Got off to a bit of a slow start today. I’m fighting the start of a cold – thanks, rainy Gap of Dunloe and Lakes of Killarney – so it took me a while to get mobile. Once I did, I went for a bit of a walk to loosen the joints up, and then Penny and I did something that I hadn’t done in Kilkenny on my previous visits.
We took a boat tour.
It went u0 and down the River Nore, past the castle and under some bridges. The boatman was a nice Portuguese gentleman who had just started working on the boats after a winter off, and hadn’t quite got the history spiel down again. But he was friendly and fun and it was a great tour. Some sights:
After that, we went for lunch, and then went on a tour of the castle.
On my last visit, they didn’t allow any photographs inside the castle, but this time, photos were okay, as long as there was no flash. So… photos!
I took many more pictures in the castle, but these are the most interesting, in my opinion. And it’s my blog, so that’s the only opinion that counts.
After that, I was kind of dragging, so I went back to the hotel room to lie down for a bit, while Penny went off exploring. Later that evening, we decided to try for dinner at Kyteler’s Inn, because witches and live music.
Along the way, we noticed that the sign was out showing that the Hole in the Wall was open. This is a pub established in 1582. It was also a brothel. I’ve been told that the Duke of Wellington drank there. I visited it on my first trip to Kilkenny, when it was a little coffee shop. But tonight, it was a full-on (if tiny) pub.
The friendly barman even took a picture of Penny and I, proving we were there.
We didn’t manage to get a table at Kyteler’s Inn, so we went across the street and had a nice meal, and then took a bit of a walk down to see the way to St. Cannice’s Cathedral. We’ve got a walking tour tomorrow morning, so we should get a closer look, but it was a nice night for a walk.
The weather today was a little rainy from time to time, but nothing like yesterday. Plus, we spent the bulk of the day on the bus, on our tour of the Dingle Peninsula. After yesterday’s fun-but-somewhat-grueling tour, it was a welcome respite.
The tour started with a quick photo stop at Aghadoe, which has a great view of the lakes of Killarney.
From there, we drove on to Inch Beach, which is a sandbar in the bay. Even with the scattered rain and the cool temperatures and the wind, it was fairly busy, even if there aren’t many people in my picture.
We stopped at a farm along the way where, for four Euros, you could go see the beehive hits in the field and/or hold a baby lamb. My parents raised sheep for a while, so the lamb held no real appeal for me. But prehistoric stone buildings?
From there, it was onto the Slea Head drive. Here’s a photodump of spectacular scenery.
Then it was back to Dingle town for lunch and a little bit of looking around the town. I learned that Fungie, the famous friendly dolphin who liked to meet with people in boats in the harbour, is gone, now. Last seen early in the pandemic. He’d be over forty years old by now, which is not that old for a dolphin, but he’s stopped meeting his fishermen friends.
Apparently, he used to toss pollock onto the boats. Not salmon, though. Those he ate.
Anyway, there’s still a statue near the harbour of him.
And now, we’re back in Killarney, thinking about dinner. It was a late lunch, so we’re not in a terrible rush.
Tomorrow is another travel day, on the trains from Killarney to Kilkenny. It looks like we have to go back through Dublin to make the connection, which is not ideal, but what can you do.
Today, in Killarney, it is rainy and somewhat windy.
Also today, in Killarney, Penny and I took a trip up through the Gap of Dunloe and down the lakes of Killarney.
I’d done the tour six years ago, and came back badly sunburned. Looking at the weather forecast, I figured there was almost no chance of that happening again. The lovely Toni, who owns the place we’re staying and who had booked the tour for us (at our request) kept checking with us to make sure we had seen the forecast and still wanted to go.
Our thinking was that, sure, good weather for the tour is better than rain, but rain on the tour is better than not going at all.
Reader, there was rain.
The bus took us to Kate Kearney’s Cottage, which is the start of the road up the Gap. I believe it’s named for a woman who used to brew and sell poitín – Irish moonshine – there. From there, you can take a horse buggy ride up through the Gap, or you can walk. Penny, having done the Camino last year and tramped over the Pyrenees, decided to walk.
