We began our fourth day in Ireland by saying goodbye to Dingle. We woke up early and decided to get a run in. Sam ran 5 hilly miles in the neighborhoods outside of town while I ran 3 miles in town, zipping up driveways and around parking lots to get the distance in--Dingle is a small town, so running 3 miles IN town was an interesting feat. It was raining slightly while we ran, but not a lot of people were out and about, so it was peaceful and invigorating! After our runs and hot showers, we grabbed breakfast at the hotel again and got on the road to Killarney. Before getting too far from Dingle, we made a quick stop to see the Hussy’s Folly structure--another busy work famine project. It’s just a seaside tower in a field surrounded by cow patties with no real use. We also drove to Inch Beach--much larger than an inch--it’s actually a huge, expansive beach with car access to drive right up on the beach and a lot of surfing. We ducked into a cafe there for a few minutes to get out of the incredible wind!
We got into Killarney and decided to go straight to Muckross House before checking into our hotel in the city center. Muckross House is a big stately manor for the nobility (think: Downton Abbey), and really doesn’t have much of an impressive history beyond it being a home for the daughter of a wealthy American gold magnate. She married an Irish man and her father wanted to make sure she lived the life of luxury abroad as well. Before exploring the house, we ate a cafeteria-style lunch in the Muckross House visitor center that was just okay. The house is crazy big compared to the famine hovels we saw in Dingle. After lunch, we purchased tickets for the next tour, but we had about an hour to kill before the tour began, so we walked around the grounds and discovered a gorgeous walking path through a moss-covered forest next to a lake. It was very quintessential Ireland - just like what you’d see on a postcard. Our tour guide, Mary McCarthy, was really good. She is a nice older Irish lady and is very knowledgeable about many aspects of the house and the dynamics of the people that lived there. She even handled some extremely oddball questions from other members of our tour group with ease and patience (they kept asking questions about things she’d already talked about and had answered through her normal script--it was frustrating). After the tour, we hopped back in the car and drove down the road to the beginning of the short, but uphill walk to Torc Waterfall, which was very cool, but admittedly, we’ve seen more impressive ones in Canada and parts of the U.S.
Our hotel, Eviston House, was in the city center of Killarney. We had one of our most interesting adventures attempting to park. The lady at the front desk of the hotel drew us a map and tried to explain how we need to enter the garage. We literally had to drive down an alley that was about 4 inches wider than our car once we pulled the mirrors in on the Skoda. A little nerve wracking, but not nearly as bad as what we encountered in Granada, Spain in October. The room was fairly large and the bathroom was perfectly situated for us to do some laundry before heading to a cheese and whiskey tasting we’d booked.
SIDE NOTE: We bring a travel clothesline and travel laundry soap to rinse out our clothes during our trips. Since we’re in Ireland for two weeks, we bring about a week’s worth of clothes that can be mixed and matched, worn during the day and also for runs, layer well, and are easily washed and dry quickly. It saves space (we only take a backpack and a carry-on when we travel) and makes packing up between hotels quick and breezy. For a trip like the one we’re on now, we’re moving to a new town every 1-2 days, so it doesn’t make sense to have multiple suitcases or pack enough clothes for every day of a two week trip. For anyone interested in efficient travel for your next trip, below are links to the clothesline and laundry soap we use. Both are super small and can be shoved into any small pocket you might have. Plus, no liquids, so you don’t have to worry about TSA limits. These are what we use, but there are tons of other similar ones out there based on your preference and price range.
Travel Clothesline - Sea To Summit brand: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sea-Summit-1010407610-Clothes-Line/dp/B000T28X4E/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=travel+clothes+line+with+pouch&qid=1583696513&sr=8-6
Travel Laundry Soap - Sea To Summit brand Pocket Laundry Wash leaves: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sea-Summit-Travel-Pocket-Laundry/dp/B002BO60JI/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2QC3UV9OIVF3Q&dchild=1&keywords=travel+laundry+detergent&qid=1583696618&sprefix=travel+laund%2Caps%2C148&sr=8-3
We had booked the Irish Whiskey Experience, located just down from our hotel. It took place in a smaller room in a trendy whiskey bar. We learned about the whiskey making process from two videos, but was hosted by a younger guy (I’m not sure he ever told us his name--I usually try to remember those details!) who answered any questions we had about the videos and walked us through our whiskey tasting and why they were specifically paired with the cheese provided. Interestingly, when we mentioned we were from St. Louis, he mentioned that he had family in Joplin and then we started talking about my hometown, Webb City, just north of Joplin and it was a super weird, small world moment. We’ve encountered a few like this during our travels and it’s always fun to meet people who are familiar with something we’re familiar with. The whiskeys and cheese were delicious and we had a really great time. We had heard that Killarney contained a Shire-themed pub, like from the Lord of the Rings. They had some veggie options on the menu, so we made our way there for dinner. Sure enough, the bar boasted round, Hobbit-style doorways and quotes from the movies on the walls and ceilings. Thematically, it was a bit all over the place, and they missed some opportunities to name menu items with LOTR puns, but we met the owner and got to take a picture with one of the real prop rings from the movie! Very cool. We split veggie spring rolls and a not-hobbit sized veggie burger--both were very tasty. Come for the nerding out, but stay for the food!
