Day 15, July 13, 2012

Ireland does not seem to have a dry summer climate like we have in California - quite the contrary in fact. This year, they've had the wettest June in over 100 years. July doesn't seem to be too much different, though we've had some very nice weather. The past couple of days have been rainy.

Today, we're starting out from Waterford and visited the Hook's Head lighthouse. It is reportedly the oldest operational lighthouse in the world. It was constructed around 1210 A.D., which makes it over 800 years old. The walls are 4 meters thick which is over 12 feet.

We discovered that both couples had failed to return their room keys at the B&B we stayed at last night near Waterford. Luckily, it wasn't out of our way to return them and the manager of the B&B seemed very relieved to get them back. We'll try not to do that again.

Breakfasts at B&B's in Ireland are remarkably similar. Most of them serve an "Irish Breakfast" that invariably consists of ham, link sausages, a fried egg, a slightly stewed tomato, and black and white "pudding". The pudding is not all all like the pudding that we have in the U.S. In fact, it's not liquid or even semi-solid. It's more like sausage patties. I'm not sure what's in black or white pudding, but I think it's a lot like hotdogs -- you don't ask.

From Waterford, we headed west toward the city of Cork, although we didn't actually go into Cork. We stopped along the way at Cobh (pronounced like Cove). Cobh was the last port of call on the maiden voyage of the Titanic in 1912. We went to a multi-media presention called 'The Queenstown Story" which told about the emigration of Irish people in the 1800's during perids of famine caused by the failure of potato crops. There were also exhibits about the Titanic as well as the Lusitaania, a British passenger ship that was sunk by a German submarine in 1915. This incident was a prime cause of the U.S. becoming involved in WW1.

Tonight, we're staying near the town of Kinsale. Kinsale is well known for a couple of things. It was the site of the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, in which the great Spanish Armada suffered major losses as did the Irish who lost 1200 men in the battle. The English fared far better, only losing about seven men. The British ship, the Lusitania, was sunk just off the the coast from Kinsale in 1915.