Killarney and Kenmare

The last few days have been incredibly busy and without Internet!

Thursday, my mom, Ryan and I decided to see the lakes of Killarney (home of the old family). The drive was just spectacular. More views of the mountains, lakes, and sheep. We had to stop every fifteen minutes to get out of the car and take in the view.

We also visited the Muckross house, an old Victorian home owned by the Muckross family years ago. It’s located on the foot of the hills and at the base of these stunning lakes. We walked 2 kilometers to the house, through these amazing gardens, with even more views of the mountains and lakes. There was an old boat house, complete with small row boats and striking views of connecting waters full of floating swans.

Another side note: to get into the house we had to pass a picket line. For over one hundred years, jockeys have led horse drawn carriages through the property. However, the government is now requiring the “jaunting carriages”   to put plastic bags on their horses. When the jockeys did not comply, they were banned from the park. It was interesting to see the political side of the nation as we enjoy our vacation. We decided to bide by the picket line and not spend money at the house, so ultimately we never did the tour.

Killarney Horse Races were going on while we were in the city, so the traffic was just ridiculous. And, it was pouring down rain. It was our first really nasty downpour since we’d been in the country (shocking as that is) But it was coming down hard, so tooling around the city of Killarney was difficult. But it was such an amazing area. It’s definitely more tourist-y then Kenmare or Cobh, but the shopping is pretty ideal and the little cobblestone roads are pretty adorable.

We made our way home from Killarney back to Kenmare, went straight into town, and enjoyed some early shopping, happy hour drinks, and appetizers. Ryan got a woolen hat (freshly made the sheep we had passed all week.) We had dinner at the Horseshoe, a little restaurant right on Main Street. Ryan had the lamb, which the waiter insisted was as fresh as can be.

We then proceeded to get in touch with our Irish roots and do our own little version of a pub-crawl. We started at the bar we had visited the night before, this time enjoying knowing a few of the songs. My new favorite is the Fields of Athan Rei. Great song, download it. We enjoyed some good music, good company, and good Guinness.