We spent the rest of the night bar hopping, watched Ireland’s women’s team beat Greece in soccer at a sports bar, and settled into a place that did live music before turning in for the night.
The next morning, we planned to complete the Ring of Kerry. We set off early, but within 20 minutes or so, we encountered a closed road. Adventure! We figured out a diversion and drove the back way to Kenmare where we fueled up the Skoda and started the famous Ring of Kerry! Stevesy had a scant guide, so we were on our own a bit. The Ring is much larger than the Dingle peninsula drive. Highlights include a Bronze Age Ring Fort, amazing views, getting lost looking for O'Connell's House and having a snack on a secluded viewpoint, and Fisherman’s Bar (amazing vegan burger and salmon!) in Portmagee. Boats weren’t going to Michael Skellig due to the water being too volatile this time of year, but we explored the visitor center on the mainland to get the feel. After learning that it’s an all day trip where a bathroom would never be available, I definitely didn’t feel like we would be missing anything. Surprisingly, the visitor’s center did not have too much Star Wars memorabilia, but the man who sold us our tickets admitted that their visitor number had jumped up quite a bit since the movie had come out. Also, fun fact, we learned that just the last scene of The Force Awakens was actually filmed on Skellig Michael. The scenes from The Last Jedi were filmed on Dingle because they were too worried about damaging the delicate ecosystem on Skellig Michael, so that’s neat! Sam and I decided that while we enjoyed the Ring of Kerry, Dingle is definitely the better drive. On our way back out of the Ring, we stopped briefly in a smaller town called Killorglin, which is apparently famous for a goat festival. They have a statue of the Goat King, named King Puck, near one of the roundabouts in town. Of course, Sam had to get pictures with the giant, bronze goat wearing a crown.
Back in Killarney, we decided to pop over to Killarney National Park and check out the Dunloe Gap! It was stunning! Sort of like a very rocky valley, where large, jagged rocks that have fallen from the mountains above are scattered around like marbles. The gap required us to navigate a super narrow, super windy one-lane road. It was a lot of fun and sort of awe-inspiring to see how nature had manifested itself here. Very cool, highly recommend this drive. It’s not on the bus routes, so you’d have to visit it with a rental car.
With the little bit of light left in the day, we drove over to Ross Castle, which is right on the water (the same water that Muckross House sits on within the National Park). It’s a smaller site containing the ruined castle, but it’s backdrop is what really makes it impressive. After Ross Castle, it was getting dark, so we headed back to the hotel. We freshened up and had some tea in the room, then took a 10 minute walk to Killarney Brewing company for pizza and microbrews!
The next day, we said goodbye to Killarney and decided to take a scenic route to Kinsale, our next town. We started by driving through Bantry, a small city on the coast. We discovered it actually had a very lively Revolutionary history, but mostly, we thought it was a cute town and driving through the high street (during off-season, off the normal tourist path) meant we saw a lot of locals going about their day and a lot of adorable older buildings containing pubs with brightly painted front doors. After Bantry, we made our way to the Kealkil standing stones in (another) muddy field. Standing stone circles are pretty common in this area (think: Outlander), but are believed to have been mostly for ritualistic purposes. A detour on tiny country roads to Schull provided us with more stunning views of the southern stretch of the Wild Atlantic Way. After a bit, we arrived in Skibbereen, which was one of the worst hit areas during the Irish Potato Famine. While in Skibbereen, we saw a famine-era workhouse and read some of the content provided outside of the famine heritage museum, though the museum was closed. We ate fast food at ‘The Busy Bee’ (including potatoes, which felt weird next to the famine workhouse) before heading toward our next attraction, the Drombeg Stone Circle. We ventured down yet another super narrow rural road to a small parking lot and walked a short distance to the circle. This one was even more like Outlander, so for laughs, I did a little spin dance like in the opening credits of the show while playing my Outlander ringtone.
