Killarney National Park, more than 25,000 acres of lakes, woodlands, and mountains…. What’s not to love? There was so much I wanted to do in this park, I had to give it two days.
First priority: Get out in it. The southern approach, from where we’re staying in Kenmare, took us through an incredible glacier-cut valley filled to the brim with spectacular scenery. And, as you can imagine, rollercoaster roads throughout as we rose and fell, dipped and swerved through the terrain.
the three lakes of Killarney
The primary attraction in this neck of the woods is the three lakes of Killarney. From Ladies View (so named because Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting swooned as they took in the view on a visit with Her Majesty in 1861) you can see all three interconnected lakes as they stretch from south to north: Upper Lake, the smallest but highest in altitude; Muckross Lake, the deepest of the three; and way in the distance Lough Leane, by far the largest and the one that graces Killarney town. These three lakes comprise one quarter of the national park by area, and they are definitely swoon-worthy.
MacGillycuddy’s Reeks, Ireland’s tallest mountains, flank the west side of the park
In my blog about the Beara Peninsula, I mentioned that what is referred to as the Kenmare River, the body of water between the Beara Peninsula and the Iveragh Peninsula, looks more like a bay–not only because of its width, but because there is no sense of it running into the sea as you would expect of a river. It looks more like, well, the sea itself.
I just learned that the Kenmare River is what is called a “drowned river.” During the last Ice Age, glaciers cut gorges between the harder rock of what are now the mountainous peninsulas. When the glaciers melted, water began to run off the land through these gorges into the sea, becoming rivers. But eventually the rivers deepened the gorges to the point where the level of the river was lower than sea level. Sea water began to backfill the gorges, “drowning” the rivers. What amazing geography!
We were having lunch in a pub on our first day exploring Killarney when I overheard snatches of a weather report on TV: Storm Hannah…drenching rains…hurricane-force winds. “Here?” I asked Marcus. I know it rains a lot on the Wild Atlantic Coast, but hurricane-force winds? We checked it out online when we got back to our cottage in Kenmare. Sure enough, the next day was going to be a good one to be indoors. Sounds like a day off.
the unspoiled Beara hills
When you travel for three months, you need to take a day off from sightseeing at least once a week. Laundry needs to be done, bills need to be paid, yoga needs to be practiced, and, if we’re going to continue to enjoy our travels, downtime needs to be savored. Every now and again, you just need a break.
the Wild Atlantic Coast of Beara
One of my tasks for the day was to map out the weather for the next few days. I had three day-trips in mind, so I checked the forecast for each location. Two of the three were going to be ugly the following day, so by default the Beara Peninsula was our next destination.
Eyeries
There are three fingerling peninsulas that jut out into the Atlantic on the southwest Irish coast. From south to north, they are the Beara; the Iveragh, where the ever popular Ring of Kerry is; and the Dingle, which is growing rapidly in popularity with tourists looking for a little less traffic than Iveragh offers. There wasn’t much in the guidebook to recommend Beara, but it started popping up in conversation with the locals we’ve talked to about our itinerary. “Are you going to visit Beara then? Ah, it’s grand. Very unspoiled and quiet.” I began to sense that it’s where the Irish travel to get away from the tourists. After spending Easter Week in the resort town of Cobh, Beara sounded refreshing. But most importantly, on the day after the storm it was the only place on the west coast where the sun was expected to shine.
as the Greeks would say, many sheep upon the water today
Hannah ushered in a cold front, and the day after her visit the temperature as we left Kenmare was 40 degrees. No sweat (literally), as long as it’s not raining. We drove down the north side of the Beara peninsula, along the Kenmare River—a collection of cute little fishing villages linked by the longest, windiest road in Europe, so they say. The river is more like a long bay between two peninsulas. We could see the Iveragh Peninsula across the way. I could imagine all the Ring of Kerry tourists, climbing down off their tour buses and gazing back at us from the other side. I waved into the haze.
the southwestern tip of the Beara Peninsula
But the most amazing views of the entire drive were at the far end of the peninsula. We rounded a bend in the road and descended a steep hill toward the village of Allihies. Nothing but mountains, farms, and the Wild Atlantic. We were blown away.
