The Ring of Kerry

Our original plan was to travel to the Aran Islands after Cork and check out the Cliffs of Moher, but things change. Everyone we encountered said that we should do the Ring of Kerry, and I mean everyone. So since our plans weren't set in stone, we looked up train times and headed to Kilarney, where the Ring of Kerry starts. The plan was to stay in hostels the whole week, but we decided for our one night in Kilarney we would  stay in a Bed & Breakfast. Just to have a break from hostel living and because they are really cute. We stayed at Emerville Bed and Breakfast. It was adorable, the room was fantastic, and the bed is the best thing I've slept on in months.

 

Our first night in Kilarney, we mostly just wondered around. We found a beautiful church to take pictures of called St. Mary's, not to be confused with the more famous St. Mary's Cathedral in Kilarney, this was the Anglican Church. 

That night, we ate pretty cheaply, to make up for the cost of the B&B, at a restaurant called Den Joe's. I had some fantastic fried chicken and Tiffany had a pot pie. Tiffany bought me a new claddagh ring (because its bad luck to buy one for yourself) and we had a couple drinks at a local bar. We were back super early though, we both wanted to take full advantage of the nice beds and get as much sleep as possible. The next day we were planning to take a bus tour around the Ring of Kerry. The Ring of Kerry is basically route 179 in County Kerry, located in the south west of Ireland. You can drive yourself, take a tour bus, or make the 8 day hike on foot. There are many little towns, coastal views, the Mountains of MacGillycuddy, and historical buildings along the route to stop and look at.

We had looked up a few bus tour companies, and we thought we found a decent priced option, but once we got to the B&B our hostess offered to book the tour for us. So we ended up using Deros Tours, they picked us up from the B&B in the morning and gave us a wonderful day tour of the Ring of Kerry that lasted from about 10am until 5:00pm. Deros tours was not the cheapest option, but we're assuming that the B&B's of the area all have a contract with a specific tour company and having them pick us up right in the morning was very convenient. 

Killorglin

The first town we came across was called Killorglin and it is a popular spot because of a fair that takes place every August. Puck Fair lasts three days and three nights, during this time a goat is taken from the mountains, placed high up on a platform, and crowned king for the three days. The ensuing festivities are very much like Mardi Gras and the saying goes "The goat can act the king and the people can act the goat." This fair predates Christianity and St. Patrick, there are just some holidays that you can't get rid of. The small town's population of 1,500 jumps to about 100,000 for the three days of drunkenness, carnival rides, cattle and horse fairs, and more drinking. At the very end, the goat is then released back into the wild, probably very confused and ready to get back to doing whatever goats do.

Statue commemorating the Goat King of the Puck Fair in Killorglin

Most of the tour is going up and down the MacGillcuddy Mountains. This is the tallest mountain range in Ireland with peaks that reach 1,000 meters high (3,280 ft). The mountains and the coast were covered in small farms and sheep. And ,as the guide informed us, there 9 million sheep in Ireland and only 4.2 million people.

Carhah River with the MacGillycuddy Mountains in the background

The tour also showed us quite a bit of bogland. Bogs are basically fields of rotting plants. The plants sit and rot for thousands of years eventually becoming this gross, wet, pile of brown plant material and mud and by eventually i mean a really long time. It takes 1,000 years for 1 foot of bog to build up. The bog farmers go out into these fields, cut up chunks of bog, and then lay them out to dry. Drying can take anywhere from three weeks to three months. The peat (the dried bog material) is then used as fuel to heat homes and cook food as well as insulation for roofs and walls. The wet peat is very heavy so horses are used to transport the material, however regular horses are too heavy to walk across boglands, as the guide put it, they would sink and have only their heads sticking up, so very small horses are used.

Bogland

Dried peat

The bus stopped at a museum, which was a little misleading. We were told that it was a Famine Museum set up as an old town, but it turns out it was the Bog Museum. It was a reconstructed little town whose main function was drying out the bog land and collecting peat. It was cute, but not really any more informative than the tour guide. 

Bog Town houses

Horse used for collecting bog, he is small so he won't sink.

The next big stop was to visit Our Lady of Kerry. Near a cliff's edge, with a great view of the coast, was a Mary statue encircled by a small stone wall. We took pictures of the statue and of the coastline, but that wasn't all. There is a man who hangs out near the statue because that is where all the tours stop. He has with him two white lambs and one black lamb and his dog. If you put some money in his hat, you can play with the animals and take pictures with them. At first I was like ok that's dumb, but then this little white lamb was peeking around a car and I gave in. It was adorable and soooo soft. It even tried to snuggle and lick my cheek.

Our Lady of Kerry

After playing with the sheep, we made our way to the lunch stop. We stopped at a cafeteria style restaurant and gift shop. It was a little expensive for the amount of food you received and for the cafeteria set up, but it was literally our only option. The food was good, I had seafood chowder and a fresh garden salad and Tiffany had a bowl of shepherd's pie(ironic because we were just playing with lambs).

A stone Caher, giving the town its name Caherdaniel

This tour also showed us a number of old constructions. One of which was called a caher, a circular stone fort. They were used in very ancient times to protect community members and animals from attack. They are spread out sporadically across modern day farms, taking up valuable land space, but no farmer dare take them down for fear of supernatural repercussions. Supposedly, banshees and fairies use them, and they will get very upset if you take them down. I guess there was a farmer who tore down the caher on his property and thirty years later he got cancer a died. This was, of course, the work of the fairies.

The Rock Outside Murphy's Bar in Sneem, the poem on the wall talks about sitting on the rock and getting drunk.

We stopped for tea, bathrooms and whatever else anyone needed to do in Sneem. Sneem is a very small town, it has one the Smallest Town award in Ireland several times. Tiffany and I came across Murphy's Bar in Sneem. Now, I'm sure you all know by now that my dog at home is named Murphy. Murphy is a very short and very fat beagle and the source of endless entertainment. I took pictures of all the Murphy things I could find in Ireland and it is at Murphy's Bar in Seem that Tiffany and I had our first Irish Coffee (coffee with cream, sugar, and whiskey). It was kind of expensive, so we split one, but that was more than enough. The bus was only stopping for 15 minutes, so towards the end we had to chug the coffee pretty quick.

Ladies' View

The last photo stop was Ladies' View. In August, 1861, Queen Victoria had traveled to County Kerry to visit a noble family. She was a very unhappy guest and was constantly abusing her ladies-in-waiting. On day, a picnic was planned in this spot, but the Queen arrived early so the food was not prepared. She supposedly had a tantrum and screamed at her ladies for quite some time. Once the food was ready, however, all was forgiven and the picnic went on in happiness. The towns people truly felt for those poor ladies-in-waiting and named the picnic spot after them.

The National Park of Kilarney is located along this route and we drove through some of it, but we unfortunately missed out on its most impressive feature. The Muckross Estate is a very large house located in the national park. It was built for the sole purpose of hosting Queen Victoria in 1861 and the owner, Henry Arthur Herbert, went into debt building it. They were hoping to receive a title and therefor a better paycheck for their troubles, but since Queen Victoria was such a cranky guest, the title never came. The house and its lands were then sold and turned into the national park. There was a huge wake, funeral, and party for Henry Arthur Herbert when he died. He was an odd man and requested to be buried standing up. His request was honored and it is said that after three days of drinking to his death, he was the only one still standing. The house is set far back in the woods so the bus tour did not take us there. If we had another day in Kilarney, we would have been able to go back and see the house, but we left that night for Dublin.

Muckross Lake, National Park of Kilarney