Ireland Honeymoon Day 4

Travel Journal Ireland Honeymoon – Steve & Kate March 12, 2013

We slept so well last night that Steve couldn’t wake me up at 9:00 to shower first before our breakfast (which was scheduled for 9:30), so I didn’t get up until 9:20 and went down to breakfast unshowered.  Oh well.  We had a little table near the former outer wall/current Stone Room wall of the Castle.  We had our usual beverages, but served in very fancy china for the tea and coffee, and we also had some yogurt, croissants, and scrambled eggs (the eggs weren’t the best) on top of the usual large amount of toast and tasteless brown bread.  It’s wild to be eating breakfast in a Castle with cloth napkins!  We were surprised to see that also on the buffet portion of the room there were all the cheeses that we had eaten the night before for our dessert.  We asked the man who was waiting on us that morning if Higgins, the Irish wolfhound, had been at the Castle yet today, and he said that he had already chased him out of the food room once.  Apparently he has a habit of sneaking into the meal rooms and running out and eating entire cheese trays and meat trays or anyone’s meals that he can get to because he’s so tall!  We didn’t mind, we were excited to meet him, but it seems the staff there are not usually very happy with him!  Apparently he has, in the past, sneaked into the food rooms and run off with entire plates of cheese or meats!

We were about to head upstairs for me to shower and to start packing leisurely (we didn’t have to be out of our honeymoon suite until noon today), when we saw Higgins the Wolfhound bounding out of a car.  We went outside to meet him and he was a definite “leaner”, like other big dogs, where he wants attention and scratches and to be petted and the happier he gets the more he leans on you, putting all his weight into you to hold him up.  Must be nice to be so relaxed!  We told him we’d come back out and see him later but that we needed to pack.  He seems to have understood.  We didn’t let him inside as we knew the breakfast was still being cleaned up and didn’t want to spark an international doggie incident!

Once we got ready for the day, we opened up all the beautiful window treatments (and even the windows themselves) as it was a gorgeous sunny day and although a bit cool out in the wind, the air coming in the room felt delicious.  Especially for packing and loading things in the car.  We really took until about quarter to noon to leisurely talk about our agenda for the day, to organize and pack, and to load things into the car, stopping to throw stones for Einstein outside and pet Higgins whenever we went past either of them.  After the car was totally loaded, I wistfully said goodbye to our beautiful room, and then we walked around inside the castle taking photos (sneaking back into the wedding reception room and other rooms – and there were creepy dolls in the windowsill of one of the windows.  I’m just glad that we didn’t find them in front of our bedroom door this morning. 

While packing, I received a telephone call from the Healy relation that Eileen had contacted to tell them we were in the country and related to the Healys and so I spoke to them in our little “sitting area” in our suite.  They were hoping that we could turn around and head back to Cork instead of going north, but they were many many hours out of our way and we really hoped to get more north along the trip.  However, I have their son’s contact information as well as their contact information and will get in touch with the Healy relations here in the U.S. to try to put together our families!

After such a lovely distraction, we finished packing and loading the car.  We then enjoyed the outer part of the castle – the outdoor statues, the view of the vines climbing the towers, the gazebo for civil ceremonies (which are not that common yet in Ireland even though the Castle hosts anywhere from 160-180 wedding receptions a year, only about 10 were civil ceremonies last year).  My parents called while we were wandering the castle grounds so I told them about our adventures in a short little conversation.  We then played with the dogs, stone-fetching for Einstein and belly rubs for Higgins because he was lying in the sun in the grass and didn’t seem to want to move.  After many more photos and pets, we decided we should leave, so we drove down the lane, stopping to take photos of the pet cemetery. 

What happened next was just a fluke – we’d already fallen in love with County Kerry, and we hadn’t completely gotten around the 100 km long Ring of Kerry drive, and we didn’t have any set place where we needed to be tonight, so we decided to go back and drive the Ring and potentially end up back in Kenmare!  We knew it was crazy, but we loved the area so why not enjoy it to its fullest?  We really wanted to say that we had completed the entire Ring of Kerry, so we did.  Steve drove today, which meant that there were plenty of scary moments for me as a passenger, but we scared one another each day with the roads so it was only fair that it be my turn! 

What is so very hard to write adequately and describe in words is the sheer, raw beauty of the landscape.  It changes from forest to rock to bush to mountains to valleys to the sea – nothing is the same and it’s all beautiful beyond imagining.  You believe in magical spirits and mystical creatures because it is such a magical place and the word beautiful is inadequate for this part of Ireland.  I struggle to describe everything that we saw – and unless you go yourself, you may not even understand by looking at pictures.  But hopefully when I post pictures and when I create our photobooks/albums, people will be able to understand this kind of untethered, almost unearthly, beauty.  It’s no wonder it’s believed that the Blarney Stone brings eloquence – when you live amongst this kind of beauty you feel the need to describe such wonders as those you see in the landscape, and the beauty of the people too.  I wish I did it justice, but I just can’t.  So multiply the experienced of reading these journals and viewing photographs by a million and you might be able to capture in your mind the essence of the way this island grabs ahold of your heart and your spirit and your imagination!

