Ring of Kerry
OK – I’m adding photos to webshots (burren, kerry), but adding 4 hi-res photos took 20 min, and as I’m paying for internet… I’m gonna add lores for the rest of this album. Sorry. Oh rock – the lores pics add in about 30 seconds. I’m gonna add a bunch! I forgot to mention that on the bus to Killarney I saw some large sandpiper type birds, which I looked up and they start with W (whipple? not whippet, obviously…) I’ll have to check again.
OK – so got up early this morning (noisy french boys in the room – I’ve moved rooms today, and added on 2 more nights here in Killarney). Looked around for breakfast, and then went on a ring of Kerry tour. Now – maybe Kerry is more picturesque when things are in bloom, but I didn’t quite get why the ring is the most touristed area. It was still really pretty – don’t get me wrong – but I didn’t think it was particularly more beautiful than any other part. Anyway, the tour was quite small. Despite the cold snap, I was really glad to be here in winter – our minibus wasn’t full, and I saw no other tour buses, which is very, very different from what it is suppossed to be like in summer. The only downside – I had a hard time understanding the guide, so I’m sure many of the spellings (or explanations) that follow aren’t quite accurate. I will also add that we started with the least secnic part, and ended on the best part.
So – to start. We drove by the Mcgillmskfhsdf…. mountains, which contain the highest peak in ireland, and several had snow on them from last night! That was nice (I got some photos on the return). Apparently a tour through these mountains is the 2nd oldest tour in the world, as there is a record of the Mahoneys doing this path in the mountains in the 1400s. We could see the Dingle penninsula at first (the ring of Kerry is on the Iveragh penninsula, between the dingle and beara penninsulas). We drove through Killorgan, which had a statue of king puck, the king of the puck fair festival (he’s a goat). It seems to be an excuse for 72 hours of drunkenness. And a sheep market. We passed over several rivers, including the caragh, and behy (salmon and trout). Then we stopped at the Red Fox inn for Irish Coffees. Yumm.
We went through Glenbiegh, which may or may not mean glen of the bitter trees (serious trouble understanding the guide). we saw some ruins of Irelands “oldest new castle” built in 1879, and taken over by the British army, which made it a prime target during the civil war, and hence it is ruins today. (How do you describe an archaeologist without using the words rock, stone, or artifact. Someone whose life is in ruins. badumdum). There used to be a RR line running around the penninsula. It ran from 1892-1960, and the track, bridges, and tunnels are still around in parts. Dingle bay has a Ross beach (to go along with Ross castle and cottage – Ross means penninsula, apparently). Then we went by Kells bay, which was quite scenic. Then we saw the birthplace of Daniel O’connel (the ruins of a stone hut covered in ivy) who liberated the catholics from parliament in the 1800s. There was a large church near here named after him, completed in 1905, and they had to get special papal permission to name it after a layperson (it is the only lay person named cathedral in Ireland/the UK).
Fun Irish facts: Killarney has a population of 12000, and something like 350 hotels and B&Bs. And 8.5% of the Irish population speaks Irish on a daily basis. The southwest of IR gets 80″ of rainfall a year – more than any other part of the country (Dublin and the NE ~27″).
Saw a little brown bird with orange under its wings and a pony (a kerry pony?). Then we drove by the waffle/waddle beach and bolus head/bay (or something). We also drove by the butler arms, a resort where Charlie Chaplin used to visit annually for fishing trips. There was also a giant statue of a lobster drinking guiness. We could see the skelligs in the distance (ah – to visit…) the little skellig has a colony of 56000 gannets (the largest gannet spp in Europe). We went through the Coomb-a-cushda pass, which means pass of treasure and suppossedly has treasure hidden in it from smugglers. There was the ruins of a stone circle that was used as a defensive settlement, 4/5000 years ago. We also went through Derrynone, which used to be Daniel O’connels estate, and is now a national park, and had lots of woods coming up from the sea, but still pretty rocky (I wasn’t expecting so many rocks in kerry, but I actually think they made the landscape prettier). Then we went to Kasay’s cove – where I saw some of the gannets! Then we passed the ruins of a famine hospital built by a lady broderick.
We stopped at Sneem village (pop. 90, and winner of the tidy town award) for snacks and souvenirs (I ate the veggie quiche I brought with me). (forgot – i spent lunch talking with a guy from Quebec, who is living in Dublin and saving up to travel – and has been here since Sept. ) Saw a sparrowhawk. Lots of cows (more cows than sheep – kerrygold butter…) Went through the blacklake valley and into Killarney NP, which was the prettiest part of the whole drive (although once we were facing the beara penninsula, it was very scenic as well). Killarney NP is 45000acres, has about 6 differing ecosystems, is a UNESCO biosphere reserve, is the largest NP in Ireland, and was formed in 1932. It has lots of small waterfalls up around where we were driving too. We stopped by the upper lake and the ladies lookout (where Queen Victoria stopped with her ladies in waiting when she was staying at muckross house). Oh – and we passed a lake in the shape of Ireland.
So – I’ve decided to stay longer, and see more of the park – which I am seriously in love with. Still deciding on Glengarriff. Discovered more money in my bank account than was there previously – I was expecting 1 paycheck, but maybe I got 2? So that’s nice.
The photos that are up are very small – sorry bout that. I’ll add the high res back in Dublin, if I can.
I feel like I had 2 bits of movie news, but the only one I remember is this interesting quote from an article on how the oscars prefer a regal vision of Britain (from the Observer). “[Filmmakers Paul Greengrass and Kevin MacDonald] owe a debt to Ken Loach, the doyen of British realist cinema, who has never been nominated for an oscar. Why? Well perhaps Loache’s famous lack of respect for the crown (‘the royal family is an absurd anachronism that encourages the worst things’) offers some explanation. Ken is currently so far off Oscar’s radar that the US distributors of his Palme D’Or-winning Irish drama The Wind the Shakes the Barley didn’t even bother to release the film in time for Academy consideration. Producer Rebecca O’Brien (of course) was quoted as saying: ‘We’ve already won the only prize that European and World filmmakers truly covet, so why try and compete with the major studios at something they are much better at?’ Or, put another way, would the academy really applaud a film by a staunch anti-royalist which has been (wrongly) accused of glorifying terrorists and which has potent parallels with America’s adventures in Iraq? Probably not.”
Now I don’t think the article has a lot of merit (hello – Farenheit 9/11 – the academy revels in critiques of America, and I don’t think looks that badly on royal critiques – I mean the Queen isn’t entirely a glorification of the monarchy…). But I thought the quote from the producer was illuminating, although many small studios manage upsets at the oscars (generally when run by Weinsteins, but still…) I was wondering why it wasn’t released in time. As for glorifying terrorists… well, its about a civil war. Had the British won, history would’ve written them as terrorists probably. And as for parallels with Iraq – not really, although lord knows that situation is basically a civil war now.
How I go – Yellowcard
Tags: Travel
jwdmeow