March 19th - Kildare-Limerick-Ennis, Ireland
We departed early in the morning for the Irish countryside. After driving across the Curragh, our first stop was in horse-racing country. The scenery in the town of Kildare is quite picturesque...rolling green fields filled with sheep, cattle and horses roaming about.
In Kildare, we visited the Irish National Stud where Ireland breeds some world-famous racehorses. The Irish National Stud company is owned by the Irish government and mares from all over the world are transported here to breed with the in-house stallions.
Our tour began with a visit to the paddock reserved for the retired racehorses. Next, we were able to visit the nursery paddocks where the mares and their foals are kept until the foals are about 8 months old. The foals we saw were only a few weeks old and they were so adorable.
On the other end of the property, we visited the stallion paddocks. We learned that if you want to have your mare bred with one of their stallions, then you have to pay a "covering fee". Most of the covering fees are a few thousand euro, but one of the stallions we saw has a covering fee of 60,000 euro. Typically, a stallion's covering fee is determined by how successful his offspring have been in the races. So the more champion offspring he produces, the more expensive his covering fee is. Now, some of the stallions are breeding for the first time, so their covering fee is determined by other factors since they have never produced offspring. Our tour guide so humorously informed us that you can tell if a stallion is good for breeding not just by his own racing accolades, but he should also have "the face of a model, the ass of a chef, and the walk of a hooker".
Another interesting site at the National Stud was the "covering arena" - aka: the honeymoon suite. This is a padded stable of sorts where the mare and the stallion are introduced to each other and make the magic happen. The whole ordeal involves 2 handlers (guys in protective suits) that have to be in there with the horses - now, that would be terrifying. There is another guy that has to sit in a booth and video tape the whole thing as evidence for 2 reasons: #1 - so that the owner of the mare can make sure that she was bred with the stallion that he paid for and #2 - all thoroughbred horses must be bred in this way (no artificial insemination is allowed) so you have to be able to prove that the foal was bred in this way in order for it to be considered thoroughbred.
The Irish National Stud is also home to a beautiful Japanese Garden that we stopped to visit as well.
We continued our drive through the countryside to Cashel where we stopped to see the Rock of Cashel, followed by lunch in one of the local pubs.
On the road again to Limerick, where the aptly named style of poetry was born in a local pub. Apparently, a few of the local men liked to get drunk and write silly poems making fun of each other. On one occasion, they decided to have a bet to see who could write the best poem. They would always write their poems in the same style and meter, and it soon became the traditional poetic style of the town. Thus, the limerick poem was born. We made a stop in Limerick to see King John's Castle. This castle belonged to the same King John who is always portrayed as the "evil" king in the Robin Hood stories.
Just beyond Limerick, we passed by Bunratty Castle, another one of Ireland's many castles.
Unfortunately, a number of Ireland's castles are simply ruins because they were destroyed. However, most of the ruins that remain are left exactly where they once stood, untouched. It is not uncommon in Ireland to see the ruins of a castle on the side of a road or in the middle of a neighborhood. The people just build around them. I'm glad that they do this because it's really cool to be driving down the highway and see a random castle in the middle of a cow pasture. Plus, it preserves a little piece of the country's history.
In the late afternoon, we arrived at our destination for the night, Ennis. We spent the evening wandering around the town Ennis and enjoyed dinner and drinks at one of the local pubs.
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