Ring of Kerry

Above Photo: Killarney National Park

About a month ago, I jumped at the opportunity to snag the last seat on a weekend trip to county Kerry. The trip was last weekend and it was a pretty good time. The Ring of Kerry is the biggest tourist attraction in the whole of Ireland. The route covers the 170 km circle that starts in Killarney and rings through the villages of Sneem, Waterville and Cahersiveen (where our hotel was) and Ballinskelligs.

The Ring of Kerry boasted some of the best landscapes Ireland has to offer, and sheep/person ration was probably around 20/1. Which is understandable... the soil in the area is very infertile, so instead of growing crops, they let the sheep graze and

produce a LOT of wool. Anyways, we saw more than just sheep. Our tour guide, Marian, teaches Modern Irish (Gaeilge) at UCC and was raised in the southeast Kerry, so she had mad connections. Our coach driver took us places that Marian assured us were 'unreachable' to the average tourist, especially in the off-season. I could see why, seems how half the roads the bus drove on were roads I'd feel uncomfortable taking the little ol' Cougar on. There was a time when we were coming back from a slate cavern outside of Ballinskelligs and a man in a Benz came face-to-face with us. Knowing he couldn't get around, he simply drove backwards at around 30 mph for what had to have been a few kilometers. Extremely impressive driving.


But we saw many different landscapes, some of the more impressive ones being the Skelligs and Killarney National Park. Skellig Micheal (which I couldn't get a great picture of) is an ancient medieval monastery named after, of course, Saint Micheal. What's impressive about this place is that about a dozen monks led by St. Finoin paddled a boat out 8 km to the Skellig, which is basically a huge (read: HUGE) rock. They climbed to its summit and literally carved a village out of the rocks. This is regarded as probably the greatest archaeological feat and testament to faith of the early medieval period. A monastery clinging to cliffs.


We also ventured to the home of Daniel O' Connell, one of the most famous Irish people of all time. He was known for his great oratory skills as a barrister and was the first Irishman to sit in the British Parliament. O' Connell inspired many civil rights activists such as Gandhi and Dr. King for his promotion of non-violence to achieve social equality for Catholics in Ireland, as the Protestant Reformation had alienated and discriminated a whole country of its inital religion. His house, called Derrynane, is a big tourist attraction as well. The house was actually kind of boring but the area surrounding it was cool. I've come to discover that I'm more of an "outside" tourist. But I shouldn't speak too soon for I haven't gone to Europe quite yet.


And of course, there was recreation. Ireland beat Scotland in the Six Nations Rugby tournament (meaning we are one win away from snagging the first grand slam in years. Yeah baby!). As much as I loved going to the country of my ancestors, I still rooted for Ireland. No use 'joining the side that is slaughtered'. Friday night we had a Ceili (dance), where we learned at least a half dozen traditional step-dances. This is basically a more upbeat version of square dancing, and my odds were great since I was one of 3 guys on the whole trip of around 60 people.


Overall: great weekend. Even after Scotland (the undisputed most beautiful place I've ever seen), the landscapes here were still jaw-dropping and eyebrow-raising. Scotland blog is coming soon, I haven't had the time to finish it. I'll post at least three more times this week. Finals are coming up and boy are they going to be brutal.

P.S.-- I just had an idea. If anyone reading this has any questions about Ireland or other places I've traveled, shoot me or Mom and e-mail and I'll gladly post about it.

Slan go foill!