Adare, Cheese and Kilkenney

What our ferry ride felt like

The waters were rough on our ferry voyage from the Aran Islands back to the mainland. We realized it was not just us having a rough time when we saw the crew bringing vomit bags to the garbage cans. We made it back to the mainland and to our surprise the boat picked up more passengers to make a return voyage to the Aran Islands. We tried to warn them that the waters were rough but they all boarded. In my Aran Island history books it is often stated that the Aran Islands have been beaten on by the ocean for their entire history. We got a very small taste of that on the ferry.

Back on the mainland we returned to the Ivy Cottage in Doolin for a lunch of fish and chips and salmon salad and made a stop at the sweater shop for a quintessential Irish souvenir, a knit sweater.

Fish, so much fish

I didn't buy this sweater but this is the sweater shop

And then we were back in the car to make our way to Adare, allegedly one of the most beautiful towns in Ireland complete with thatched cottages. We arrived in Adare after a rocky journey of narrow roads where we would stay in the Dunraven Arms hotel. It dated to the 1700’s and claimed to be one of the oldest buildings in the town.

Dunraven Arms Hotel

 Like many places one could tour multiple attractions on the limits of the town but we arrived fairly late and just wanted a bite to eat. Our options were pubs, and super fancy restaurants. So we decided on a Chinese restaurant with good yelp reviews. The waitress was Chinese so we had a lengthy conversation about touring china and Chinese food before she whisked away to the kitchen to put an order in for two dishes not featured on the menu that were more traditional than the public offerings.

Thatched Cottage in Adare

The town of Adare is esthetically pleasing and full of old ladies. You can actually organize a foxhunt from the town and that’s what the tourists looked like, Victorian wannabe foxhunters. The shops reeked of old lady perfume and offered no wares of interest to us. It’s also a pretty small town so after walking the strip a couple of times and admiring the thatched cottages you’ve done it. So I quickly tired of Adare and was a bit frustrated by it. I felt as though I’d stepped into a bit of a tourist trap and we planned on departing early in the morning and moving on. Perhaps it was a bit of a culture shock to go from one of the most remote places in Ireland to a well trodden tourist town.

After dinner we saw people walking around with marvelous looking ice cream cones. Not seeing an ice cream shop I knocked on the window of a car containing two older adults enjoying ice cream and they pointed us to the Centra which is the Irish equivalent of a 7/11.

We found the ice cream cone section in Centra where ice creams were advertised as "Smoochies". I had a lot of fun ordering our "smoochies" and said smoochies as many time as I possibly could. The smoochie worker didn't bat an eye. 

The next morning we left immediately after the delicious hotel breakfast complete with cheesy scrambled eggs, cheese, and lemon curd. Our itinerary for the day was the Rock of Cashel, Cashel Blue Cheese headquarters and then our lodging right outside of the medieval town of Kilkenney. By the time we reached the Rock of Cashel we were in the midst of the traditional cloudy Irish rainy weather. The rock of Cashel is a historic chapel that lost its roof quite some time ago so the rain was little annoying. 

Rock of Cashel

Inside the Rock of Cashel

But we got it done and then headed off to hunt down the Cashel Cheese Headquarters.

I discovered Cashel cheese in my normal ass local Kroger grocery store. One day I read the little store printed label which stated that Cashel was the only blue Cheese in Ireland and the cheesemakers were kicked out of England 300 years ago. After reading the label I then went to google which confirmed the grocery store label. Then when I was planning our trip to Ireland I noticed that the town of Cashel was on our way from Adare to Kilkenney and that it was the town where the Cashel Cheese was produced!

Tours of the cheese factory were advertised as available on Mondays and Tuesdays which fit our schedule perfectly. The GPS was able to get us to the town of Cashel but not to the cheese factory. The website had stated that the factory could be hard to find and this proved to be true. After knocking on a stranger's door and later flagging down a tractor that turned out to have not only the farmer but his child, spouse and dog in it we found Cashel Cheese. 

Victory

We had arrived at the Cheese factory just after three other people. They were watching a video on the cheese making process in a large room displaying cheese paraphernalia. One of the Cashel workers came out and told us to watch the video and then disappeared again. He reappeared five minutes later with a tray of tea which he set down on the long wooden table in the center of the room. I was closest to the tea so I poured myself and Joseph a mug and then set about serving everyone else tea as well. One of the strangers who was British commented that I was acting as mother serving tea and thanked me. 

Once the video ended and everyone was sitting enjoying the tea, the Cashel representative reappeared and asked us if we would like to sample some cheese. Of course we all did.  We'd gone out of our way to find this hidden cheese factory. He fished a giant block of cheese out of his cheese fridge unwrapped it and started sawing off chunks of blue cheese with a knife which we all accepted by removing it from the knife. And then the six of us had a cheese and tea party for the next hour or so. We talked about cheese, travel, cows, and politics. One of the visitors was a german diplomat, one was English, and one was Welsh. These three were friends. We apologized and expressed shame at our president and they laughed and told us at least your guy is funny, ours is an idiot. I guess that made me feel better about the American political situation.  

And then we were off to Bennettsbride, a little town outside of Kilkenney where we would be staying in an airbnb that was a converted stable.