Put a Ring On It

The Ring of Kerry

Thursday May 7, 2026

Distance traveled: 207 km

Cumulative distance: 859 km

Temperature: 13 - 17 mostly cloudy with occasional light showers and occasional sun.

This is a video of the route to/from Kilarney. We came through here yesterday and just happened to be going back for a portion and decided to show you a little of what we have been experiencing on the drive. It is a good thing the speed limit is 80 km per hour along here otherwise, we might have been flying off the shoulders. Warning: this is a large file.

I was all excited when we drove by this castle yesterday up near Ladies View in County Kerry.  I wanted to find out the history of the castle but according to the T-800, it is no castle at all. I had uploaded the picture when we were waiting for dinner to be served but set it aside for when we got back to the hotel.  I reminded the T-800 that this is what we were talking about and the response: "Yes - this is the same ruin we were discussing earlier near Ladies View in Killarney National Park. Seeing this clearer angle, it does not look like a medieval defensife castle. The tower and attached ruin are much more consistent with a 19th century 'castle styled' lodge. - the kind of romantic Gothic architecture that became popular around the Victorian era in Kerry."

OK so that was only a little heartbreaking for me. However, the T-800 did go on to say "...the scenery is doing a lot of the heavy lifting. But you definitely caught the mood of the place well." Gee, T-800, you're may pal! 

While we were standing around photographing that cheap, fake 150 year old castle, about 15 or 20 Porche cars passed by, several parking alongside our Skoda Octavi station wagon. Those guys were all over our car, clamouring to park beside us,  thinking that they missed out on a REAL MAN's machine. Talking about how a diesel engine is so fuel efficient, loads of storage space, comfortable seating. On their NEXT trip up from Germany, they all agreed they are going to the SKOKA club to get cars to drive around those tight, curvy narrow roads in Ireland.

This mound of rocks is actually the Staigue Stone Fort. It may not look like much but it is nearly 1800 years old. 

There was one entrance, now gated but not locked, I suspect to keep animals out, and three small caverns built into the fortress walls. There ostensibly would have been tents or small structures set up inside. I did look inside one of the caverns, (the one just high enough that I would not have to get on my hands and knees) and it look pretty small. Not sure if somebody slept in them or if they were for storage.  The rocks are laid without mortar so strictly gravity and perhaps some interlocking. 

Not much room in there. Could be big enough for two people to sleep but I am guessing storage space.

The Ballinskelligs Castle was constructed in the Iveragh Peninsula reportedly to defend against pirates and more likely, to aid in charging a tariff on incoming trade vessels. 

I didn't go over because I didn't want to wade through the creek.

 I WAS happy to play with two, sweet greyhound rescue dogs visiting from Dublin this day!

You'll have to trust me. There ARE two dogs there!

The Ballinskelligs Abbey is a large area of buildings, a church and the remains of other buildings originated by monks from Skellig Michael made famous a few years ago by the filming of scenes from two Star Wars movies. However, the monks were there from the 6th to 8th centuries, AD when the eventually moved in anticipation of a throng of movie crews and publicity yokels on their island 12 centuries later.  

While at least one building bears evidence of having been constructed soon after the monks moved to this location, most of what remains ostensibly was built in the 1400s. 

The graveyard is chocker block full and people are still dying to be buried there. While both Nan and I make a point of not walking on top of graves, it was not possible to take a step in many places without stepping on what appeared to be ancient headstones. (They might have been random rocks but they were small and did not bear any resemblance to headstones as we would know them.

Headstones were even laid inside the buildings, presumably long after they were abandoned. But there were many headstones in the graveyard that were current and modern - a mixture of the old and the new.

Skellig Michael (islands). There are two, one smaller in the foreground and one larger in the background.  They were actually famous BEFORE Star Wars. I had considered booking an excursion but it would require a full day commitment and there are no bathrooms. 

Here a few other, random shots from the day.

We tailed a couple of groups of motorcycles, Germans, judging by their EU license plates.

Tree tunnel on a back road we visited. You can see yellow lines painted on both sides of the road with no white line. That means one car wide.

And old rail bridge from the Killorglin - Valentia Harbour Railway, in operation from 1893- 1960.

Colour-coded sheep. May be an indication as to whether they are pregnant.

Killarney Balarney

Wednesday May 6, 2026

Killarney

Distance traveled: 226 km

 

Cumulative distance: 652 km.