It was a gloriously sunny day, and I wanted to be outside. I had read about a cliff walk in the nearby town of Ardmore. There are no two words in the English language more compelling together than “cliff” and “walk,” are there?
kayakers in Ardmore Bay
We stopped in the town of Lismore first, walked around a bit and had lunch. Then we drove on to Ardmore. It was 3:30 in the afternoon by the time we got there. We drove to the spot that Google Maps identifies as the trailhead. A hotel? We drove into the long, narrow car park, but couldn’t find an available spot. Obviously we were not the only ones wanting to get outside on this beautiful day. We wiggled our way back out and snagged a spot on the street where a car was just pulling out. Score!
and other sun seekers
We were walking back toward the hotel when I spotted a sign pointing up the hill that read “Cliff Walk.” How fortuitous! We trudged up the hill.
As is typical, we’ve found, there were no further signs. We saw a local woman walking her dog and asked if we were on the path to the cliff walk. She looked at us, confused for a second, then said, Yes, they’ve plowed up a field, but you can take the next street.
Kinda vague: Field? Street? Maybe it will be obvious when we get there. We walked on.
at world’s end?
We spotted several plowed fields, multiple streets, and a castle-looking building that appeared to be at world’s end. Perhaps it’s on a cliff! We tried to get to it, but every street led to a plowed field that blocked our path. “If the next street doesn’t lead to a cliff walk,” I told Marcus, “we’re giving up.” Twenty minutes later we were returning to the car.
As we came back down the hill, I had a thought. “I’m just going over to the hotel for a minute.” I had seen something at the end of the car park that I want to check out. There was a path marked “St. Declan’s Hermitage.” No mention of a cliff walk, but maybe… I started down the path, and, sure enough, it led beyond the hermitage to some cliffs overlooking the Celtic Sea.
I ran back to get Marcus. It was 4:30 by this time. We had no idea how long the path was. Should we just call it a day? Of course not! Have I taught you nothing? [Backtracking in the Wicklow Mountains]
cliff diving
I would like to say that, confident in our decision, we walked with abandon, but that’s not us. At every bend in the path we stopped to reassess: What time is it? Should we turn back now? Is it getting dark? (We have an obsession with time, and a tendency toward overthinking.)
just to the next ridge…
Fortunately, every bend revealed something intriguing that propelled us to the next one until we had completed the entire walk. It took us 35 minutes to walk out, but only 15 to return. And we still had hours of daylight ahead of us.
When we first arrived in Dublin, we noticed a French press coffee maker in the kitchen. Brilliant! We bought ground coffee at the grocery store, and Marcus prepared to brew coffee on our first morning in our new digs. But the French press was broken. He took one look at my mournful, jet-lagged face. “I’ll make it work,” he promised. It wasn’t easy, but he did. (Never travel without an engineer.)
I messaged the friend of our host* who had checked us in: Coffee maker broken. His reply: No worries! I’ll replace it today.
*Note: The owner of our apartment was out of town, so she had her friend greet us on arrival, something not uncommon in the Airbnb world.
We were out sightseeing all day. When we returned to the apartment, there was no new coffee maker. Had we missed him? Was he reluctant to enter the apartment without us here? I messaged him. Him: Yeah, my car broke down. Sorry. I’ll deliver it tomorrow. Us: Thanks! Hope you and your car are okay. On our second morning, Marcus managed to work his coffee magic again. That evening a sparkling new French press sat on the kitchen table when we returned home. Us: Thanks so much! Him: No worries! Anything else you need, just ask.
So I was a bit mystified when we checked out a week later and the host sent me a message. Her (not Him): Your incessant demands for a coffee maker were OTT [over the top]!!! I supplied instant coffee for you to drink.
Okay, let’s not even address the “incessant demands” comment and get to the crux of the matter: Instant? Really? Do they even make that anymore?
