Car tour of Southern Ireland

So we bit the bullet and rented a car for the day yesterday.  After laughing hysterically for a while, we got the hang of it.  Stephen did a good job at staying on the correct side of the road.  (not to mention the controls are all on the wrong side of you).  

Several times going back to the car after getting out we both (though me more than he) tried to get in the wrong side of the car.  We picked up the car from the airport in Cork and drove a big loop around the southern portion of Ireland.

From Cork we went through Macroom, over to Bantry, through Skibbereen, to Kinsale, and back up to Cork.

We didn't get out in Macroom, but I thought the way the town was built into the walls was pretty cool.

All the towns in Ireland and brightly colored, like this one.

Remains of a castle in Macroom

We headed south/southwest from there and passed beautiful lakes, valleys, and even mountains.  This was one river/stream by the road that we pulled off at:

From there we headed to Gougane Barre (pronounced with hard "g" sounds, "goo-gin bar-uh").  This lake is the source of the River Lee, which runs right in front of our hotel and through Cork before heading out to sea.  There's an old chapel on what was once an island, and the doors are open for you to go in.  

There's also a crucifixion memorial.  I don't think memorial is the right word, but here it is:

And here's some pictures from around the rest of the little island:

I find the rock walls fascinating.  Seems like it should just collapse.

Interesting side note: Driving along we passed this nice looking eldery Irishman walking along the side of the road.  With a shotgun in his hand.  A shotgun.  Things you don't expect to see...

Next we stopped at the remains of the Carriganass Castle.  It wasn't open to go into, but we got some nice pictures from the outside.  When we parked, we noticed that we were being watched from the other side of the road:

The legend of the tower of the Carriganass Castle is that its owner, a Gaelic chieftain named Donal Cam.  He was fighting against the English and an English commander, St. Leger, murdered Donal Cam's wife.  After losing a battle, Donal Cam was forced into hiding.  Posing as a monk, he tricked the commander into confessing to his wife's murder and threw him off the top of the tower into the river below.  He supposedly escaped by jumping from the tower to the opposite riverbank.

Seems unlikely that that is a do - able jump

We attempted to find a stone circle in Kealkill, but gave up after driving a long ways down a small road long past the last sign.  Our maps weren't great (and we can't use our phones without huge charges), so we couldn't tell where that road was going to take us.

We stopped for lunch in Bantry in a small restaurant.  Had a fresh bay salmon sandwich that was similar to tuna, but with salmon instead.  Not what I was expecting, but still good.  Speaking of restaurants, it seems like you don't get your check until you ask for it.  Every time we've been out to eat we've had to ask for the check.  Not sure if that's just the way it is or not.

Anywho...continuing on the tour:

Drove for a while and once again attempted to find stone circles (this time the Drombeg Stone Circle), but traffic was diverted around a horse race and we got detoured past where we needed to turn.  Apparently we were not supposed to see stone circles.

Our next stop was a "hey look at that, let's pull over" sight and we were so glad we did.  It was the Timoleague Abbey, an abandoned friary that has since been used as a graveyard.  There were headstones from as early as the 1700s and as recent as the 2000s.  It was abandoned and we saw people when we came and left, but otherwise had the place to ourselves.  It was really neat.

I really wanted to see the ocean (who goes to Ireland without seeing the ocean??) so we headed on a road that we thought would take us by the ocean.  Then we thought we'd missed a turn so Stephen took a random road (but a big road) that was headed towards the ocean.  We came over a hill and there it was!

Then we went to Kinsale (gourmet capital of Ireland, too bad neither of us is really into gourmet) and walked around a little, then came back to Cork.  Ironically we had dinner at a gourmet burger place, after leaving the gourmet capital.   Our burger had brie cheese!  It was good :-)  We had dessert in the bar at our hotel (really really good apple cumble).  And that was our day!  Not bad for our first day in Ireland.  We thought we successfully overcame our jetlag.