Day 40 Thursday 30 June 2016

While in Waterford, what better way to start the day than visit the Waterford Crystal Glass Factory. We start in the visitor display area (at 8.30 am before it opened for the public) where we look at some very beautiful masterpieces. Some videos were played on the history & story of Waterford Crystal. Our tour guide starts by showing us the mould production area where the wooden moulds for special pieces are manufactured on a wood lathe to exacting measurements, for example, the Irish Open Golf Trophy. We then move on & watch the men blowing glass by pulling the molten glass out of the furnace on the end of a blowing stick & forming large crystal wine glasses free-form. It is amazing how quickly the 4 man team turn out a crystal wine glass. The next stage is where the rough edges are sanded smooth before heading into the marking area. This person has a very demanding job as he has to mark the cutting patterns on the glass objects with marker pen so that the crystal cutters have a guide to work with. The crystal marker & cutter must memorise at least a hundred different patterns – no small feat.

The next phase of the process is the most amazing, there are a team of men sitting in front of diamond plated cutting wheels & they are holding the glass objects by hand & using the spinning cutting wheels to cut the intricate patterns in the crystal glassware. Absolutely amazing watching them cut & how steady their hands & eyes are. We are then shown the area where special one-off pieces are hand-cut & see some objects being worked on, one is the NBA (American Basketball) trophy for next season. The last stage is where the glass is washed, cleaned & checked for any defects. All defective glassware is destroyed & put back into the furnace for re-use. No seconds for sale here. The glass furnaces used to be fired by wood, one of the trees the nearby forests were cut out, it is now all electric.

The tour finished, we are then led into the showroom, all the current range of Waterford Crystal is on display, absolutely beautiful. We spend ages wandering around the showroom admiring the work, most we like a lot, some not so much. The one-off piece that we liked the most was a crystal glass Irish harp made as a display piece – stunning.

After Waterford our next stop is the city of Kilkenny where our Tour Director leads us to an old Irish pub & we are met by an expert, Chunky O’Brien, in the true Irish national game of Hurling. He was very passionate about the game & showed us a video while explaining some of the few rules. It is a very rough contact sport played very fast by a bunch of madmen (or women) with big sticks hitting a little white hard ball (not golf). It was interesting to hear him talk so passionately. Chunky said that when a child (girl or boy) is born the husband takes a small hurling stick & places it in the crib, not give flowers for the Mrs. Afterwards we walked around the old town a bit before stopping for a bite to eat on the riverbank of the Nore River below the walls of Kilkenny Castle.

We walked around the every extensive grounds & gardens of Kilkenny Castle firstly before venturing inside & watching a video of the history of the castle. They have found some evidence of pre Norman dwelling, also there was a wooden castle there before the present stone castle was built by Strongbow who convinced (one way or another) the Irish King to give his daughter, Aoife in marriage to him. It is fortunate that it has been owned over the years by some very wealthy men who have maintained & expanded on the original structure before handing it to the Irish National Trust in the 1950s. The castle looks very impressive, the best so far in Ireland, not bad for a building that was built in 1195, over 800 years ago.

Dublin was our destination for today, a miserable, cold, grey & windy place greeted us. We checked in caught our breath, showered & readied ourselves for a dinner & cabaret show. This was at an old place called Taylors Three Rock, a thatch-roofed former farmhouse, 160 years old, continually used, but modified many times over the years. This could not have been more Irish than all of us hurrying from the coach to the Inn in a lovely Irish mist (I am really starting to think like an Irish.) The dinner was excellent with a glass of Guinness to wash it down, followed by a nice dessert topped off with an Irish coffee, this could become habit forming. The show was even better, a troupe of Irish dancers, 3 men & 3 women, A violinist/drummer, a whistle/flute/ Irish bagpipe player, a women with a wonderful voice who also played the harp superbly & a man that sang in the cast of Les Miserable in London. There was also a very good comedian, he had the audience laughing continually. There were 3 other dancers that stole the show, a cute little boy with glasses & buck teeth along with a little red-headed Irish girl, they both danced superbly. The cutest was the very young boy, no more than 5 years old who danced his heart out, all the audience loved him. Too soon it was all over & back to our hotel by 10.30pm, just as it is starting to get dark. Another great day.