The banquet and a bit of climbing-Ireland

On Monday Dad and Mum decided that we'd go to a banquet at Donguaire Castle (dong-gwehr).

When we got there we still had about an hour before we had to go to Donguaire Castle so we went farther up the road, where we saw a mountain. We walked up to the top; it was pretty rocky. Our legs ached by the time we got there.

At the top, lots of people had built cairns (keehns) to show they'd got up there. Cairns are rocks piled up on top of each other, they don't have anything to hold them together. Soon it was time to start heading back to the car.

When we arrived at donguaire Castle we went inside and we were given a drink of spicy cordial. It tasted pretty sweet, but it was nice! There was a lady playing the harp.

When we went into the Banquet hall we were given salad and smoked salmon. I hated the smoked salmon. Second coarse was soup with soda bread which is a heavy brown bread. Third coarse was chicken, vegies and chunky potatoes - they tasted like chips to me.

The fourth course was apple pie and cream. Yum.

Sam, Matt and I sang 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' up on on the stage - singing in tune with the harp. Then we heard some songs and poems recited (which were boring) about the area of Kinvara (that's the village where Donguaire Castle is).

Then a ring was handed out to the mother of the three children on the first row - which was Mum. The ring has two hands holding a loveheart with a crown on top. Now this ring is called the Claddough Ring (pronounced claddock) and you wore the heart facing out to show that you weren't married. If you were engaged or married you wore the heart facing in, to show that your heart belonged to someone already.

We had heaps of fun.