At every stone circle in Ireland, some kid (or smarty pants grown-up) has created a replica out of a handful of nearby rocks. These mini-ruins always remind me of Stonehenge in Spinal Tap so at Drombeg, I finally gave in and played air guitar. (Photo is on Facebook and will soon be on Flickr as I know the world is a poorer place without it.)

Spent a day bumming around Kinsale, where we ate at Fishy Fishy Cafe and then took a walk in one of the hilly waterfront neighborhoods. One of the great things about Irish towns is that they have awesome street names, like Featherbed Lane. (I want to live on Featherbed Lane.) They also have their share of graffiti, though it doesn’t seem quite as scary when its things like “I’m gonna pop your collar.”

Our last stop was the sprawling Charles Fort which was built in the 17th century and kept in use by the military until the 1920′s. The IRA burned part of it but most of it is still viewable. It’s very cool to see that old of a building in such good shape. Kevin and I were trying to imagine being the guard who had to sit in the lookout tower waiting for bad guys to come sailing onto the horizon; we came to the conclusion that 99.9% of the time it would be slightly less interesting than watching paint dry.

Spent our last night in the area having dinner with some folks from my employer’s Cork branch. (I considered making a phone call from the office so I could write off the trip but I don’t suppose they’d go for that.) The restaurant was nice and I was excited to order a salad — and then I could barely eat. At that point it had been five days of the Irish four food groups: meat, bread, potatoes and Guinness. My body finally Just Said No.

Next day was a long car day, from Kinsale to Dublin. We had time to stop at Glendalough, though, a lake-side monastery founded in the 7th century by St. Kevin (yes, there’s no living with him now). That place is Mecca if you like graveyards. (I took about 200 pictures because I have a thing about graveyards. So do Catholics, and Ireland has a thing about Catholics. So I’ve been having a great time.)

I’ll save Dun Laoghhaire and Dublin for the next post.

[Rachel's gone to the toilet - time for guerilla blog post from me. Food highlights to date: smoked salmon, Guinness straight from the brewery, brown bread with cheese, Bulmar cider, bourbon biscuits, chips in Tralee. Food disappointments: Irish stew is "out of season", pudding - black or white, chips from the east side, the fact that you can buy Coors.]

I see a certain person has been graffiti-ing the Rib. That’s ok; whatever distracts him from the heave of the ferry. I hope we make it to Wales without his own personal kind of heave.