Ireland: Day 4

On the 4th day of Christmas my true love gave to… oh wait, is that not what we’re doing? Sorry I got confused for a minute. On our 4th day in Ireland, we set out from Killarney on a trip around the famous Ring of Kerry. This day can also be known as “the day it was sunny in the morning!” I’ll captions specific photos that are places I can remember, but we stopped at SO MANY places it’s hard to keep it straight :(.

The Ring of Kerry (Irish: Mórchuaird Chiarraí) is a tourist trail in County Kerry, south-western Ireland. The route covers the 179 km circular road (N70, N71, and R562 road), starting from Killarney, heading around the Iveragh Peninsula and passing through Kenmare,Sneem, Waterville, Cahersiveen and Killorglin. Popular points include Muckross House (near Killarney), Staigue stone fort and Derrynane House, home of Daniel O’Connell. Just south of Killarney, Ross Castle, Lough Leane, and Ladies View (a panoramic viewpoint), all located within Killarney National Park, are major attractions located along the Ring. A more complete list of major attractions along the Ring of Kerry includes: Gap of Dunloe, Bog Village, Rossbeigh Beach, Cahersiveen Heritage Centre, Derrynane House, Skellig Experience, Staigue Fort, Kenmare Lace, Moll’s Gap, Ladies View, Torc Waterfall, Muckross House, The Blue Pool, Ross Castle,Ogham Stones, St Mary’s Cathedral, Muckross Abbey, Franciscan Friary, Kellegy Church, O’Connell Memorial Church, Sneem Church and Cemetery, Skellig Michael, Beehive Cells and the Stone Pillars marking an important grave.

Dingle Bay

On this day, we also got to experience a Sheep Dog Herding demonstration. It was so cool. I mean I have never seen more well-trained dogs, so excited to do what they were naturally bred to do. They listened to both personalized vocal and whistle cues.

These sheep started pretty much out of sight at the top of a mountain, and the two dogs went up to get them and bring them down

Town of Cahersiveen as seen from Valencia Island where we checked out the Skellig Experience

Sneem River

Ladies View

At this point it was pouring freezing cold rain, I’d already fallen asleep on our bus once, and we were ready to be back at the hotel for some drinks and dinner. With an early departure for Bunratty the next morning we opted out of pub hopping again in Killarney and instead took some glasses of wine up to our room.

Once we got up there and turned on the TV, the news about Boston was just breaking (Ireland is 5 hours ahead) and we sat shocked and appalled in front of CNN for hours. It was a weird thing, being in a foreign country when something terrible is happening at home, I can’t describe it, but for some reason you just feel even more helpless. European news is also a lot more blunt and less sensitive with their coverage (at least I thought so), so I’m sure we saw and heard some things people at home did not. There were two couples from Boston in our tour group, who could do nothing but watch and wait from 3000 miles away. Day 4 was a great day, that ended on a horribly sad note.