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Killarney in Ireland's south-west can be used as a base to explore the Dingle Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry on day tours. Today it is the Ring of Kerry, approximately 180km, on the Iveragh Peninsula. The trip is a combination of the scenic and the historic. |
Leaving Killarney around 10AM we travelled in an anticlockwise direction along the Ring of Kerry. Our first stop was the Kerry Bog Village Museum which displays what life was like in 19th century Ireland, including the potato famine. Construction techniques of the 18-19th centuries were utilized during its building.
While travelling along the Ring to the Kells Sheep Center there was number of photographic stops.
The next prolonged stop was the Kells Sheep Center. Here we observed Brendan Ferris displaying his considerable sheep herding skills using border collies. Dogs are trained for seven months over a one and half year period. They work for about seven years. Each dog can, via voice and whistling, be commanded independantly of other dogs. Sheep are Scotch Blackface sheep which are shorn once a year. Wool is used for tweed.
We stopped at the beach resort town of Waterville for lunch. Waterville was once home to one of the largest cable stations in the world. It was the Commercial Cable Company’s Trans-Atlantic European terminus from the 1880’s to the 1960’s.
The Lohar Stone Fort was built in the early Christian period (~9th century). Its 2m high circular outer walls were used to defend farm homesteads. There is a belief amongst some that it was once connected to other forts in the area by a series of underground tunnels. No evidence for the tunnels has been discovered.
The nearby Lady Modonna Statue for sailors lost at sea was erected in 1954.
The above image of Lady Madonna is a montage. The background I have inserted is the area on which the Loher Stone Fort is located. The actual background was a cluttered car park which did admittedly offer good ocean views.
Sneem is a village, population 600, which has won many tidy towns awards. It is popular as a base for the many walking trails in the area.
Journeying back to Killarney we make a photographic stop at Upper Lake Killarney. At the time of our visit, late September, it was a series of lakelets rather than a continuous lake. Think of it as experiencing nature in all of her moods.
We arrived back in Killarney around 5PM.