We took the Ring at our own pace, stopping whenever we wanted to take photos of the raw natural beauty of the whole peninsula – the mountains, the sheep, the goats, the rocky crags, the outcroppings of stones, the hills, the sun, the rain, the clouds, the beautiful little and big homes along the way, the fancy golf courses and the quaint little villages we passed through.  We stopped for lunch in a tiny village called Waterville, across from the Skellig islands.  It was one of the first times that we had to go outside to an outdoor restroom and the cold seat on the toilet really woke me up!  I was having a little bit of a rougher MS day than I had so far this trip, but it wasn’t too bad, but I did have Steve stop at the local chemist shop to talk to them about it and buy more cream and medicine.  I talked to them about MS in Ireland – apparently it’s as big a problem as we have in the Great Lakes, although I believe they have different resources available to them with their medical system and a different way of evaluating medications.  I’d be very interested in researching their system of dealing with MS and symptoms and progression – could be a case for moving!  But back on topic…

We then went to a local craft market so that we could buy some gifts and souvenirs from the outlying islands.  I hope that we will return soon so that we can explore the Skelligs, the Aran Islands, and the Inis Islands as well.  They all have their own cultures, and on some of those islands only speak Gaelic (though in Ireland they often don’t say “Gaelic”, they instead say “Irish”).  We found this beautiful type of wood, called “bogwood”, which was very old wood that fell into the peat bogs and were preserved in a special kind of way through the different anaerobic processes in the bog.  Inscribed on it was a form of writing found in Ireland called Ogham, sometimes called the “Celtic Tree Alphabet”, using lines inscribed in the preserved bogwood.  We got ourselves a beautiful piece of bogwood, darker than the other wood which has to do with the tannins in the peat bog from which it’s found, and the inscription was “Ireland”.  It was a modern inscription, obviously, but on ancient beautiful wood.  Of course, we found plenty else at the shop as gifts and souvenirs – another one for our home is a beautiful piece of Irish slate to hang on the wall that has the word “Sláinte” inscribed on it. 

Working with their parents at the craft market were two friendly dogs, a boxer named Sue and a black lab named Darkie.  We of course made friends with them – who wouldn’t?  It seems we have met so many dogs on this trip already that I feel as though it’s healing me – that I could be ready to love another dog even though the loss of Sumi is still so painful.  But maybe these dogs are hearing whispers from doggie heaven telling them to make sure I meet them and pet them and know that it’s ok, I’m not betraying her memory or negating my love for my dog.  Dogs are just beautiful loving creatures. 

After taking some more photos throughout the ring of Kerry, I gave Steve a choice, because we hadn’t set up a place to stay yet for the night and the sun was getting lower in the sky.  The unfortunate thing about the B & Bs, although you have the freedom of using your vouchers for any of about 1400 B & Bs in Ireland, is that you have to check in sometime between 3 and 6 p.m. and telephone if you are going to be later than 6.  The living quarters of the owners (usually women – I believe a great deal of the B & Bs are managed by women who are then able to work from the home living quarters while the men work outside the home) are locked and separated from the guest areas, so once you’ve checked in you can come and go as you please – but you’ve got to get there to check in.  I flipped through our B & B book, and asked Steve what he thought about either trying to go further north, or just stopping in Kenmare again.  Since we hadn’t done a few things that I meant to do in Kenmare as time slipped away from us the other day with Theresa, we both agreed that we would return to Kenmare.  I remembered that Mary Brennan said the Ashfield was booked solid for 8 days after we stayed there, so I decided to find another B & B, and telephoned a lovely place called Rockcrest House within walking distance of the town center and made our reservation for the night.  We were lucky as she had just one room left.

Since we had that sorted, we decided to return to the graveyard where we had seen the plot with the Brennans and take some more photos of the very interesting gravesites in the modern section of the cemetery.  The Irish plots are usually a large rectangle here, with the headstone but then with all kinds of gifts and tributes and flower arrangements and plants and balloons and occasionally bottles of booze and they are really unique.  I have seen things like this on shows about Irish Travelers (the travelling community prefers these terms to the old term “gypsies”) and had assumed that those elaborate gravesites and headstones were part of their culture, but didn’t realize mainstream modern Irish do the same.  We took some better non-blizzard photos of Agnes’ gravesite and the other Brennan headstones, but we still could not find my Great Great Grandparents James and Mary.  There wasn’t a guide that we could find there that would indicate where they might be buried, and there were so many headstones that were just old and worn down, they could have been there and we just weren’t able to find them.  But it wasn’t for lack of effort.

