The castle also has a beautiful little park that was lovely and serene this early in the morning. The guide had said to allow for an hour, but I was able to go through the house in about 30 minutes (likely because there was no one there).
I still had a lot of driving and touring to do, so I got back on the road and headed to see the Rock of Cashel, about an hour away. A few miles outside of town I found the tiny country roads I had been expecting and…oof. I’ve gotten much better at driving on these roads since I was terrifying Dad on our drive around Scotland, but they were narrow. I navigated my way to Cashel through the beautiful countryside and the florescent yellow fields of rapeseed growing everywhere. You never get used to how startlingly yellow the flowers are. I saw the Rock far before I got there. It’s enormous, and an absolutely imposing feature amongst the surrounding landscapes of green fields and farmland.
Rapeseed is used to make cooking oil, and is an absolute insane color of yellow when it’s blooming. That doesn’t even look real…
The Rock of Cashel is a fortified castle on a hill from the Middle Ages that was the seat of the King of Cashel and at least one of those kings went on to become King of Tara, the ancient seat of power in ancient Ireland. It was later gifted to the church and became the Rock of St. Patrick, since St. Patrick performed the coronation rights of one of the Kings of Cashel there. So it’s a fortified cathedral surrounded by a burial yard and you can see the surrounding area for miles around.
I (finally) located the parking lot and hiked up the hill to the entrance. This place is naturally fortified, with enormous boulders all around that would have made it very difficult to attack. The curtain wall has arrow slits you can look through, and from one side it looks down on the ruins of Hore Abbey. The Rock has fallen into ruins since the 1100s but it is still impressive and walking through it, with the ravens perched up on the gravestones, made me feel like I was walking back through history…or a Poe novel…maybe both?
The Abbey is waaay down there.
After the Rock it was time to get back on the road for the final driving leg of the day, to Waterford! More country roads with a few highways thrown in there, but largely uneventful after the myriad of roundabouts. I parked in the lot across from the Dooley Hotel and left my bags in the car since it was only 1 pm and too early to check in, so I booked a ticket for the House of Waterford and walked down the street to go see the world’s finest crystal being made!
Waterford Crystal is the Tiffany’s of glassware and they make everything from Christmas ornaments to trophies to the thousands of crystal tiles that make up the Time’s Square New Year’s Ball. The port is really beautiful and historic, but this was the real reason I came.
While I waited for my factory tour I got to browse through the shop and it’s unbelievable how beautiful these objects are. The factory in Waterford is where they make the one of a kind pieces, and several of these were on display in the shop. It was a very good thing I couldn’t get much in my suitcase because I would have taken so many things home…
Nothing like several thousand dollars worth of glassware just casually hanging out… Backpacks in FRONT.
After I pulled myself away from the displays, it was time to go see the actual factory. It’s remarkably small, because this location really only makes the one of a kind pieces and a few of the “everyday” (HA!) pieces. We got to see the wooden and the cast iron molds, got to watch the glass blowers making the blanks, the polishers that finish the blanks after they’ve been blown, the marking workshop where they make the design lines, and then we got to see the cutting and carving studios. This place is insane. It takes 8-10 years to become a master at any one of these skills.
Blowing into a mold.
Finishing the blanks.
Marking the designs.
These are two of the glass tile designs on the Time’s Square New Year’s Ball. The triangle was the old one, and the circular one is the new (current) one.
Look at how insane this is???
Cutting and grinding. Look at all those different types of cutting disks!
We watched as they carved the lines onto some glassware and then got to see the studio where they make the asymmetrical art pieces, like the crystal eagles they are making a limited number of for the U.S. 250th anniversary. So many amazing pieces I didn’t know where to look next…
Literal glass art. They even use a sandblaster for a different texture.
When the tour finished up I picked up my purchases and as I was leaving, the hotel called to say my room was ready. Perfect timing. I walked back to the hotel and on the way took some pictures of the Viking era tower in Waterford (which was originally called Vedrarfjordr - windy fjord), since Waterford was once a huge port city.
I got my bags on the way and checked in. The hotel is an absolute maze and the walls are paper thin, but the room itself is huge. I unpacked my checked back and repacked it with some of the souvenirs I had gotten (my bag situation was getting out of control), and then put it back in my car and went I search of an early dinner. There’s a pub I scoped out for some music tonight at 9 pm, but I’m not going to last that long without actual food.
I had passed the Granville Hotel bar and it had a pretty good menu, so I stopped in for a cider and steak…and a Jameson. The bar/restaurant has a very well preserved dark wood Victorian vibe that was a lot of fun to sit and enjoy.
How nice it is to be in a country with good cider on tap.
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