We arrived in Cork, Ireland at around 2:45 in the afternoon, so we got our rental car sorted out, and drove west.
The sun was ridiculously bright in County Cork, illuminating the bright green fields all around us. By the time we crossed into County Kerry, the scenery was a bit more dramatic and the sky moodier. It reminded me a little of the scenery we had left behind in Scotland.
We arrived at Killarney National Park, where we went and explored Muckross House and Gardens.
The gardens were quite pretty and made for a peaceful little walk.
Afterward, we drove a small stretch of the Ring of Kerry to get to Kenmare, our base for two nights. The views on this small stretch were fantastic, though.
Kenmare is a small village, basically made up of 3 streets that form a triangle, but it is packed full of restaurants and pubs and shops. We got a bite to eat and explored a bit before calling it a night.
The next morning, we got an early start, driving the Ring of Beara. The Ring of Beara is often seen as an alternative to the Ring of Kerry, every bit as beautiful, if not more so, but much less touristy.
Instead of being stuck behind tour buses on the drive, we had the roads all to ourselves, which THANK GOD, because some of those roads are extremely narrow, and, unlike Scotland, did not have frequent designated passing places.
First stops were Gleninchaquin Park and Uragh Stone Circle. They were quite a ways off track, but the park was lovely, and the stone circle was the first stone circle I had ever seen.
We made our way back to the main road and went a bit further before parking to start our hike to the Cashelkeelty Stone Circles. I had no idea this was going to be as much of a journey as it was, but we had a fairly steep climb up through a beautiful forest. It took us close to half an hour to get to the top, I’d say. The stone circles weren’t terribly impressive, but the whole area in general was cool, and the views weren’t so bad either.
As we turned back, we were discussing what an odd concept it is to us Americans to be able to just walk around people’s property. This was someone’s land. They had sheep there. Back home, everyone’s land is fenced off with “No Trespassing” signs, but here, no biggy. As we were talking about this, a man came riding up on his 4-wheeler. Turns out he was the owner. He had a very strong accent so that we could barely understand what he was asking us. We were half expecting him to be upset that we were marching around up there (due to the conversation we had just had), but no, he was just curious as to where we were from and how our Ireland vacation was going.
So back down we went. Our next stop was supposed to be yet another stone circle, but we decided to skip that one, as well as the long walk I had wanted to do after. Instead, we took the coastal road and got stuck behind a local man trying to move his cattle. I wasn’t too concerned with this as the place we got stuck had some pretty coastal views.
We then came across Kilcatherine cemetary with its Church ruin overlooking the water.
Shortly down the road after that was the “Hag of Beara”. The story at the site was basically (in short) that the Hag was an immortal woman, forever young, that one day stole a priest’s prayer book and he chased after her and turned her into stone. This stone is there now, with plenty of tokens left by visitors. There are other stories about the hag as well, all of them fascinating. Either way, quite the imagination, as this stone simply looks like a large stone, with no resemblance to a person that I could see.
Then we visited the towns of Eyeries and Allihies, both adorable, colorful villages on the water, the latter of which we stopped at for lunch. It was after noon, but they were barely open. The man working again had a very strong accent that was hard to understand. As Anthony and I were sitting at our table, we listened as he was instructing a boy on some things to do, but we could not understand a word he was saying. In fact, we were quite certain he was speaking in Gaelic, and were talking about how Gaelic sounded so different from any other language. Turns out, he was speaking English afterall, according to the younger boy when Anthony asked him. Ha.
We spoke quite a bit with a different Irishman at the bar about Scotland and Ireland and the US. Overall, it was an enjoyable little lunch. And then we were off again, catching more great views on our way to Castletownbere.
We also stopped at Dunboy castle, which wasn’t anything to write home about, but the old, abandoned, boat ruin across from it was pretty cool.
And then we had our car climb up Hungry Hill, until a fence blocked our way. This turned out to be a bad decision, as it was nearly impossible to turn around, and there were thorn bushes all around us, scratching up our rental car, so we’ll see how that turns out :(.
But then came the real highlight, as we cut back across the peninsula via the Healy Pass.
The views here were stunning. We stopped and sat, enjoying the weather and the scenery. Once we had gotten to the end, we almost wanted to turn around and go back across again. But instead, we made our way back home. We had planned on hiking the Gap of Dunloe in the evening, but were pretty exhausted, so decided to just enjoy Kenmare town instead. We bought ourselves some pretty amazing ice cream, and stopped in at a pub for a pint of Guinness while listening to some trad music. Cheers!
