We presented ourselves bright and early the next morning for the bus to Kilkenny, only to learn that it was not running according to schedule due to a bank holiday. We had done our homework and asked the night before about the schedule, so we were somewhat annoyed. However, we spent the morning, wandering the streets and seeing the cathedral, which was pleasant.
This gargoyle seems to be suckling a litter of...somethings.
Finally, we were able to get on the bus to Kilkenny - a seasick ride that took almost twice as long as expected. This might not have been a big deal, except that we had an appointment that evening. Kilkenny was hosting a world famous comedy festival that week end called Cat Laughs (the residents of are locally known as Kilkenny Cats). I didn’t know anything about it until finding lodging there proved more difficult than expected.
We had chosen the town for its rumored charm and proximity to tiny medieval villages and walking trails, not for the festival. However, after we found out about Cat Laughs, we decided it would be a shame to be in town for a world famous comedy festival and not attend any of the shows, so we booked tickets online for a show at 5 pm that night. It was about $40 per ticket, so we were fairly anxious to make the showing. We thought we’d have plenty of time, but the much later bus and longer, less direct route put us in town with only an hour to find our B&B (hazy on the map, poor instructions from the owner), pick up our tickets, and find our venue. Of course, we were carrying all our luggage and anxious to drop it at our B&B.
We walked across town, got lost once, found the right area, but after combing it 3 times, we were ready to pull our hair out. We could not find the B&B, even though we knew we must be nearly on top of it. No one seemed to have heard of it. Our show started in 10 minutes, and it seemed like no matter what we did, we were going to miss it or be terribly late.
Then Irish people happened. :) Irish people are nice. We didn’t meet a single one with whom we exchanged more than a dozen words who was not friendly, kind, and helpful. Two men and a woman saw us scampering in panicky circles and asked what was wrong. We told them. They said, “Oh, we know Richie! (the B&B’s owner) He lives right there across the street on the top floor.
Ah-ha. Right above where we’d been searching. The flat had a neat stone sign that said Roich Court B&B beside the door, completely invisible from the ground. We would _never_ have found it without help. We then confirmed that our landlord was not home. Grrrrrr…. So, the nice people across the street said, “Hey, we’re moving across town, but we still own this apartment. You can put your stuff in the hall. We’ll lock it and come back and unlock it for you later, and we’ll drive you to your show.” It wasn’t quite that succinct, but basically that’s what they said and what happened.
Consequently, we made our show on time, sans luggage. The man who drove us over said he was getting married in a few weeks and we chattered about how my brother was also getting married soon, as is Amy’s sister. As I scrambled into the back, he mentioned casually that there were no seats and that the doors only opened from the outside. We thought nothing of it, but later we laughed at what our mothers would think of us. Happily, he neither attacked us nor stole our stuff. We watched comedians Ardal O Hanlon, Lee Mack, Ed Byrne, Stewart Francis, and Lewis Black. They were a hoot.