A few days later I was reading an Irish novel to Marcus in the car (to keep his mind off the single-track roads and blind curves), and I came to a part where the main character, who is British, reflects on the fact that the Irish don’t know how to brew a decent cup of coffee. They just drink instant. Yikes! I didn’t know the protocol. Maybe I did overstep my bounds!
Wait a minute! What about all those coffee shops I’ve seen in every town we’ve visited. I can’t drink caffeine after my two morning cups, so I’ve never tried the shops, but walking past them I smell real, brewed coffee. And then I recalled our visit to Starbucks just hours after we arrived in Ireland, while we were waiting for Tourist Information to open so we could stow our luggage for the day. [Passing time: Dublin, Day 1] I nursed a cup of coffee for an hour while we waited. What I declined to say was that the coffee was so bad I could barely drink it. After an hour, I finally threw it out. And I thought Starbucks would be a sure thing.
We are now the proud owners of an Irish French press. We bought our own. We continue to brew coffee wherever we’re living, and I’m a happy camper. These blogs are powered by Java, in more ways than one!
We were surprised to see navy ships docked around a small island in Cork Harbour. Turns out it’s Haulbowline Island, the headquarters of the Irish Naval Service, the maritime component of the Irish Defence Forces. Why should I be surprised that the Republic of Ireland has a navy? The country is almost entirely surrounded by water.
the LÉ Samuel Beckett
Current fleet size: 9 patrol vessels, plus several smaller training vessels. Four of the patrol vessels are named after Irish authors. Now, that’s my kind of navy!
the LÉ James Joyce
Major roles (according to Wikipedia): fisheries protection, sea patrol, surveillance, and smuggling prevention.
The owner of our hotel claims that it’s the only navy in the world that comes home every evening for tea!
What is it about tall church spires that make me weak in the knees? When I first saw the Salisbury Cathedral spire in England six years ago, I couldn’t get it out of my head. I had the eeriest feeling that I had seen (dreamt of?) it before. It inspired me to read The Spire, a dark little novel by William Golding about the building of the cathedral—not the uplifting paean to Early English architecture I was hoping for, but then again he also wrote Lord of the Flies.…
The day we arrived in Cobh, we crested a hill, descended into the heart of the town, and there it was: the ridiculously tall and blatantly gothic spire of St. Colman’s Cathedral, perfectly framed by the buildings on either side of the street and the water of Cork Harbor as a backdrop. As luck would have it, our apartment is right around the corner, with a balcony and double French doors that look out over the cathedral and harbor.
Salisbury’s spire rises 404 feet above flat marshland. The vertical rise is astonishing, but you get that perspective best from a distance.
In Cobh, the spire is a mere 325 feet high, but the cathedral is built on the side of a hill. Its foundation is another 121 feet above sea level. So the spire looms 446 feet above the harbor just beyond it.
And (did I mention?) it’s right outside my window!
St. Colman’s is the first thing I look for each morning—even before my first sip of coffee (there’s not much I look for before coffee)—and the last thing I gaze upon each night. We leave the lights off in our apartment at night and watch the sky darken and the cathedral illuminate itself. What is handsome and regal by daylight becomes drop-dead gorgeous at night. I’m besotted!
For our third week in Ireland, I wanted to stay in Cork: second largest city in the Republic of Ireland, seat of the largest county, culinary capital of the country, vibrant university town, active pub scene, and home to many fine craft breweries. But Airbnb wasn’t coming up with anything I was willing to rent. There was, however, a very fine self-catering apartment in a hotel in nearby Cóbh….
