Day four of the tour featured the Ring of Kerry, a notorious 111-mile circular drive around the Iveragh Peninsula through dramatic coastal cliffs, sweeping mountain passes, sparkling lakes, and colorful, traditional Irish villages.
The roads are well-maintained but notoriously narrow, winding, and bordered by stone walls or hedges. The “Ring of Kerry” drive begins and ends in Killarney, and exposed us to green mountains, blue lakes, old castles, and wild ocean views, passing through the towns of Glenbeigh, Cahersiveen, Waterville, and Sneem.
Our first stop was a roadside tourist “market” with a couple of colorful local characters, not counting the ass.
And the landscapes were quite scenic.
We stopped in Rossbeigh and visited the dramatic Blue Flag Beach.
Even our tour director and one of the group opted to swim; Kay said, “No way!”
Since it harbors all kinds of marine life and seabirds, it is a designated natural heritage area and a Special Area of Conservation.
Another stop was at the Daniel O’Connell Memorial Park in Cahersiveen. The park provided a serene escape from the hustle and bustle of touring.
The park looks directly across the Carhan River toward the ruins of Carhan House, where Daniel O’Connell was born. Daniel O’Connell was known as “The Liberator” or “The Emancipator”, and was a monumental Irish political leader, lawyer, and statesman who revolutionized 19th-century constitutional nationalism. He is most celebrated for securing Catholic Emancipation in 1829, granting Irish and British Roman Catholics the legal right to sit in the Westminster Parliament and hold public office.
While waiting to board the motor coach, the driver demonstrated equipment used in hurling.
Hurling is national indigenous game; it is an ancient, fast-moving bat-and-ball sport played with a wooden bat made out of ash called a hurly and a small ball, slightly smaller than an American baseball, called a sliotar. Later that evening, Kay and I watched a women’t hurling match, and it’s not only fast and furious, but dangerous as well. Kay demonstrated her hurling acumen for the rest of the group.
Following a typical (big) Road Scholar lunch, we made our way to the village of Sneem, a picturesque village on Iveragh Peninsula along the Wild Atlantic Way and the Ring of Kerry. (Click on an image to enlarge it.)
From Sneem, we continued the motor coach trip around the Ring of Kerry. Along the way we passed the Loher Stone Fort.
Large tour buses are legally required to drive counterclockwise (heading towards Killorglin first) due to the narrow roads. Apparently, several RVs and tour buses failed to get the “memo” and drove the wrong way, resulting in traffic chaos and accidents on the narrow roads. Our driver did a miraculous job of handling the many detours and difficult maneuvering spaces, and plaudits to our group for not complaining or bitching.
After five hours of bus riding and over two miles of walking, we had dinner at the hotel and retired for the evening.
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