Harbors and Castles

Yesterday afternoon two friends and I took a train down to a quaint little town in East Cork called Cobh (pronounced Cove). Cobh is known as one of the world’s finest natural harbors and has been a port site for many great ships. I did not realize until yesterday that Cobh was the last stop the Titanic made before it sank. Right along the harbor is a cute little heritage center that we went into and walked through a tiny museum that covered the history of the town. It is amazing to learn about how many people emigrated from Ireland compared to the number of people who actually made it to another country. The stories of coffin ships and the hardships of crossing the ocean were gruesome. I’m glad that we have airplanes to use today. After we walked through the town (which took all but 20 minute), we found a taxi that took us to Barryscourt castle.

Although castle is in its name, Barryscourt is actually a tower house, which is smaller than a castle but larger than a plantation. To me, it looked like it was ¼ or ½ the size of castles that we think of today. Barryscourt was the home of the Barry family in the 16th century, and today it still has the original bawn wall and corner towers intact. Everything else within the tower house has been restored to its original form. Looking out the windows from the top floor was absolutely amazing. I think that God chose Ireland to use as His green color palate from which all shades of green come from. I cannot even explain how many different shades you can see just looking out over the countryside. It is absolutely beautiful. I have pictures, but I am having trouble loading them onto my computer, so I will put pictures up as soon as possible.

Today is the tournament game between Cork and Down. The whole town is getting ready by sporting flags everywhere. You can see red and white hanging from apartment windows, car windows, painted on the pubs and on the windows of every shop. This game is definitely Cork’s pride and joy; I’m excited to watch it and be a part of the festivities.