Heading West to County Kerry

Another early start this morning as I’d booked the rental car for 8am. We were aiming to cross the country from East to West so needed plenty of time up our sleeves. I’d booked the car at the Sixt office almost across the road from the hotel which meant minimal bag rolling, kinder on my arms! We had a bit of a wait to be served as the people in front of us had minimal English and were using a translation app to communicate with the clerk. We English speakers have it so lucky when travelling because it’s spoken pretty much everywhere ( on the tourist routes anyway ) but at least technology makes things a lot simpler for the otherwise linguistic!

Getting out of Dublin was pretty slow thanks to peak hour traffic but eventually we were back in open country winding through a rural landscape and heading up into the Wicklow mountains south of Dublin. About an hour from Dublin we pulled into the car park of the Glendalough Monastic site.

Glendalough is home to one of the most important monastic sites in Ireland. This early Christian monastic settlement was founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century and from this developed the ‘Monastic City’. The ‘City’ consists of a number of monastic remains, and the most impressive being the Round Tower which stands 30m high.

Such a pretty location, nestled in the valley with the brook gurgling past picturesque ruins and wobbly gravestones. We wandered around through the little ruined Priests house and the cathedral and amongst the very disordered tombstones.

Back on the road we travelled on west, initially on narrow winding lanes between hedges and stone walls, passing through the occasional village and past a succession of well manicured horse studs. At one stage we passed a sign to Enniscorthy, which is the area my paternal Grandmother’s family had come from but unfortunately it was a bit to far out of our way to visit today.

Finally we hit the M9 and picked up speed, staying on the motorways almost the entire way until we reached the Rock of Cashel . It’s the seat of the ancient Kings of Munster and is where St Patrick baptized King Aengus in AD 450. The old forts were eventually replaced by a stone tower and cathedral when the King O’Brien gave the Rock to the church. The stone buildings rise straight up from the rock foundation and makes a pretty imposing sight as you drive towards it.

Afterward we felt the need of some caffeine so we stopped in at Granny’s Café for a couple of coffees and a whiskey cake .

Then we hit the road for the two and a half hour drive to Kenmare. Initially on the motorway we eventually started meandering along little roads again through a number of pretty little towns, and eventually we reached more hilly, wild country as we neared Kenmare. We drove up the leafy narrow lane to Rockcrest House just on 4pm .

After a long day in the care we decided to stretch our legs with a walk through the pretty little town. To get to town we needed to cross the little river before we could reach it’s colourful shops. Along the wat we stumbled on “Cromwells Bridge”, an ancient stone bridge ( roughly 11th Century) built in an impossibly crazy high arch over the stream.

There are really only three streets in the main part of town, set in a triangle, the colourful shops and pubs that line the streets are lovely!

We walked up the lanes to see the Kenmare Stone Circle, one of many ancient stone circles that dot the countryside in Ireland, it certainly wasn’t on the same scale as the circle we saw on Orkney but it was pretty nonetheless. Nearby was a small “wishing tree”, where dozens of little notes flapped from it’s twiggy branches, with all sorts of hopes and dreams written on each one. I assume people hope that some magic from the circle will make their wishes come true.

We strolled around the shops in town and I was really delighted to find a tiny little jewellery store selling gold charms. I’ve been finding it increasingly difficult to find gold charms for mu bracelet on our travels but I was able to buy my little gold shamrock from Sean Finnegan, you don;t get more authentic souvenir shopping than that!

We ate dinner at Davitts Bar & restaurant, a recommendation from our host and they didn’t steer us wrong, the meal was excellent and we enjoyed the live musicians who play most evenings. Very full we walked back up the lane to our B & B, looking forward to our drive around the famous Ring of Kerry tomorrow.