KILKENNY, County Kilkenny, Aug. 4, 2013 – We began our day in Dingle, my favorite Irish town so far, remembering the sweet sounds of traditional Irish music and the screams of laughter from two groups of costumed young women out for bachelorette parties that crashed O’Flaherty’s Pub last night. It was another travel first, sipping Irish beer while watching young women dressed in “Where’s Waldo?” red-and-white stripes guzzle Coors Lite over ice and play ring toss with a three-foot-long inflatable BEEEEP!  Mitchell declined to take a toss.

Today was a day mostly spent on Irish roads, from the narrow mountain road over spectacular Connor Pass on the Dingle Peninsula to the controversial M8 superhighway that skirts too close to the ancient Rock of Cashel. (Note from Courtenay – it was a super great freeway! Best road in Ireland! J Rick says I’m an un-eco-conscious ugly American, but I guess I’ll have to live with that label.) We left Dingle at 9:30, retraced our route to Tralee, cut past busy Killarney and buzzed through Marrow and Mitchelstown, whereupon we took a brief break. Will, already road-weary, took advantage of this timely roadside stop to puke. That makes two Western European nations—Italy and Ireland—that he has graced in this manner. Not to mention Japan…

We rolled into the town of Cashel about 2 p.m., had a minor tired-couple argument over the choice of parking lots, endured a fairly bad pub lunch and made our way up the hilly town to the Rock of Cashel, an acropolis topped with the ruins of a castle, an ancient cemetery and three different eras of Christian churches dating back to 1100 AD. The sun was shining as we sat together on a rock wall at the edge of the cemetery, an iconic round tower above us, sweeping views of Irish farms below, taking in the place that has been at the center of so much Irish history. (Note from Courtenay: we only got to sit there for about five minutes. Then we got to get back on that super-good super-fast super-convenient M8 freeway and scream off to our next B&B)

With Mitchell navigating, an hour or so later we entered Kilkenny, a mid-sized Irish town that dates back to medieval times, and made our way down busy narrow streets lined by shops, bars and restaurants, to our hotel, the Butler House. (Note to Yosuke: I drove this on Google Maps before we came and it rocked to know where we were going!) The hotel backs up to Kilkenny Castle, one of Ireland’s great restored castles. We huffed our bags inside and up several flights of stairs, the friendly hotel proprietor, Richard, gently steered us away from our planned dinner destination (bad pub grub, he said) and found us two tables at a terrific Italian restaurant, Rinuccini’s. After a big meal including handmade pasta and much liquid refreshment, Gene headed for a self-guided tour of the huge wine cellar beneath the main floor of the restaurant. We were worried that the fire trucks outside had been called to deal with this intruder.

After dinner, we wandered across the street to the beautiful grounds of Kilkenny Castle, which was carpeted with Irish-green grass and stately oaks and maples. We approached a low stone wall that looked down on the river that makes a slow turn in downtown Kilkenny. A lone kayaker made his way downriver. It was all beautiful and serene, and then Mitchell looked across the river and saw something floating on the far bank. It was, naturally, a large foam BEEEP!, one even lengthier than the unit that was in play in Dingle. What is it with this country?

As if in answer, the funny, gregarious guard named Matt O’Neill who ushered us off the grounds of the castle as the park was closing told us the key to understanding Ireland. His country, he said, is like one of those stubborn door locks that is reluctant to open. So here’s the secret, he said, to gaining access to the real and true Ireland. With a big grin, miming shaking a key in a frozen lock, he said, “You just have to give it a jiggle.”