Picked up a brand new Citroen last Friday for 10 days of exploring the south and west. Nice little car – good size for the VERY narrow country lanes. Spent a few hours at Glendaloch ( thank you David O’Sullivan for the suggestion) – combines a beautiful valley with two lakes and the remains of a monastery which goes back to St Kevin, a 5th century hermit and priest who sought solitude in the area. Interestingly the local St Kevin’s Catholic Church has built 6 small hermitages for people who want to spend time in quietness and reflection. It is certainly a very tranquil place, between the coach loads of tourists.
We stayed overnight at Dungarvan which is a very attractive waterfront and market town. Our B&B was a 200 year old house built by the Duke of Devonshire asa holiday home, with great water views and an excellent breakfast mostly of food produced in its garden.
A couple of outstanding seaside towns on the Saturday – Kinsale and Glendore. Beautiful locations. Glendore is tiny but with a delightful location looking down across a bay. Then late afternoon we arrived at Kenmare where we have a cottage for the week – locating it was quite a challenge – just as well is stays light till well after 10pm – we would never have found it in the dark!! It is delightful – about 10 kms out of town, overlooking the sea and with everything we need for a comfortable stay – actually, with 3 bedrooms, it has much more than we need.
Over the past few days we’ve driven around the Ring of Kerry – a magnificent 180 km road around the perimeter of the Kerry peninsular, taken a boat to Ilnacullin Island ( a remarkable gardening feat dating back almost 100 years which turned a rocky barren island into a lush temperate garden thanks to the warm Gulf stream and huge amounts of money and effort – unfortunately we visited Sissinghurst just a week before – Sissinghurst is lovingly tendered by a few paid staff and a massive army of volunteers who keep it in tip top condition – Ilnalcullin by contrast could have done with a bit of TLC but is still an amazing achievement – Sorry, Malcolm Skilbeck, that we weren’t as enamoured as you). We have also completed a 5 hour walk along a section of the Kerry Way – an excellent walk – a bit steep in places but we took our time. Heaps of wild rhododendrons, fuschias and foxgloves looking just fabulous at the moment. The one negative about the walk was that we didn’t do the one we intended – the plus was that it was very good none the less – the map states “the waymarking is intentionally discreet” – invisible more like!!!!! Who cares if we did section 8 when we planned to do section 1?
More cloud about and the forecast looks a bit dodgy – max today a brisk 14 deg and its midsummer next week.