Temperature 12 - 15 degrees, light rain off an on throughout the afternoon and into the early evening.

Rather than an in-house breakfast, we went across the street to Cafe Depeche. OK, you are dating yourself if you immediately thought "Depeche Mode". On the other hand, you are proving your cool factor. The in-house breakfast looked a little like an American highway hotel breakfast bar, though I didn't actually see a waffle maker in there but it didn't look all that inviting.  Cafe Depeche was pretty much black everywhere inside but, along with the espresso machines as you walk in the door, there was a wide variety of liquor and wine bottles behind the counter. Around the room there were numerous empty but sealed champagne bottles. They must have had a big opening night party, kept all the empties, re-foiled the tops then put them out for decorations. So it is a coffee bar/wine bar. And had a limited day menu. So we ordered decent lattes and poached eggs on sourdough. Simple yet effective. No meat and potatoes for our breakfast again! Oh, there were numerous decorations of Depeche Mode around the place, CDs and vinyl of Depeche Mode for sale and, in their words, "Depeche Mode every-day-all-the-time". And the best lattes we have had for several days.

We started the day with a drive retracing some steps so that we could go see the Titanic exhibition at Cobh (pronounced "Cove"). Cobh was the last port of call for the Titanic before setting sail for New York and 133 additional passengers boarded. 3rd class passengers paid the princely sum of 8 pounds, which included food for the journey. The annual earnings for unskilled labour in those days was 26 pounds so, even though 8 pounds doesn't sound like much, even for "those days", it would have represented a lot of money. One thing we learned is that the Titanic had sailed from France to Cobh before embarking further to New York. On board was a photographer who took 79 photographs of life on the Titanic; she departed the boat, with her pictures, at Cobh. The photographic record was emulated by James Cameron when he made the movie Titanic, leading to a realistic portrayal of how the ship appeared inside and some things that happened. Like, the partying in 3rd class.

The planned destination for the day was Killarney but the route guidance was set from Cork so this confused Android Auto (not us, of course) somewhat as it was desperate to take us back to the hotel in Cork so that we could start our journey. Don't get me wrong; notwithstanding a few limitations, Android Auto is an excellent way to navigate using Google Maps. It is just a matter of learning some of the little quirks. For example, I could easily delete the starting point of the journey so that it would start at the first way point.  However, using the route I had originally painstakingly mapped out though all the "fun bits" of Ireland, I couldn't get it to add our starting point of Cobh. What we ended up doing was navigating to the first way point on my originally painstakingly mapped out route using Nan's phone then when we got to waypoint 1, my phone picked up the course. That's 10 minutes I'll never get back.  On the other hand, we saved probably a half hour by taking a ferry across Passage West, a huge water inlet that leads to Cork rather than taking the long way around. (Check out the Spotwalla link.)

Ed note: Sometimes, I say, "I'm retired, I have all the time in the world" and sometimes I say, "I don't have much time left. Hurry up, get out of my way!"

In the charming town of Waypoint 1, somewhere near Clonakitty, or Clonakilty, we stopped at the grocery/clothing/hardware/electronics/bridal store and got some groceries for a picnic lunch along the way: some fresh fruit and salads from the salad/wedding gown counter and a couple of bags of chips (what WE call chips, not what THEY call chips, which are in fact, French Fries) and a few crackers from the electronics/biscuits aisle. Through Skibbereen and on to Ballydehob (I just love the names here) we actually found a park with picnic tables and a playground where four kids probably under five years were running wild with a few mothers keeping a careful eye out for their charges. It was an ideal place for lunch; there is an inlet beside the park though it looked like low tide as there was only muck. Adjacent the park was a stone, arched bridge going over the inlet so after lunch, I went up to investigate it's current or former purpose. Turns out that it was a train bridge from 1886 to 1947.  

We punched on to Killarney from Billy-Bob over one of the most scenic routes we seen since we left Dublin. Utterly stunning scenery over Caha Pass with breath-taking views of the surrounding hills, valleys and lakes. 

Reaching Killarney, we discovered that it is the "Banff of Ireland" only without the National Government running the show. Killarney is jam packed with hotels, restaurants and other small businesses like candy shops and jewelery shops, all squeezed into a tightly packed town centre. When we were paying for our picnic lunch items, the cashier asked about our trip because she was so surprised we were out where she was located.  She admired us for being away from the tourist centres like "Dublin and Killarney". We will render judgement when we leave in a couple of days.