Butter, Bells and Burros
Cork is a two and a half hour drive south from Galway. It is an industrial city, known for it’s pubs, it’s English Market and a culinary capital.
And if you go to the top of the hill there…you’ll find the Shandon Bells. Well, you’ll have to climb up the tower, but you can ring them. Everybody does. It really is the only church in Ireland where you can ring the church bells unsupervised. You can ring them at a number of cathedrals, as part of a supervised tour, but t St. Ann’s which is Church of Ireland Church, you’re on your own.
The bells are rung with ropes on the first floor. The ropes are numbered and there are sheets of music to play tunes by the numbers. And those bells ring all day long!
Just across the street from St. Anne’s is the Butter Museum. That’s right a museum dedicated to butter. Butter churn, paddles, casks, wrapping, advertising over the years an the history of Ireland’s butter industry and Butter Exchange.
And within an hour’s drive of Cork, in the village of Liscarroll, is the Donkey Sanctuary. Hundreds of donkeys live there and are cared for there. They rescue donkeys found lost in the wild, turned out by farmers years ago when tractors took over the work donkeys once did. You can learn about them, pet them, and even adopt them.