I took a cart ride.
The horse for our cart, on the left, was somewhat… willful when it came time to put him in harness. The dialect of the drivers here in the mountains of Kerry is pretty thick, and it’s hard to follow what they say when they don’t deliberately slow it down to speak to tourists, but I discovered that certain short words of Anglo-Saxon origin came through quite clearly as these two gentlemen were working with the fractious horse.
Once he was in harness, he was all business, and eager to show off. We passed another of the other buggies going up, and made the trip pretty quickly.
Not many pictures of the trip, because it was cold and rainy and really, really windy. But here’s a few:
So, I made it through the Gap to Lord Brandon’s Cottage about an hour before Penny did on foot. I had a sandwich and rested a bit – at the steepest part of the Gap, we had to get off the cart and walk, to give the horse a bit of a break. According to my smart watch, I climbed 62 flights of stairs on that little walk.
And then it was down to the boars and back to Ross Castle. No pictures of that leg, because it was raining even harder by then, and the wind was a little vicious, and my camera was under three layers of wet clothes by then.
But we made it back alive, if somewhat chilled. Right now, we are in our room, having changed into dry clothes and warmed up some, and will be thinking about going to find some dinner in a little bit.
Tomorrow, we have a tour of the Dingle Peninsula. It’s also supposed to be rainy tomorrow, but not as much. Also, more bus, less boat on this tour.
I didn’t post on the blog yesterday, because we spent the day taking the train from Galway to Killarney.It all looked kinda liked this:
We got into Killarney in the mid-afternoon, and went to my favourite place to stay in all of Ireland – Larkinley Guest Accommodations. We got a warm greeting from Toni, and she took us to a laundromat to get the laundry done that we completely failed to do in Galway.
She also made some recommendations for tours and restaurants, and offered to book us on the tours we wanted to take. After we settled into the room, we walked down to the town centre to scout it out, get some dinner, and pick up some groceries. Then, back to Larkinley for the night.
This morning, we got on the Red Bus, which gives a hop-on-hop-off tour of some of the main sites in the Killarney National Park.
Ross Castle is a favourite of mine. We got off here, and took a boat out to Innisfallen, another of my favourite spots, where there’s the ruins of a twelfth-century monastery.
Here’s a view off the back of Innisfallen, looking out across Lough Leanne at the mountains.
This is a section of the monastery wall with a big ol’ yew tree beside it.
A cool looking doorway in the wall, looking out at a different yew tree.
After we got back to the castle, we got back on the bus and went to see Torc Waterfall. It drains the water from a spring, called The Devil’s Punchbowl. The story is that the devil was so angry with the Abbott building an abbey in the area, he bit a piece out of the mountain and spat it at the Abbott, who was fishing in Lough Leane. The devil missed him, of course, but the piece of the mountain landed in the lake and became The Deviul’s Island. And the bite mark in the mountain filled up with water which flows down through the Torc Waterfall.
It’s not a huge waterfall, but it is very photogenic.
After that, we crossed the road and took a ride in a horse cart along the lakes to Muckross Abbey.
A view of Muckross Lake. Muck is Irish for pig, and Ross is Irish for peninsula. Apparently, the area used to have a lot of wild pigs there.
After the abbey, the cart took us back to Muckross House, which was closed for renovations. So, we walked around the gardens, had a bite to eat in the tea room, and caught the bus back to Killarney.
Now, we’ve had dinner, heard a little bit of live music, and are settled in for the night. Tomorrow is our tour up the Gap of Dunloe.
I left Larkinley Lodge this morning, and it was a little bit hard. Toni and Danny have treated me so well both times I’ve stayed there, that I kind of hated to leave. I mean, they even gave me an extra piece of bacon at breakfast this morning1!
Seriously, folks, if you go to Killarney, stay at Larkinley Lodge. Tell them I sent you. You will not regret it.
