Long Excursion to the South West regions

Firstly, I must apologize for the lack of blogging recently. Last Wednesday, September 15th, we took off on a five day excursion. I’ll start from the beginning…

Wednesday we left the Park Lodge Hotel to head off to Thoor Ballylee. This was the not-so-humble abode of a Mr. William Butler Yeats, one of the best Irish authors of all time. This castle with attached cottage was built on a river which Yeats believed to be the same river his good friend Lady Gregory’s heritage was planted on. In Ireland, rivers pop up and disappear with very little apparent reason, sadly Yeats was incorrect. However, the bridge from the road over the river to his home was quite impressive so it was probably worth it anyway. An interesting side story on the bridge: it was half demolished by the I.R.A. but that was done with great respect. The men who were blowing up the bridge, after setting the charges approached the house and alerted Yeats wife and child who were in the castle at the time that they were going to blow up the bridge out of respect for W.B. Yeats. His wife’s response was, “Well can’t you go blow up a different bridge?” and they told her it had to be that one. Luckily they only blew up one side of it so the bridge remains intact.

After leaving Thoor Ballylee, we visited the aforementioned home of Lady Augusta Gregory, Coole Park. Before I go any further, I just have to say Coole is absolutely gorgeous. Sadly during times of suppression of Irish heritage the government tore down her house claiming it was structurally unsound (which was crap) but the land and the gardens were still intact. We stopped by the signature tree which was a giant tree signed by many of the greats who visited Lady Gregory. Some of the initials etched into the trunk were those of W.B. Yeats, Sean O’Casey, George W. Russell, Lady Augusta Gregory herself, John Mansfield, and George Bernard Shaw. We toured the woodland trails and then headed on with our journey.

A tour of the city of Cork was next on which we stopped by Fr. Finbaar’s Cathedral, the Holy Trinity Church, and the University of Ireland Cork. We spent the night out in Cork and enjoyed it despite the fact that it was flooded by underdressed fifteen and sixteen year olds who had just completed their junior certificates.

Thursday we left Cork to stop shortly after at the infamous and majestic Blarney castle. Yes, of course I kissed the Blarney stone. It was a very impressive estate that included the fortified castle, the house, and a poison garden! Who knows why we found marijuana in the poison garden, but I sure got a kick out of that.

From Blarney we headed on to stop quickly at the Michael Collins site. If you don’t know who he was, you should. So here it is in short, he was a leader in the Irish revolutionary war. He also invented guerilla warfare and utilized it so well that the English finally asked the Irish to meet and come to a compromise at a conference of the leaders of the two forces. He was ambushed near Cork and killed; now a memorial stands in the same place.

That night we headed to Kilkenny and stopped by the Ross Castle for an impressive tour. The view from what could be called the master bedroom was illustrated with mountains and a lake. The lake was prophesized to be the only possible way to infiltrate and capture the castle. In a way, this saved it. When the tenants saw ships coming into harbor they fled, fearing for their lives. This also helped preserve the castle so we could see it in all of its (restored) glory.

Killarney for the evening was filled with Irish music in very enjoyable pubs.
Friday we took off from the hostel and headed out towards the Muckross House to see how someone in the 1800’s may have lived among the landed gentry. This estate was much more than expansive; it was gorgeously maintained as well. I personally wasn’t all that thrilled about touring the house and hearing where and when each piece of furniture was from so if you ever decided to visit, I’d recommend not touring the inside. The house included a sunken garden, mountainous landscape, two lakes, a rock garden, and an abbey.

From the Muckross house we headed out to tour the Ring of Kerry. It was quite impressive touring around the peninsula. We stopped at the Barracks to tour the now-museum. This is another place that would not be recommended by many people on this trip. The rest of our tour of the Ring of Kerry was amazing.

Saturday, on our way to the Dingle Peninsula, we stopped at the Kerry County Heritage Museum which was extremely interesting. The basement was outfitted as a recreation of Tralee in 1450 allowing for a “Medieval Experience”. We headed out to the Dingle peninsula stopping in the town of Dingle and the Blasket Islands Historic Museum. The Blaskets housed one of the last Gaelic communities and also were the cause for the destruction of some of the Spanish Armada’s ships.

Sunday Morning we headed home but not without an exciting stop at the infamous Cliffs of Moher. This was possibly one of the most exciting parts of the trip thus far. We walked along the cliffs staying a few steps back from the intimidating edge. We did however take a risk and laid on the edge overlooking the 214 meter sheer drop to the ocean. From there we headed back to the Park Lodge.