Good bye Dublin, hello Cork.

We had planned our departure time from Dublin so that we might attend Mass in an Irish Catholic Church.  After much searching we found that University Catholic Church was around the corner from Albany House across from St Stephen's Green. When we arrived we learned that the Mass was at 11am, just the time we had to get the taxi to the train station.  But the church was open so we went in for some quiet time before carrying on with our trip.  The choir was was practicing with the organist in the choir loft at the upper back of the church and the sound was like angels singing.  I stopped to light a candle on my way out and there was a statue of my favourite saint, St Anthony, complete with the words to his prayer, next to the votives. 

 We caught the train at noon and after a very pleasant 2 1/2 hour train journey we arrived in Cork.

Ed used his time to work on his new hobby, writing limericks.  On yesterday's coach tour, as we passed through Limerick, our driver asked the passengers to write a limerick.  Ed did write one, which the driver read out, but like most limericks, it is not fit for polite company.

We checked into Garnish House and then set off to find the Court House in central Cork where Ed was to pick up the race package for the Cork Half Marathon. 

On our Bucket List of things to do in Ireland was go to a pub playing traditional Irish music and attend Sunday Mass.  We thought that we might have to scratch those off our list.  But after being in Cork for less than an hour, we had managed to do both. Approaching city centre we could hear a Catholic Mass being conducted over loudspeakers.  Today was Corpus Christi and the main street had been closed and a temporary alter set up so that they could celebrate. 

Walking past Charlie's Pub we could hear traditional music being played inside.  We looked in an there was a circle of musicians having a session.  A few are missing from the photo, they kept

 popping out to have a fag between songs. (by the way, that is a glass of diet coke, not Murphy's Stout in the photo).
Our guest house is a 25 minute walk to the centre of town and kitty corner to University College Cork.  Fortunately for us most of the 15,000 students have left campus for the summer so hopefully it will not be too noisy.
Tonight we dined at the Indigo Brasserie where Ed was able to carbo load - pasta, bread and Murphy's Stout.  After dinner it was a walk around the grounds of the College.