Anyway, I walked down to the train station, several hours before the train left. There was no one at the ticket counter, yet, but I found someone there who let me check my backpack, then I went wandering around town.
These statues of Irish red deer are in the town centre of Killarney. They’re about life sized, the size of small horses, so bigger than the normal white-tail deer around home in Manitoba.
That’s the only picture I took today. The rest of the day, I was on the trains. It was a bit of a challenge to get on the train – the ticket office didn’t open until half an hour before the train left, and I was getting a little panicked, because the automatic ticket machine didn’t have an option for Killarney to Galway, and the option for Portarlington2 was about 30% more than the online price for the whole trip.
But, as I said, a ticket agent showed up, I got the ticket3. The first leg of the trip was the train to Heuston Station in Dublin, and so it was really crowded, and it took some doing to find someplace to sit.
And then a hen party got on the train about half an hour into the trip. And they were already pretty drunk4, and very loud. It made the majority of the trip less than restful.
I managed to change trains successfully at Portarlington, and this leg of the journey was much less crowded. And, of course, it was raining when I got to Galway. I found my way to the AirBnB place I’d booked, and met the owner, and got settled, then went out in the rain to get some groceries. Not entirely successful, as it’s a rainy Sunday evening. But I managed to get a sandwich for dinner, and I can do some proper shopping tomorrow.
Tomorrow, it’s supposed to be rainy again, but then it’s supposed to clear up for a few days. So, guess what day I have the walking tour booked.
Today was a free day for me, with nothing scheduled. So, I decided to go and do some of the stuff from Thursday that I didn’t find time to do. Specifically, I wanted to see the insides of Ross Castle and Muckross House.
And that’s what I did.
I got the shuttle bus again in the morning to Ross Castle, and looked around a bit before finding the entry to the castle itself. They were just starting a guided tour, so I was really happy to get in on that. I was less happy that they had a no photography policy, but that’s the way it goes.
Ross Castle was built in the 15th century, a tower house and keep for the local Celtic chieftain. It was pretty unassailable, as long as food stores were reliable1. There was even a Macbeth-like prophecy:
Ross may all assault disdain
Till on Lough Lein strange ship shall sail.
Lough Lein2 didn’t have any ships on it – there were boats, but the waterways in the area just didn’t support actual ships that could be useful in attacking from the water. So, of course, those mad bastards under Oliver Cromwell built ships in Kinsale, sailed them to Kilorglin3, and carted them by oxen to Lough Lein to unnerve the inhabitants of the castle and hasten their surrender4.
Well, after being used as a garrison by the British for many years, the castle was abandoned, and fell into disrepair. Notably, the stone roof collapsed, water got into the stone floor of the top level, and that eventually collapsed down through all the lower floors5, leaving the castle an empty, ruined shell. It was only around 19706 that restoration work began.
And they restored the castle beautifully. On the tour, you can go right up to the great hall on the top floor, and each level has period furniture. The guide was really good at explaining what it was actually like to live in a 15th-century castle7, and really entertaining to listen to.
We even got to see the garderobe.
After that, I got back on the bus to Muckross House and took the tour there, where – guess what – they didn’t allow photographs8.
Muckross House is a Victorian country house, never really fell into ruin, and has been beautifully restored. It’s HUGE. Like, 25 bedrooms huge. 16000 square feet huge. Large enough to support a staff of 22 looking after the place.
I didn’t find the history of the house nearly as amusing as Ross Castle, but there were a couple of things that I found interesting:
So very many hunting trophies on the walls – various deer, birds, goats, fish, and another rack of giant Irish elk antlers, even bigger than the ones I saw in Kilkenny.
The heads of the red deer were almost as big as horse heads. Not quite, but pretty big.
Before taxidermy was really a thing, the deer heads would be stripped to the bone and the initials of the hunter, the size of the deer, and the date would be etched into the bare skull, and that mounted on the wall. They look like props for a horror film.
