I have to say, by Monday afternoon we were quite beat.<\/p>\n
St. Patrick was a christian missionary who is largely credited with bring Catholicism to Ireland (and, of course ridding Ireland of snakes).\u00a0 He originally came to Ireland (most likely from England) as a slave when he was in his teens.\u00a0 It is said that he was not quite so pious prior to his time in slavery and found God during the long days and nights working in solitude as sheep tender.\u00a0 He was able to escape slavery and returned to his home where he went on to become a christian priest. He considered it his calling to convert the Irish to Christianity and was sent back to Ireland eventually by Pope Celestine.\u00a0 While, clearly, his calling was largely fulfilled, there were Christians in Ireland prior to St. Patrick’s arrival and there are other missionaries that were also important in the establishment of the Irish Catholic church.<\/p>\n
St. Patrick’s day celebrations seemed pretty widespread.\u00a0 There were parades in most of the nearby towns (including Cork) and there seemed to be a lot of revelry going on all weekend.\u00a0 Lots of flags, shamrocks, and leprechaun costumes.\u00a0 It reminded me of the 4th of July in the US as generally a patriotic kind of celebration.<\/p>\n
In addition to the excitement of a holiday weekend, Saturday was (by far) the loveliest day we have yet experienced in Ireland.\u00a0 Not a cloud in the sky from the moment we woke and warm temperatures.\u00a0 Couldn’t ask for a better day for a bike ride.\u00a0 Bret posted pictures of the ride here<\/a> (and most of the following pics are his). Nevermind the small boot-shaped detour in the southern half of the loop (I swear Bret didn’t take us down the wrong turn).\u00a0 Bandon was a nice little town that I will look forward to going back and exploring again sometime. Although this sort of summarizes how I was feeling after our first long bike ride in a while:<\/p>\n We got home from our ride just in time to watch Ireland eek out a victory over France in the 6 Nations<\/a> Rugby Tournament.\u00a0 Bret and I started following this almost by accident (we happen to be in a pub at the time of the first Ireland match vs. Scotland).\u00a0 We became loyal fans pretty quickly, although Rugby is both a brutal and a complicated sport.\u00a0 We feel like we learned a little more each game.\u00a0 The finale of the tournament pit France versus Ireland.\u00a0 Ireland, France, and England all had the same record going into their last game.\u00a0 England beat Italy resoundingly earlier in the day.\u00a0 As things stood, if Ireland won, they would win the tournament (they had a larger goal differential than England).\u00a0 If Ireland lost, England would win (unless France could outscore Ireland by more than 72 points), but France would hold on to second (they ended up fourth).\u00a0 It was by far the most brutal game of the tournament (at least that we watched).\u00a0 Ireland and France both left a fair amount of blood on the field and fought to the end for a score of 22-20 Ireland.\u00a0 We celebrated the win with dinner and margaritas at our favorite Irish Mexican restaurant.<\/p>\n Sunday morning we got up early to a less than perfect day (clouds were back, but it was not raining).\u00a0 We took the first bus to Skibbereen, a small town in West Cork near the coast. We have noticed that things rarely get going in Ireland before noon or 1pm and Sunday mornings are especially quiet.\u00a0 We wandered around Skibbereen after finding some breakfast. We found a Gaelic Football scrimmage to watch for a bit…\u00a0 super crazy game, sort of a cross between rugby, basketball, and soccer played with a giant volleyball.\u00a0 I am not actually sire there are any rules.<\/p>\n After wandering, we had a pint at the local pub before jumping on a bus to our next destination: Clonakilty.<\/p>\n Clonakilty did not disappoint us.\u00a0 As soon as we got off the bus we wandered in the direction of the closed off street and the loud banjo.\u00a0 We quickly found this:<\/p>\n yes, Heavy Billy on his VW microbus tour. We listened for a bit then took a jaunt around town:<\/p>\n We ended up drawn back to Heavy Billy though, so we found a couple seats with a good view at the wine bar next door.\u00a0 He was soon joined by Chicken George, the dancer.<\/p>\n Turned out, they were the entertainment for some sort of auto race rally, so there were also men and women in auto racing outfits spraying champagne from the top of a double-decker bus.\u00a0 We watched until the festivities started winding down and after dinner, we jumped on the last bus back to Cork.<\/p>\n Monday, the gray skies were pretty solid and we slept in.\u00a0 We roused in time to catch the St. Patrick’s Day parade, although with 100,000 people lined up, we couldn’t find a great place to view it.<\/p>\n We did find some delicious brats and a cup of coffee.<\/p>\n After a long weekend of adventures, we were pretty worn out by the big day, so we had an early night (I know, so anti-climatic.\u00a0 We felt lame, but it was a school night for Bret).<\/p>\n back to reality…. This was the rainfall radar when Bret left to walk to work this morning.<\/p>\n![\"IMG_1590\"](\"http:\/\/bretandemily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/IMG_1590-1024x1024.jpg\")
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