Cashel Rock Carraig Phádraig

On August 25, I took a trip to Cashel Rock and Blarney, but I will divide the day nto two blogs.  I really liked Cashel Rock a lovely ruin out in the county of Tipperary.

As you can see it is quite an imposing structure as you come up to it and is a remarkable 12th century castle in reasonably good shape.

 

The round toweer that you see in the center is the oldest structure on the grounds, dating from1100. It was built without mortar (although some of it has now been cemented together for safety.

Evidently the Abbot of Regensburg sent carpenters to help with the construction of the Cormacs Chapel which has two towers, a type of construction not used in Ireland.

There is also a large residential area near the Cathedral and chapel.

 

The gothic arches are stunning.

 

Once again, the images say far more than I can.

 

Here you can see the grave yard on the northern side of the keep.

  

The cathedral was built between 1235 and 1270.

Here is a model of the castle and its various buildings.

 

Various rooms were nicely decorated with period(-type) furniture and objects.

 

Unfortunately the frescoes were painted on sandstone, which is quite porous and absorbs water, so most of them were in terrible condition. 

 

A roof was built over them to protect them, but as you can see there isn't too much left to look at.

This is what you are looking at.

Here are some carvings  nearby.

The museum has some of the carvings and structures which were removed for their own protection.

Near the castle is a lovely cafe named Granny's Kitchen, with a charming  host. We had a lovely chat about the state of education, as he used to teach school in Ireland.

The cafe had historic photos on the wall, like this old one of the castle many years ago.

After a wonderful cup of coffee it was time to continue on to Blarney.