Victorian gazebo on the waterfront in Cóbh
Cobb? Never heard of it. My Fodor’s guidebook doesn’t even have it. It wasn’t until we were watching a documentary on Ireland several months ago that I heard the name said aloud; it’s pronounced Cove. And it wasn’t until a couple of days ago that I learned that Fodor’s does have it, but they call it Cork Harbour. It is, indeed, at the mouth of the River Lee, about 10 miles downriver from Cork.
crescent houses on the hillside
Cóbh went by several different Irish names before the British started calling it Cove, short for Cove of Cork. When Queen Victoria visited in 1849 to check in on the famine victims, Cove was renamed Queenstown, which I find ironic. She didn’t even get off the royal yacht while she was here, but chose to stay on board so she could sketch and paint.
the Titanic tender carried passengers from this pier to the ship just outside the harbor
If you’ve ever read any books about Irish emigration, you’ve probably heard of Queenstown. Many ships, even if they originated in other Irish cities, called in at Queenstown as the last port of call before heading out to North and South America or Australia. Queenstown was the final port of call for the Titanic, too, in 1912. When the Free State of Ireland was created in 1918, the Irish went back to using the name Cove, although with the Irish spelling. The word cóbh has no meaning in Irish.
Belvelly Castle
This city has so many aliases, it’s amazing we found it at all! But we are glad we did. It is a beautiful little seaside resort, and we have a spectacular view of the harbor from our apartment up here on Spy Hill. And should we feel the need, Cork is only a 20-minute drive away.
We’ve been very impressed with the new craft beers that have exploded onto the Irish pub scene in the last year or so. Some are starting to threaten the mainstay, Guinness. Once considered THE Irish beer, Guinness has been dethroned in some pubs here, as in not available. We understand that some regulars have walked out of pubs in protest. But we say, move over Guinness. These guys are true contenders!
Reginald’s Tower, the original Viking settlement in Waterford (courtesy of TripAdvisor)
There’s much talk of the British occupation of Ireland. It did, after all, last for 800 years, nearly wipe out the Irish race, and end only a century ago. Less devastating, and also less well known, was the Viking occupation of Ireland (okay, mostly the south and east) just prior to the British occupation. The Vikings were here for over 1000 years, and were generally well received.
A brief history and geography lesson: Ireland was never part of the Roman Empire, although England was. Only 47 miles, the width of the Irish Sea, separate the two countries, yet the Romans never bothered to make the trip over to take Ireland. Maybe it was because Ireland was too remote from the rest of Europe, adrift on its own in the Atlantic, or maybe the stories of the crazed Irish warriors who rode naked and screaming into battle was a bit too much for their civilized sensibilities. Regardless, Ireland was, for the most part, left to its own devices, which means the Irish were free to tend their cattle, enjoy a good céilí (shindig) now and then, and take in as much craic (fun) as they could handle. Apart from the occasional cattle raid or dethroning a king or two, they led a fairly peaceful existence. Which left them wide open to invasion by Vikings.
inside Reginald’s tower, an excellent Viking museum
The Vikings were quite accomplished sailors and were bound to want to explore (i.e. pillage and plunder) the vast Atlantic coastline sooner or later. They started popping in on their Irish neighbors to the south in the 8th century, and quickly discovered that the Irish monasteries held a wealth of treasures: beautifully illuminated manuscripts, objects made of Irish gold, and other glorious things. By the 10th century, the Vikings began contemplating permanent settlement on this emerald island with so many natural, deep-water harbors. In 914 they chose a location on the southern coast and named it Wetherfjord (literally “rams fjord,” later anglicized to Waterford), built a round tower fortress with an enclosed camp, and settled in for a long and happy life. The Vikings accepted the local Christian religion, intermarried with the local people, and established the first cities, or commercial centers, in Ireland, a concept foreign to the native cattle farmers.
They were quite content for over 1000 years, until one of the Irish kings who was deposed of his kingdom, which included Waterford, by the High King of Ireland decided to take it back. In 1170, Diarmait Mac Murchada and a Welsh mercenary, Richard de Clare (aka Strongbow), took Waterford from the Vikings. Mac Murchada died shortly afterward and his holdings, and daughter, went to Strongbow as promised in return for his help. Henry II, king of England, a little concerned that this upstart Welsh mercenary was taking lands that he felt rightly belonged to England, decided to pay a visit to Ireland. Thus began the official British occupation.
