If you enjoy green fields, harbor views, old churches, architectural delights, gray stone ruins, riots of bright flowers and painted store fronts, this post is for you. The above is one of the few pictures of grazing animals I was able to manage from the window of the fast moving coach/bus.  I took this somewhere between Waterford and Youghal (pronounced Yawl).  This was one of the few days that was gray all day long, no sun to be seen.



View of the Youghal Harbor.



Youghal did not strike me as your typical tourist town.  It was interesting to see how the Irish actually live in a town so full of both the old and the new.  The clock tower below dominates the town.  The couple in the foreground were part of our tour group;  I had no idea who they were until I was working on this post.  Hi Duane and Sharon!



As per usual, we had about an hour and a half to get lunch.  I opted for the gluten free crackers I brought from home and the Butler's chocolate bar I always made sure I had one of.  Here is Mary waiting for take out.

Looking for a place to eat the take out.  We couldn't waste our time sitting in a restaurant.



The view of the harbor from the top of the path in the previous photo.




There were residences up on the high road above the town.  I found this one when I followed the sound of classical music being played.  It was so tempting to push open the gate and enter the garden.


A bit farther down the street we found the Quaker Church.  I felt bad about all of the power lines that were so very much in the way.





My first sighting of a Celtic Cross.  This is the stuff Ireland is made of.



I have decided that it is impossible to get a straight photo in Ireland.  See how one window seems to lean to the right and the other to the left?




I had to snap a photo of these two doors--they were less than four feet tall.



We then headed back down to the main streets of town and I began my compulsive photo snapping of windows, doors, store fronts and flowers.



How I adore these gothic windows!





I couldn't figure out how this was done but it was brilliant!



I was fascinated by the way the old lived right next to the new.  Earthquakes have not put cracks and seams in everything like they have here in California.










All of these bright doors and store fronts must make the lack of sun much more endurable.




There is so much to love about this picture.  Two Gothic doors, bright red paint, the new look right next to the old one . . .







Another example of the new (or newER) next to the ancient.  I found it so compelling.



The old house was built in the 1400's.  It was given to Sir Robert Tynte in 1584.  His wife was the widow of the poet, Edmund Spencer, the author of "Epithalamion"--"the most magnificent lyric penned of love triumphant".   Think how these people lived:  the animals would have been stabled on the ground floor, the dining hall and main solar would have been just above and the sleeping chambers above that.  There was probably nothing around for miles but the green hills and the ocean.  What a view!
 

As we walked along a tall fence built between two store fronts, we noticed a hole.  We stopped to see what was behind it--we had come to see Ireland, after all---and saw this absolute jewel.  (Why would they cover it up?)  It was on the same street as the Tynte house and was probably somehow associated with it.







Goodbye Youghal!  On to Middleton, home of the Jameson Distillary and, as we discovered, many beautiful flower gardens.