Last weekend we trekked out to the Ring of Kerry. Except
this time was planned for us by API, our study abroad program, so we didn’t have
to plan a thing! Yay!
Something I previously forgot to mention was that on our
flight to Ireland we sat next to a very quiet and semi-sad looking man in his
mid-thirties. We didn’t talk to him the whole flight, but when we landed we
started up a conversation. Turns out he had been a member of the Coldstream
Guard for 17 years! Which was pretty awesome for me since, as a Liberty Band
member, I wore the uniform for 4 years.
Anyways, we asked him for recommendations of what to do in
Ireland and he said the one place we had to visit was the Ring of Kerry.
Apparently it’s one of the most beautiful places he’s ever seen. And I can now
tell you that he was totally right.
The Ring of Kerry is absolutely gorgeous. It’s full of green
hills, and ocean views, and old stone structures. If someone told you to
conjure up a picture of Ireland in your head, you would most likely imagine
something straight from the Ring of Kerry. We stayed in a small town called Carshiveen.
There is pretty much nothing to do there. Which wasn’t a problem during the
day, since we had plenty of trips planned with the group. But at night things
got a little slow. The first night the group had organized a night for us to
learn Ceili Dancing. We learned a few dances, including The Walls of Limerick
and The Siege of Ennis. Google them and you should be able to find a YouTube
video showing the type of dance. I have since decided I want to have a ceili
dance at my wedding. After the dancing we were all pretty exhausted, so we just
played Scrabble in the pub at our hotel. Because we’re cool like that.
The second night, after a full day of touring, we were
taught some Irish songs by a young man who lives in Kerry. Galway Girl, The
Fields of Athenry, Molly Malone, great songs that are to be sung with much
passion. After that we headed out on the town to check out the one night club
that Carshiveen has to offer, The Harp. It was dead. So we sort of took over a
pub in town. There weren’t many people there so our group of ten Americans
stood out. There was live music going on and the guitarist volunteered to let
any of us sing who wanted to. We convinced a guy we had just met to sing and it
turned out to be a really great night.
But enough about the night life. I’ll give you a brief idea
of what we saw. Like I said, it was mostly stunning views. Ladies View, which
is probably the most beautiful landscape I’ve ever seen. We saw two old stone
forts, one of which was a thousand years old. We could climb on it and see for
miles. But then I watched a girl take a stone out of the wall as a souvenir and
it was so frustrating. WHO DOES THAT? If everyone treated historical things
like that, we would have lost our history long ago.
But I digress. By far my favorite place we visited was Abbey
Island. It was a little island with a very old church on it. The church has
fallen apart, but the structure, the scenery and the cemetery are beautiful. It’s
featured in our video blog (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xyDSeRXXcU
)if you want to see some of it for yourself.
Well this has been a jumpy and unorganized post, but oh
well. It gets my point across. This weekend its off the kiss the Blarney Stone!
Because I don’t have enough of the gift of gab…
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