Our Honeymoon in Ireland Part 2

Canon 1v + Kodak Portra 400 & 800 film

Ballyvolane House

We spent one night at Ballyvolane House which is where we did our honeymoon photos! I was in LOVE with this place. The house is so beautiful & we made friends with the other family staying there (from Tampa!) and the owners Justin & Jenny were so sweet and they took us to the pig & chicken coop in the morning after breakfast which was fun to see and photograph. The staff there is also INCREDIBLE. Its only 45 minutes from Cobh/Cork which really isnt bad if you want to stay in a quiet place but still want to go and do things. The Jameson distillery is only 25 minutes away in Midleton.

One of their dogs, Pepper, followed us around the entire time we were at the house (well, outside at least) and Jay loved her. They became best Irish friends.

Justin & Jenny also own Bertha’s Revenge, a gin distillery. Jay doesnt like gin, but he tried it and since its milk based, he loved it and drank Bertha Revenge for the rest of our trip. They just started importing it to NYC so he hopes that it makes its way to the rest of the US so he can keep having a bit of his new favorite Irish drink.

Limerick & Adare

Im going to say it: We could have skipped Limerick. We spent 2 days in our hotel room just relaxing because we couldnt find anything to do one day and the other day it rained/hailed. Adare was pretty cool but the manor was closed (its a hotel) to the public while it was going under renovations so I was bummed I didnt get to see the grounds. The rest of Adare was pretty cute but it was small so we pretty much saw everything in a few hours. Before arriving in Limerick we did stop by some castle ruins on the outskirts of town and that was cool to hike up!

Cliffs of Moher

Now when people ask us if we’ve been to the Cliffs of Moher we can say “YES”. We went on a GORGEOUS afternoon (the next day was shitty, rainy, windy) and though I was terrified to walk on the “adventurous path”, I did it! We stayed until sunset which was great because by then 90% of the tourists were gone and it was quiet and peaceful.

Charleville Castle / Tullamore

Ooooh shit guys. Charleville Castle. We stumbled upon it by accident but let me backtrack. We traveled the backroads as much as possible on both of our trips to Ireland and on our way to our next spot we would either see a sign for something interesting and follow it or I would pull up Attractions Near Me on our GPS, which is really what I did for this trip. So I would find a castle, put it in the GPS then Google it only to be disappointed to learn that it was a hotel (weird to just show up and gawk at) or a private home.

So on our way back to Dublin we took the backroads. We passed a sign called Tullamore and a castle was behind it. Jay said “Hey wanna find that on the GPS and see whats up?” I replied “No its probably someones fucking house, lets just get to Dublin, we’re staying at a castle there” and so he continued driving for about 5 minutes. I decided to Google Tullamore Castle because the more I thought about it, the more I felt like I’d heard of it somewhere before. When I pulled up the Wiki page I gasped loudly and shouted “TURN THE CAR AROUND!!! WE HAVE TO GO TO THAT CASTLE!!!!”

Guys. Its like super fucking haunted. Of COURSE I’ve heard of this castle before, Im a paranormal nerd. Jay then reminded me that it was Easter Monday and it probably wasnt open but I pulled up their Facebook page and saw that it said it was open but Easter Monday might effect the schedule. I told him to go anyway and it better be open or so help me…

It was open (-:

We joined the next tour which was given by a paranormal investigator! So I really really loved that we got not only a history tour but a ghost tour as well during the day! The incredible ballroom was used in a scene of The White Queen (the ceilings are insane).

The ghost story that I heard long before our trip was about Harriette, who died in the castle when she was almost 8 years old in 1861. She was told to go upstairs to wash her hands and decided to come back down by sliding down the bannister, but she fell 3 floors to her death. We were also told that the anniversary of her death was the next day.

Clontarf Castle in Dublin

And thus we have reached the end of our honeymoon! We spent the night in Clontarf Castle in Dublin and it was a really quirky artsy hotel that still had that historic castle charm and I loved staying here! We explored the grounds a bit (didnt have much time since we detoured to Charleville Castle for a while!) and then we had to leave by 5:30 for the airport (ugh) but I would love to stay here again! Their branding was amazing.