Outfit Details:

J.Crew Dress (similar here and here), Vintage Belt, Soludos Sandals, Prada Bag, Ray Ban Sunglasses

I’ll be sharing our exact Ireland itinerary soon, but in the meantime, I’ll keep up with posts from each day. We did a lot of driving on this trip to cover a lot of ground. We stayed one night in each place except for two nights at Sheen Falls Lodge (when we did The Ring of Kerry). We were up early in the morning with plans for the day and *tried* to stay on schedule so we could fit everything in. It was a little impossible though, with wanting to pull over and shoot every few minutes. What can we say, Ireland is just too beautiful! We were in absolute awe of how lush and green the landscapes were and the variety of things we saw throughout our trip- beaches, rivers, castles, gardens, forests, cities, cliffs, ruins, farms and more.

We left Mount Juliet in the morning en route for Cobh. This colorful seaport town in County Cork gave us a feeling we were either in San Francisco (hello, painted ladies!) or a coastal town in New England. Fishing boats sat in the harbor with their captains sitting out in the warm sun enjoying lunch. We strolled around until we found a good spot, Gilbert’s Bistro (Carly is ninja on finding good Yelp reviews), for lunch. More often than not we had fish and chips, which was no problem to us because we were always in the mood for it!

Afterwards, we continued our drive on to Blarney to visit the Blarney Castle & Blarney Stone. Again, we couldn’t believe what luck we had with the weather, clear blue skies and warm 75 degrees. We were all sweating a bit when we climbed the steep steps up to the top of the castle to kiss the Blarney Stone. Garrett is a McCarthy after all, so we all lined up for the tradition. If you haven’t heard of the Blarney Stone, it’s said that if you kiss it (which is a bit awkward as you have to lay on your back, grab onto bars, have an employee hold onto you as you dip down into a hole to kiss the bottom of a piece of stone) then it will bestow the gift of eloquence to you. So, did it work? How do I sound? ;) The grounds of the castle are beautiful and filled with streams, fields of flowers along with the beautiful Blarney House (that also looks like a castle).

This J.Crew gingham dress is a quintessential summer piece. Gingham has been everywhere this season and there are so many good options, especially budget friendly ones, out there right now. I love this Eliza J one that’s very similar to the one I’m wearing but with a larger print, this one under $65 and this one under $50 along with this fit and flare one.