Queen Victoria stayed here for two days in August of 1861. They papered the billiard room9 with lovely hand-painted silk wall coverings in deep blue with birds and flowers. She used it as a private breakfast room, and they never changed the wall coverings back to something more masculine.
Queen Victoria was apparently very afraid of fire, so insisted on sleeping on the ground floor. They even built a cast-iron, four-foot tall fire escape to make it easy for her to exit her room in an emergency.
Then it was back to Killarney. This evening, I went out for some dinner and looked for some entertainment. Most of the interesting stuff was starting much later, so I decided to go see a movie, which was fun. And walking back to Larkinley Lodge, I again was awash in traditional music coming out of pretty much every pub10.
Tomorrow, I’m off to Galway. Another day of train travel.
One of the songs I’m hearing everywhere is Green Fields of France. It’s not a new song. It didn’t used to be so popular, but it’s everywhere this trip. [↩]
Today was much less walking, as I took a bus tour around the Ring of Kerry. Now, I had done this before – on my first trip to Ireland – but I kinda wanted to do it again. I went with a different company1, this time, and the tour had a slightly more relaxed pace, as we were going and coming from Killarney, and not Cork.
Ray, our driver and guide, reminded me again of one of my favourite things out of Ireland: King Puck. He did a masterful job reeling us all in on how Killorglin every year catches a wild goat, crowns it king for three days, “marrys” it to a young lady who wins the honour by writing an essay, keeps the bars open extended hours, parades King Puck and his queen through the village, and then gives the queen a sword to cut open the king’s throat.
Everyone listened intently, and oohed and aahed. Then Ray says, “That’s not what we do at all! We’re not savages! After the party, we return the king to the mountains, and give him a special mark so that he’s never captured to be king again.” And everyone laughed2 sheepishly.
We drove past the statue of King Puck, and I managed to snap a picture, but it’s a phone picture from the wrong side of a moving tour bus through tinted glass, so never mind.
This is not the statue of King Puck. It’s just a goat statue at the Kerry Bog Village Museum. I took a picture of it last time, too, but this time, it had be painted.
There was also a freshly-thatched roof at the Museum. The decorative peak is apparently kind of a signature for some traditional thatchers.
From there, we entered the rugged terrain of the Iveragh Peninsula.
Here’s a nice little view of a river and the mountains in the background.
One of the nice things about this tour was that, because we weren’t so rushed, we got to stop a little more frequently for photo opportunities. Only got a couple more that are different from my last trip, but here they are:
This is the mouth of Dingle Bay.
These are the Scariff Islands. It’s the view from the place we stopped for lunch.
The stop above Waterville was the same as last time, but on this tour, we could see the ring fort down in the valley, and that’s pretty cool.
We made it back into Killarney around 5:30, so I walked around and found the Laurels, where I had a good meal last time in Killarney. It was pretty crowded, but I sat at the bar and had a glass of cider, and a nice chat with some people I met on yesterday’s ramblings. Then I found a restaurant for dinner, and came back for the blogging.
Tomorrow is an unscheduled day. I think I’ll head back to Ross Castle and Muckross House and actually see the insides of them.
PS
I almost forgot. One of the things we did that was really cool was a demonstration by a sheep farmer and his border collies.
He had two dogs, and it was pretty amazing to watch. I remember my parents’ dog, Bo, who always liked to herd the sheep on the farm, even though that wasn’t his job, and he had no idea where he was herding them.
Deros Tours, who had taken me on two great tours the last time I was in Killarney [↩]
I remembered that I had loved Larkinley Lodge last time I stayed in Killarney. In fact, it was one of the reasons that I decided to spend some time in Killarney again this trip. But man, wonderful as that first stay was, it’s nothing compared to how great it is this time. Last time was a flawless B&B experience; this time, it’s like I’m a favourite family member come to visit for a few days1. Toni and Danny have been so friendly, welcoming, and helpful it makes me want to move here.
So, if you’re coming to Killarney, and you don’t stay at Larkinley Lodge, I just don’t think we can be friends anymore.
Anyway.
