Our first stop is Nenagh, the largest town in North Tipperary. While it once was a small market town, today it is a busy commercial one. The chief attraction is the Nenagh Castle (picture above) which took 25 years to built (1220-1225) as a Norman keep by the royal Butler family. Currently, a project is under way to redecorate the castle and its surroundings, advertising it as a major tourist attraction.
To find out more, visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nenagh
After Nenagh we find ourselves in the etherally beautiful Howth and the Howth (pronounced to rhyme with the word both) Peninsula. Howth was originally a tiny fishing village, but today it is a lively suburb of Dublin which spans most of the north part of Howth Head Peninsula.
The past of the town is shrouded in legends. Like the story of the female pirate Grace O'Malley (left in the picture) who was denied entry to Howth Castle in 1576, so she abducted the Earl of Howth's grandson and as a ransom extracted from the Earl the promise that unanticipated guests would never be turned away again.
To find out more, visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howth
As Krystian is an archaeologist, our next stop are the scenic ruins of the monastery of Clonmacnoise in county Offaly (in Irish Cluain Mhic Nóis; meaning "Meadow of the Sons of Nós). The monastery was built in 545 by Saint Ciarán and at that time it bristled with buildings and high Irish crosses, but today, few of them are still intact. One of them is the Cross of the Scriptures, one of the most skillfully executed sandstone crosses.
If you wish to find out more, visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clonmacnoise
Our last "port" of call for today is Killaloe, a town in the midwest of Ireland known as the birthplace of Ireland's famous High King Brian Boru. Although his exact date of birth is shrouded in mystery, he was reportedly born in 941 to a royal family. As both his father and his brother passed away untimely, he became the King of the kingdom of Munster in 1002. By 1011, he was the ruler of all the kingdoms in Ireland then. However, other kings rebelled against his rule and although the rebels were defeated in 1014 in the Battle of Clontarf, Boru died. He is burried in the grounds of the St. Patrick Cathedral in Armagh.
To find out more, visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killaloe%2C_County_Clare
All in all, after this magnificent journey from my armchair, I can safely say that pictures convey more than thousand words.
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