When we arrived in Ireland and met up with our friend, Brandie, we puttered around a little in Dublin, which you can read about by clicking here. Then we rented a car and ventured a little south of Dublin where we saw the amazing gardens and waterfall of Powerscourt. We stopped off at the ancient, mysterious ruins of the Glendalough Monastic City. You can review that story by clicking here.

We stayed that night in Kilkenny, then did a day trip out to the Waterford crystal factory, which oddly enough, is near the town of Waterford.

I always knew that certain select pieces of crystal were labor intensive, but we learned during our tour that almost all of the Waterford crystal pieces are hand cut and crafted.

Is that the award for BEST WIFE EVER? Well it should be. 🙂 Actually it’s the very prestigious Solheim Cup (women’s golf championship). Made by Waterford right there in that factory.

They also do a lot of other famous sporting event trophies and high profile political and acting awards. But get this, when they do a high profile award or trophy, they always have to do TWO of them in case one gets broken.

If you saw what went to making just one of these amazing pieces, you would understand why that’s such a big deal. Note that none of this is on public display. You have to get the behind-the-scenes factory tour to see it all. Definitely worth it. Oh yeah, and the Man with Golden Gun has nothing on the Cat with the Crystal Revolver!

After touring the factory, we visited the showroom, where we spent our life savings on beautiful crystal glasses, vases, and decanters that will find a nice, lonely home on the top shelf of our glasses cabinet…. never to be seen again.

Ugh, it’s just so pretty I want to eat it! On the return trip to Kilkenny, we swung by the Walsh distillery. It’s one of the newer Irish whiskies on the market.

We did the tour and the tasting. Their specialty is The Irishman, which they have been making since 2006.

The property is absolutely beautiful. More along the lines of what I would have expected at a wine vineyard.

They also make a whiskey called Writers Tears. They were both exceptional, and some variations of them are only available in Ireland. But they do have a large distribution for their most popular products, which are available where we live, in Stockholm.

A note on the whiskey tastings on this trip. Our friend Brandie is a “whiskey collector”. And while she will give a humble smile and deny that she is an expert on whiskey, she actually is. This made the trip in Ireland all the more enjoyable. We drank only the best on this trip, and we actually knew what we were drinking! Needless to say, it was very fun and educational.