I swear Mike and I should start our own travel company.  We had a bit of a late start ( due to the water timer not turning on for our showers and an 8am breakfast ) BUT we still made it. We went to Blarney Castle first which is about a 2.5 hour drive from Kilkenny.  We were running around raindrops the whole day and succeeded!  The rivers were high from the heavy rains from the past few days.  We marched up to the castle, climbed the steps, kissed the stone, and have the pictures to prove it! We checked out the Blarney House, grabbed some sandwiches for the road, and head on to Cahir Castle which was about an hour away.  We arrived and found out that it was the last day of it being opened for quite sometime due to renovations. FREE ADMISSION!!!!! BONUS! We came, we saw, we conquered. The castle is surrounded by a river which had flooded over the banks. It was crazy to see it like that.  Onwards we drove to the rock of Cassel. This place is amazing.  The best part is that we hit it at the end of the day and literally had the whole place to ourselves, not like last time.  It was nice to have to the whole place to ourselves. The majority of it is in ruins but it is perched high on a hill overlooking green rolling hills dotted with sheep and the ruins of an old abbey.  There are old Celtic headstones and art carved throughout.  The kids just ran around the hills like wild animals. They loved it.  We headed back to Kilkenny after that and had dinner at the Marble City Bar and Tea Rooms. We can feel the LBs tacking on.