Limmerick, Ennis, and Old Ground Hotel

Leaving Adare, we headed out to see St. Mary's Cathedral on King's Island in the middle of Limmerick.  The church was built in the 1100's and has changed hands several times, belonging at times to the Catholics, the Anglicans, and even an armed force that used the church as a stable for their horses.

St. Mary's has the only complete set of misercords (mercy seats) left in Ireland.

We also saw a bit of King John's Castle before leaving Limmerick and continuing on to the town of Ennis.

In Ennis we discovered it was quite crowded, and found it difficult to find parking anywhere near our next destination (the Ennis Friary). Instead we headed to our hotel, got checked in, and got ready for dinner.  We both agreed that this trip was probably about 3 days too long, and that we were feeling that we'd had enough site-seeing.

We headed down to the restaurant and found the contrast throughout the hotel to the level of service we'd just had at Adare to be striking.  The staff seemed annoyed and rushed, and were barely helpful. I'm sure it all would have seemed fine if we hadn't just come from a place where everyone was pleasant and appeared to be eager to help in any way that they could.

We watched some television, and then rested up for the trip back to Dublin