Kerry

Okay. Sorry for the delay in postings, it's been hectic with traveling, work, class, and me being lazy and enjoying my leisure too much. I went to Amsterdam last weekend and Killarney this weekend. Make sure to see the post below this one for Amsterdam.

This past weekend myself, Erin, and Allison we went to Killarney, in County Kerry. This is where my paternal grandfather's family came from (i.e. the O'Connor side). Unfortunately, the two full-days we spent there were pretty cloudy, so the pictures aren't especially vivid. Rest assured, the pictures don't do the landscape justice. It was beautiful. We hopped a train there on Thursday night after work, went to our hostel, and then rented bikes and biked through a bit of Killarney National Park on Friday. We saw some of the Killarney lakes, Muckross Abbey, the Muckross Mansion, and Torc falls. We went through Muckross Mansion, but in the name of preservation, they keep the blinds closed and don't allow photography. Too bad, it was a really cool in there.

Saturday we took the famed "Ring of Kerry" tour, which is a bus tour that cruises around the Kerry countryside. We finished Friday off by watching the World Cup of Rugby in a pub (I understand the general concept but am still clueless on the majority of the rules and nuances of the game - however, it was still exciting to watch. It was France vs. England, and France was heavily favored to win - but England came from behind in the final minutes of the game to clinch it and will be going on to the final.) After that we headed to another pub with traditional Irish music, a band called the Molly McGuires. It was four guys and one of them was hammered and kept talking inbetween songs for like 5 minutes at a time, but he was pretty funny. The locals (what the Dubliners would call "culchies" - basically the Irish version of rednecks) were hilarious and made a huge ruckus. They were all hammered and were dancing around and pulling people up from the tables - most of whom were tourists - and making them dance too. Traditional Irish dancing too, step dancing and the kind of stuff you'd expect to see at an 'ol country hoedown or something. I wish I got some videos or pictures of this, but unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me at that point. Anywho, on to the pics. I'll try to do these in chronological order. Caption under the picture:


Here's a river we passed over on our ride towards Killarney National Park.


Some sheep at one of many, many farms. Also on the way to the national park, but still very much inside the town of Killarney.





Okay, here's a bunch back to back. At this point we're starting to get towards the outskirts of Killarney. This was just a lake we saw and happened to stop by. The ruins were some old castle that belonged to the McCarthy family. It was one of three castle's they ruled the area from. It's from the 1200's, so pretty old... If anybody wants to see more pictures, I have them by the way. This is just a synopsis sorta thing, I took close to 200 pictures so if anyone wants more of any of this stuff (probably not) just let me know and I'll upload em.




This is the Muckross Abbey. As you can see from the first photo, it's undergoing some renovations - but it was deserted when we were there, which was pretty nice (I know you can see people in the first picture, but that was taken on the way back actually, so those people weren't around when we were there). We got to walk through the entire building. There was a big yew tree growing in a courtyard in the center, which was cool. I also have plenty more pictures of this place if anyone wants to see em, but they're pretty boring unless you're into the architecture of an abbey.




Sorry if this is a bit morbid, but at the Abbey I noticed a few O'Connor graves. Chances are there's no relation to my family, but I figured I would snap the photos just incase (I mean, hey, we did come from the region after all). I'll have to consult the higher ups in my family and see if any of these names ring a bell.


Here's Muckross House. It's a famous mansion that has a long history in the area and was preserved to depict victorian-era life for both the servitude and the upper class. The house has a mildly interesting history, which you can read about if you just google up Muckross House (and you can also see some more pictures that do it more justice). It was really cool inside, just about everything in the house is original.


Here's the view from the side of the Muckross house (the master bedroom windows looked out on this.) That lake is actually connected with the one I posted earlier (although it's a different lake. I think that one is called lower lake and the other one was middle or upper lake. I'm no geologist, but let's just go with that.)





Here are the famed Muckross Gardens. There was a lot more to see than this, but unfortunately I didn't go as crazy as maybe I should've with the picture taking in the gardens. The good news: Allison and Erin did, so I can scoop up some of their photos as soon as I get the chance...






After Muckross House we biked over to Torc Falls. The first couple of pictures were just shots of the stream coming down from the falls as we were on our way up. The falls were really beautiful - just out in the middle of the woods and very untouched by man. By the way, getting out to that rock was not easy. So enjoy the crap out of that picture, because it was a pain in the ass to make it happen.




After a hike up some paths that wound around the falls, I found myself at a point with a hell of a view. Unfortunately you couldn't see the falls because of all the foliage; but basically, looking at those original pictures of the waterfall, I was at a higher elevation than the highest point of the waterfall and slightly back / to the left of it. If that makes sense? If not, don't sweat it, just enjoy the pictures. Everyone points out that I'm an incredibly fake smiler in photos and that it looks like I'm having a miserable time but trying to feign enjoyment.. .. if you agree with them, rest assured that this was not the case.

And thus concludes our biking tour. We biked back and then got dinner and hit the pubs. Saturday morning we went on the Ring of Kerry tour, which was also amazing. I have a ridiculous amount of photos of this, but so many of them are just of landscapes and I figured I would bore everyone to death if I had 70 pictures of the Irish landscape. If anyone wants more pictures, just let me know. But without further adieu:




Here's a Bog Village Museum we stopped at. This was like a 5 or 6 family village where people harvested peat from the bogs. There were a handful of houses which you could go into and were restored to be historically accurate. That forge and the bellows is original. I have pictures of the other houses in the village and some stuff, but really, they're just the same as this one with maybe some regular house decor instead of a forge inside.



Awww, doggies. I figured Chris would like that picture. And then there's the horse. I took the picture because I thought it was the fattest horse I've ever seen, and thought that was funny. It didn't even cross my mind that the horse was probably pregnant until someone pointed it out to me earlier tonight. Joke's on me I guess, but I'm still including the picture.




Okay, this is a river where one of those Killarney lakes drains out towards the ocean. Yup...



This is where that river above eventually empties out. I mean, not right there, but into that body of water. That's some sort of bay or harbor or something - I dont remember the name of it. But that landmass off in the distance is Dingle Peninsula.



This was just a parking lot at the top of a smaller mountain where people could take pictures and admire the view. I'm not sure if the picture really depicts it, but there were rays of sunshine which were breaking through the clouds out in the ocean and illuminating portions of the water, which was really cool looking. It was unbelievably windy up here, as the next picture will show...


Like I was saying, pretty windy. This was taken from the opposite side of the parking lot as the above pictures. Unfortunately it doesn't include much of the valley below, which was beautiful and had a "ring fort" in it that was incredibly old - I think they were saying something like 2000 years old... and still in good shape!



Here's an old church in a little village we stopped in. The second picture is taken from the church, looking out to what would be your right in the first picture. Those little cones were actually used by monks to keep bees and gather their honey.





Here's a place called "Lady's View". It was named this because, as the story goes, when Queen Victoria visited in the 1860's (she actually stayed at Muckross House) a few of her servants were brought to this point and proclaimed that it was the most beautiful view they had ever seen. The pictures really don't do it justice - too bad it was a cloudy day.

Anywho, that concludes the photos I got. Allison and Erin both have a bunch more photos, and of some things that I didnt get to snap shots of, so I'll see if I can grab those from them and maybe update in a few days with more pictures.