Day 6: Limericks and Leprechauns

Ahhh today was a very relaxing day.  We had nothing planned except for dinner.  There was an optional tour of Dromoland Castle, but that's it.  We didn't really get much of a chance to sleep in though because we wanted to go on the optional tour.  However, having attended it, I wish we had slept in.  It was pretty short and we didn't learn too much.  Following the tour we came back to our marvelous room and relaxed.

We made lunch reservations at the restaurant by the golf course, where we had dinner last night.  It took us awhile to figure out how to get in there, but we made it.  I ordered a dish that I had had as an appetizer the night before, but they apparently were out of salmon and didn't tell me.  They just piled the shrimp and mayonnaise sauce on there hoping I couldn't see or wouldn't notice.  I did.  Our waiter was apparently embarrassed by this, since he suggested I get it, that he never came back.  The woman who finally helped us took it off the bill. 

Following lunch we decided to kill some time before heading to our Falconry appointment at 4, so we rented some bikes.  Of course the bike I got stuck with only had a break working for the front tire and got stuck on one gear.  I was thinking there was a lot to see, but there wasn't really much.  This terrain was also more rough, so I was pretty much dying by the time we returned the bikes.

Here is a beautiful rose that they have on the grounds here:

The coolest thing we did however was falconry.  We walked around with a guide and he discussed with us his trade.  Our guide, Jim, has only been working with the falcons for about a year, but loves it.  Apparently falconry wasn't really big in Ireland because the hawks that they have here are called Sparrow Hawks and they are difficult to train and do not really like people.  As a result the castle doesn't use them.  They import more friendly birds.  The bird that we went with was named Tonto and he was a Harris Falcon.  Tonto was four years old and came to Dromoland through many hands so Jim wasn't sure how well he was going to do, but he was marvelous. 

We walked around and Jim would put a piece of cow's tongue on our glove and Tonto would fly to it.  There were times that he would knock it off the glove and fly down to the ground and walk around a little bit.  It was soooooooooo cool!  Apparently when they were filming Jurassic Park, they studied falcons and hawks (the raptor birds) and their movements to have a better understanding of the raptor dinosaur's movements.

After hawking we had to get ready for dinner.  For dinner we travelled to another castle and participated in a "medieval" Irish dinner.  It was so ridiculous.  I'm positive polyester wasn't a common "fabric" in medieval times.  The food was good, but that's about the only nice thing I can say about it.  It was just really touristy and long.  It was no Medieval Times, haha.

Note: Dad, I think that you need to come to Ireland.  Apparently they love golf.  There are about a million golf courses here and they are all on beautiful lots.  And if you happen to do that, The-Person-I-Am-Travelling-With and I would love to come back.  There are definitely places that we would like to spend more time visiting.  Just saying...