Once we got to Kenmare, we checked in and didn’t even bring our belongings into the house yet – we just left them in the car, and decided while there was still light to walk to the Stone Circle in Kenmare, apparently the largest stone circle in Ireland.  The woman of Rockcrest House provided us with a city centre map and a flashlight, and as we neared the Stone Circle I noticed that there were a lot of big loud ravens everywhere.  I started to get a bit nervous, but when we finally reached the Stone Circle it was quite small and quite well-tended compared to those I’d seen on the moors in England.  In fact, there was a lovely lawn and everything.  It was nice there, and unique in that it had a central burial stone (or sacrificial stone?) in the center of the circle, but other than that, it wasn’t the greatest Stone Circle I’ve ever seen.  But we appreciated being able to see it nonetheless.  What was odd, however, is that as we were leaving the Stone Circle, we saw a black cat sitting and glaring at us for a while.  Just to cover my bases, I explained to the cat that we did no harm and meant no harm, and the cat then ran off.  However, as we got back to the road, a black dog came barking like mad to the fence between him and us.  It was just a little unnerving, if you like to get yourself a little spooked out, like I do!

The last thing that I desperately wanted to do in Kenmare before we had to really and truly leave County Kerry was to see the church where my Great Grandmother Bridget (Brigid) was baptized.  We just followed the very tall spire, lit up beautifully at night, and entered the Holy Cross Church with reverence.  It was very quiet, and occasionally people would come and go to pray or light a candle, but I genuflected a full genuflect, something I haven’t done in a very very long time, when we reached the altar.  The church was beautiful inside – gorgeous stained glass windows, the Stations of the Cross actually explained what was happening, in English, at each Station, the altar was fabulous, and the ceiling beams were beautifully carved wood.  We took photos, and I tried to imagine my Great-Grandma being baptized there in the baptismal font.  It was a very strange feeling.  I lit a candle for her and all our family. 

After we spent a sufficient amount of time at the church, we walked into the town centre again trying to find an open shop to buy more batteries for my camera – this was a huge problem through the whole trip.  I was burning through batteries faster than I could recharge the rechargeable ones and still my camera was so slow to take photos I was getting extremely frustrated.  Unfortunately, by this time, all the shops were closed.  Instead, we then went to Foley’s Inn & Pub and I finally got a shepherd’s pie (as did Steve).  I had been craving one for days and finally got to have it and it was perfect.  Steve also had one and we both had a Beamish stout, a lovely flavorful stout that was a nice change from Guinness.  Interestingly enough, I walked up to the bartender and asked him if he knew of any nearby shops that might be open so I could get batteries, and a couple sitting near the bar heard me and we started chatting – they were from New Jersey and on their honeymoon as well!  They were married in January and they made some recommendations for where to go up north and they intended to be in Dublin for St. Patty’s weekend, just as we were.

Went back to the table to eat dinner, and then I followed Steve back to Rockcrest.  I must admit that sometimes between the two of us, trying to find our way is the blind leading the blind.  Neither of us is great with directions, but he did get us back to our B & B.  It also should be noted that we were lucky enough to have started the walk early enough to appreciate the beautiful landscaping not just at Rockcrest House but in their whole neighborhood, and there was a little stream or a tiny river and there was an ancient bridge there called Cromwell’s Bridge that we took some photos of and with on our outbound walk.   It has an impossible arch and only small agile folks could climb it, it’s made of stone and mud, and is supposedly about a thousand years old and has nothing to do with the Cromwell of British history, but it’s lovely to see. 

Anyway, after such nice walks, we got back to our room, unloaded the car with our stuff, and then I washed some smaller clothing items in the bathroom sink and put them on the radiators to hopefully dry overnight.  (It should be noted, it was not until we reached Dublin 4 days later that they finally dried.) 

As we had reached about the halfway point in the trip, we got out all the books and maps and planned a “must see” list of things and decided on a trajectory for tomorrow.  It was good to have Steve’s input on things as a lot of the trip had been my suggestions and his agreeing or not (usually agreeing) on things.  Steve showered that night, as we knew we would have an early morning tomorrow, and then he was out cold.  I finished my journal while he slept.  Our agreement was for me to shower at 7:30 and then we would eat breakfast at 8 a.m. (the earliest time allowed).  We are both exhausted, but very happy with all that we’ve done.  (The more I write, though, the more I want to be a writer – a writer about personal adventures and travel!)