Killarney Ireland

Quick break from the Ireland recap: I had an interesting conversation with my daughter recently that leads me to believe that maybe she won't always think I'm totally clueless. She's decided that she wanted to read lots of classic literature this summer and has already read To Kill a Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451, and Catcher in the Rye. She said she was going to read Invisible Man next. I told her that I found the book rather disturbing (which admittedly was probably the point). She then said that maybe she wouldn't read it. I told her that she was absolutely fine to read it and make the decision for herself. She said no, because the last time I told her a story was disturbing and she read it anyway, she also found it incredibly disturbing.

She loved the movies Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption, so I recommended that she read Different Seasons by Stephen King. It's a collection of four stories including The Body (the inspiration for Stand by Me), Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (the inspiration for The Shawshank Redemption), The Breathing Method (which hasn't been made into a movie to my knowledge), and Apt Pupil (a movie by the same name was made). Three of those stories are awesome and I've read them more than one time, but Apt Pupil was too awful (well written, but awful) for me to ever want to read it again. I told her she probably wouldn't like it, but being a teenager she read it anyway and also hated it. So maybe she won't read Invisible Man, and maybe she will start to have a little more faith in my judgment. Maybe.

Now back to the next installment from our trip to Ireland. Our fifth day we traveled to Killarney (or Cill Airne in Irish). This was an absolutely beautiful area of the country, especially in Killarney National Park. On our way in we made a stop in a beautiful little town called Adare. The town had little thatched-roof cottages for many of its shops and a lovely park with tree-lined paths. I did see a news item that there were fires in Adare and Limerick later in the trip and that some thatched-roof cottages had been destroyed, so I'm not sure if these shops are still there. Our tour guide told us that most homes are now roofed in slate because of the fire hazards they'd experienced with thatched roofs.

Flower in the park in Adare.

Pathway in the park in Adare.

Shops in thatched-roof cottages.

Our next stop was Killarney National Park, where a delightful, singing guide named Michael O'Connors took us through the gardens and up to Torc waterfall. I think this park was my very favorite part of  the entire trip, and luckily this was the first of three times we visited. This was where we were first introduced to the Monkey Puzzle evergreen tree. Michael told us the name was because a monkey would have to puzzle out how to climb the tree.

Killarney National Park.

Torc waterfall in Killarney National Park.

Really cool tree in Killarney National Park that looks like it has an arm and hand.

Monkey Puzzle tree, and the back of the head of one of our travel companions.

Our next stop which was still in the park was Muckross House, or Teach (pronounced chakh) Mhucrois. Michael told us that Mhucrois meant pig peninsula, and was so named due to all the wild boar who used to roam the area. The house was beautiful, and they didn't allow any photography inside. I would not have liked to be a servant in that house though. It was all very posh, except for the limestone basement where the servants lived and worked. Like all houses of the time, the kitchen was in the basement and the food had to carried a great distance up several flights of stairs to the dining room.

The house was built by the Herbert family and in the 1850's the family spent excessive amounts of money preparing for Queen Victoria's visit in 1861, thinking they would get titles and land grants which would repay their expenditures. However, after Queen Victoria returned  home, her husband, Albert died of typhoid and she was so distraught that she never remembered to confer those titles or lands. The family never recovered financially.

Muckross House exterior.

Daisies growing in the gardens of Muckross House in Killarney National Park.

This was the night we chose to do our laundry for the trip. We knew we'd be staying at the same hotel for three nights, there was a huge bathtub, and a heated towel rack on which to dry the clothes. We only wanted to bring carry-on bags with us on the trip, so we only packed enough clothes for half the trip. We hand-washed everything in the bathtub that night and were all set for the second half of the trip with clean clothes again!