We then made our way to Clonakilty Distillery and a tour we had booked a few weeks ago. It’s a super modern new distillery and currently isn’t even selling its own whiskey because it’s so new (and whiskey in Ireland needs at least 3 years to age before it can be bottled and legally called Irish Whiskey). Instead, they are bottling blends and single pot stills from the stores of more mature whiskey establishments and labeling it under their label, which everyone does when they are just getting started, but it was interesting to hear them be so open about it. The tour was really good. We were in a small group with one other couple and led around by tour guide, Chloe. We talked to her about American Bourbons and gave her some recommendations for a visit to the States that she has coming up. She also provided us with an overview of Clonakilty itself, which is the home of Michael Collins and famously a beautiful small town. After the tour, it had started to rain pretty hard, but we decided we wanted to view the beaches near Clonakilty. It was CRAZY windy and rainy, but that didn’t stop Sam from jumping out of the car to take some video of the huge waves crashing up to the beach. He was drenched when he got back to the car...but he did it all for the ‘Gram.
Once back on the road, we made our way into Kinsale! Our hotel is called, “The White Lady”, which we thought was an odd name, but discovered the probable reason when we visited the Charles Fort (more to come on that later). Kinsale is a cute town! Reminds me a bit of Newport, Rhode Island, due to all the sailboats and upscale restaurants tucked in between traditional old pubs and historic buildings. We walked to Black Pig restaurant and were quickly relieved we had arrived early as the place got jam-packed quickly. We shared a bottle of Monastrell and a plate of mixed vegetarian antipasto and the best tiramisu I’ve ever had (which includes the ones we had in Italy!). During dinner, we discovered that Kinsale has a bar called The Greyhound, so of course, we had to get a picture and a pint before heading into Kitty O’Se’s for live music. While walking back to our hotel, we found a bar called “Sam’s Bar” so we stopped in there, too. We met a couple of newlyweds from Texas, Scott and Laura, who were on their first international trip! We talked up Tripmasters (the site we use to book our travel packages) and travel in general. When they left to continue their pub crawl, we headed back to the hotel while it poured down ice cold rain. Fun day!
Today, I slept in while Sam went out for a run in the crisp, bright morning air...and immediately got stuck in a fast moving rainstorm (pelting icy rain). Luckily, our hotel has a heated towel rack, which he deeply appreciated after a hot shower to wash off the cold rain. The White Lady includes breakfast, so we grabbed a bite and headed out (into another wave of sunshine) to complete the Kinsale walk recommended by Rick Steves. Kinsales is a really small town and the sites are super close together, so it took us only about 10-15 minutes to complete the walk. We didn’t have much planned today, so we decided to wing it a bit more and added Desmond Castle and snuck into the St. Multose church for pictures as they were setting up for Sunday service. Interestingly, we discovered that parts of St. Multose was originally built in 1190 and the base of a baptismal on the site dates back to the 6th century.
After the Stevesy walk, we decided to hoof it toward the Charles Fort, a star fortress built in the 1700s. It was about a 45 minute walk along the harbor (and up a cliff at one point) and on the way we encountered another squall, but we pushed through. The fort is situated on the harbor and was meant to be a defensive structure with super thick stone and earth walls and many points of defense. It played a role in quite a few conflicts. This also gave us a view of Kinsale Harbor and the spot where the Lusitania was sunk (the event that helped to bring the U.S. into WWI, since many Americans died when it sank). The fort was very interesting to walk around and there were almost no other visitors, so it was quiet to explore around.
We discovered the story behind the name of our hotel during our visit to Charles Fort. Apparently, around the 17th century, there was a young woman from Kinsale who married a soldier posted at the fort. On the soldier’s wedding night, he still had to report for duty at the fort and fell asleep at his post. Other soldiers discovered him asleep and, as was common during this time, shot him right there for falling asleep on duty. When his new bride found out about this, she flung herself off of the wall of the fort in her wedding dress. It’s believed that she still haunts the town and locals refer to her as The White Lady.
After we finished exploring, we stopped at a nearby restaurant, the Bulman. They were a little busy when we arrived, but after about a 10 minute wait, we were seated. Sam had a goat cheese focaccia bread tartlet and truffle mash and I got the most amazing smoked salmon, broccolini, and sun-dried tomato quiche! During our 15 minute walk back to town, we decided to jump in on a tour that was in-progress at the Kinsale Mead Company! They make traditional dry Irish mead, which is much nicer than the sugary sweet stuff we had last time we were here (in Bunratty). The Mead Co. is a small facility, but sustainable and you could tell they were passionate about the craft and efforts to protect the bee populations that make the whole thing possible. We walked around town a bit and stopped to split a pint at The Kingsale, a really old pub in the center of town that had whitewashed walls and a cool vibe. We used this time to plot our course for tomorrow (and the next day!). We then opted for dinner at our hotel so I could try their seafood chowder, which is apparently a world-champion (it was VERY tasty) while Sam wanted a veggie pizza that was listed on their menu. It ended up having sweet corn on it, which was kind of weird. We are spending the rest of the night in to rest up given our nearly 18,000 steps walked today. It's been a really fun, but exhausting day! Tomorrow - on to Waterford by way of Midleton and the Jameson Whiskey Experience.
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