This morning, I went down to the tourist office to catch the shuttle bus out to some of the places near Killarney I had wanted to see last time but didn’t really get the chance. First stop was Ross Castle.
Here’s a picture of Ross Castle, with the lake and the mountains in the background. I’ve been here before and, just like last time, I didn’t actually take the tour of the castle. I had other things on my mind.
Here’s another picture of the castle to make up for it.
And around the front of the castle, there was this truck parked, and I was feeling whimsical, so I tweeted “Fully restored 15th-century siege truck.” And, of course, one of my friends replied, “Not a period shade of blue, and the sleeper cab dates from no earlier than the 16th century.”2
While I would have liked to have toured the castle, my main goal at this stop was the island of Innishfallen. This started with a small abbey founded in the 6th century that grew into a famous site of learning and scholarship for close to a thousand years. The lake became known as Lough Leane, the Lake of Learning, and it is said that the High King Brian Boru was educated there. It is also where the Annals of Innisfallen were written, documenting almost a thousand years of local history.
The original abbey buildings were timber, so they’re all gone, but the stone buildings that replaced them in the 10th century are still there.
It’s not a huge abbey, nowhere near the size of Jerpoint, for example, but still looks pretty cool.
I thought this archway with the wildflowers growing in the stone was kind of neat. The purple of the flowers doesn’t show up as well in this picture, but I still like the colours of the stone.
This church is up on a little promontory some distance from the abbey.
It’s roofless and empty, except for this small Celtic cross. This was, apparently, found by some local fishermen, and dates to about the 14th or 15th century, if I remember correctly.
So, the trip out to Innisfallen was nice for another reason. I had to wait around for a while at the pier for one of the boatmen to take me over – taking a single passenger is not ideal for them, as they charge by the passenger. They were happy to take me, but hoped for a couple more people to join the trip.
No takers showed up, and finally one of the boatmen, Charlie, I guess got bored of sitting around and ran me over to the island. He had a dog with him – it seems like about half the boatmen had dogs with them – so when I climbed into the boat, I let the little fluff ball sniff my hand and scratched her ears to say hello3. She then ignored me for the entire trip across to the island.
On the way back, when I climbed in the boat, she looked at me, climbed across to my side, snuggled up against me, and began nudging my hand to pat her. She kept nosing at me whenever I stopped patting her.
Her name was Bella. I love dogs.
Anyway, I caught the shuttle bus again, and went off to the Torc Waterfall. The driver gave me directions on how to walk from there back to Muckross Abbey where he’d pick me up in a couple of hours, and I went to find the waterfall.
Okay, it’s about a 200m walk from the car park to the waterfall itself. It never occurred to me – but it should have – that hiking to a forest waterfall at the edge of the mountains would require negotiating hills. I stopped a couple of times along the way to take pictures, and not at all to catch my breath.
The actual waterfall was very pretty, and worth the effort.
The walk back down from the waterfall was easier, and then I found out it was about a 2km walk to Muckross House and Gardens. That was a little farther than I had expected, but so be it.
A lengthy portion of the walk was along the shore of Muckross Lake, and I noticed that the fence on the side of the path had only single strands of wire mounted on plastic pegs nailed to the post, “Hmmm,” I thought, “that looks an awful lot like an electrified fence. But surely there would be signage!” It was another half a kilometre or so before there was, indeed a sign that the fence was electrified. I was very pleased that I hadn’t given in to my experimental urges earlier to find out if the fence was hot4.
I figured the fence was there to keep cattle in the field, but a ways along, I saw the actual occupants.
These are Irish Red Deer, a large species native to Ireland. They’ve almost gone extinct a couple of times, and the Killarney National Park is one of the sites where there is a breeding project to revive the species.
I made it to Muckross Gardens, first.
It’s a pretty, formal garden. The weather was clearing up by then, so there were lots of people wandering about.
Next came Muckross House, but I was running out of time. If I didn’t make it to the pick-up point at the abbey by 2:30, I’d have to wait for 5:00 for the next bus. So, I didn’t go in. Maybe on Saturday.
