The sun was shining brilliantly as we drove to the nearby coastal village of Tramore. The water along the coast near Waterford is the Celtic Sea which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. It was very placid and crystal clear.
We found a number of hidden coves where bathing platforms had been fashioned using cement allowing safe access for summertime water frollicking. Blocks with mounting holes where diving boards would be fixed providing opportunity for extra fun. Later on in the day, a local tour guide assured me that the best day in summer can get to 25 degrees C. What a hardy bunch these Irish folk are!
After a walking tour of the Waterford town centre we toured the Waterford Crystal factory. I had expected a lot of the processing steps from molten glass to finished product would have been automated, but this is not the case. Every step is manual, performed by master craftsman working by hand and eye. (There actually were two automated cutting machines in use but these were for specific items that are really too large, and heavy, to be processed manually with safety.) The tour wound through the actual factory working area where you can see work proceeding in various areas – blowing, cutting, finishing, engraving, polishing, etc. The programme to be a master craftsman is upwards of eight years of on the job training. There were a couple of younger fellows but most of the workers were 20-30 year veterans.
We finished the afternoon with a visit to Reginald’s Tower which has stood proudly in various forms for a little over a 1,000 years. Waterford is the oldest city in Ireland, founded in 914 by marauding Vikings.
