Sunny Liquid Dreams

July 25, 2009

I celebrated the end of my internship with a trip to Kilkenny. Kilkenny (Cill Chainnigh) is a city southwest of Dublin, famous for its medieval buildings and craft shops. It was suggested by many people as a perfect place for a one day trip and I went with one of my housemates.

We caught a train in the morning to the city and attempted to keep our eyes so we wouldn't miss our stop. Once we reached the city, we wandered around and stopped in numerous shops.

I didn't have very good luck that day: I realized, as soon as I reached Kilkenny Castle, that I hadn't charged my camera. I took about three shots until it died and I was just a little grumpy that I forgot.

So, I don't have any pictures to post. But we wandered around the castle (we didn't actually go inside) and found our way to the craft shops that the city is famous for.

Of course, every time I visit such shops, I feel like buying everything. The stores sold everything: clothing, jewelry, pottery, Waterford crystal, tourist souvenirs, etc. However, my favorite items were the handmade pottery pieces and there were a few designers I especially liked.

Colm de Ris is a designer based in Dublin and uses the ancient spiral pattern from Newgrange in many of his pieces. He combines a beautiful shade of dark blue and brown earthen hues to create very interesting shapes. One of his pieces is shaped exactly like a curl of cheese and we had to ask what it could be used for.

Paul Maloney is a designer based in Wexford and creates what he calls his "Ocean Range". He mixes blue and white tones and also incorporates the spiral into some of his pieces. The pieces that were displayed in the craft store were more traditional: cups, plates, vases, goblets, and bowls.

Louis Mulcahy is a designer based in Dingle and combines dark brown or black with other colors to create his pottery. Again, he creates more traditional shapes, but I especially loved his russet-coloured vases and goblets.

I had trouble deciding what to buy, but since Colm de Ris was my personal favorite, I chose to buy a small decorative bowl from his line.

After spending too much time in the store, we wandered around the city and headed to look at the cathedrals. There were at least four all within close vicinity of each other. We visited St. Mary's Cathedral, the Black Abbey, and St. Canice's Cathedral. We did not go inside the latter, but we did climb to the top of the viewing tower. From there, we had a fantastic view of the entire city (which is not very big) and took a few photos.

After climbing back down, we continued to wander around the city and eventually headed back to the train station to catch one back to Dublin.