And then it was another 1.5km through the woods and over hills to Muckross Abbey.
I only had a short time to look at Muckross Abbey if I wanted to make my pick-up time – it was still almost a kilometre to the bus stop. But it was pretty cool.
I caught the shuttle bus back to town, and ran a couple of errands. Most importantly, I wanted to find where my Ring of Kerry tour leaves from tomorrow so I’m not wandering around or rushing in the morning. And, while I was there, I figured I might as well pay for it5.
And then I had some dinner, and came back to Larkinley Lodge to do up this post.
Which is now done.
My actual family members may be asking themselves how I could possibly know what it feels like to be someone’s favourite. First, shut up. Second, I read a lot. [↩]
THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS, CLINT!! [↩]
As all my friends know, I’m a big softy when it comes to dogs. [↩]
There was a lengthy internal debate on the subject. It was close. [↩]
They take a credit card to reserve a spot for you, but you need to come into the office and pay to actually get your ticket. [↩]
Not much of a post today, as I spent the bulk of the day either waiting for or riding on a train. This means that not much interesting happened.
One thing I noticed was that I was dreading putting on my full backpack to haul around all day. It made me start rethinking my luggage choices – or my travel style. I didn’t weigh my fully packed luggage before I left, and maybe I should have, because I spent most of my first day wondering exactly how heavy it was.
It felt very heavy. But I think a lot of that is the fact that I was pretty tired after the overnight flight, and also I had walked a long, long way carrying it through three airports and far more of Dublin than I needed to.
Today, when I put it on, and fastened the belly band, it didn’t feel that bad. The walk from the hotel to the train station was still pretty taxing, but it didn’t wipe me out as badly as I had feared. So, maybe I’m getting used to all the walking.
The whole day wasn’t nearly as much of a strain as I had built it up in my mind. There was a lot of waiting on metal benches at train stations, where I didn’t have to carry the pack. And train station sandwiches over here are so much better than the kind of sandwich you’d get in a similar place back in Canada. I got a lot of reading done and, when I arrived in Killarney, I was especially pleased that I was able to find my way from the train station to Larkinley Lodge without any problem.
And now I’m settled in for the evening, and actually looking forward to getting to bed before midnight.
Yeah. I am old and pathetic. Even on holiday, I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep.
Tomorrow, I’m off to see Ross Castle, Innisfillen Island, and a few other sites around town. I’ll have more pictures for you tomorrow, I expect.
Today was another travel day, so again, not many pictures. I got a nice send-off from Toni and Danny at Larkinley Lodge – seriously, guys, that is THE place to stay in Killarney. Wonderful rooms, great food, and the warmest, friendliest, most helpful hosts you could wish for. Danny even drove me to the train station this morning.
The train ride was suitably boring; the only thing of interest was, after scrambling to get my ticket and onto the connecting train in Dublin, there was a problem with that train’s signals1 and we all had to troop off that train and over to another train, which meant we were delayed about twenty or thirty minutes.
But I made it to Kilkenny and, after one2 wrong turn, I managed to find Butler House, where I’m staying.
The room is huge. Seriously. You could probably fit my living room, dining room, kitchen, and one bedroom in it.
Here’s the other angle on that picture of the room. What you can’t see on the right hand side is the big wardrobe and the second bed. Seriously. Huge. And very nice.
After dropping my stuff off, I took the advice of Helen, the lady who checked me in, and wandered up to Kyteler’s Inn for dinner, where they had a music session going.
I am indeed spending more time in pubs this trip, and also hearing more traditional music. These are connected, and that’s a good thing.
There’s a whole story behind Kyteler’s Inn, but I don’t want to ruin it for folks. I’m sure I’ll get a more detailed3 version of the tale on my walking tour tomorrow, and I’ll be sure to share it with you.
Tonight, I’m going to be taking the rest of the evening easy.
Or something. I don’t know. It coulda been signals. [↩]
