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The Ring of Kerry and the Tourist City of Killarney July 12-14, 1999:
You can see the trademark blue and greens of the Ring of Kerry countryside.
We waited till 4pm until the sun came out cause we knew the scenery would be worth it.
This one was guarded by some nasty signs and fences.
Busses and the cars bring the town to a virtual standstill in the evening. By foot is the only way to travel.
Here you see us buying souvenirs at 10:30.
In the true Irish tradition, musicians gather after work for good craic (fun) and tunes at the local pub. But this is tourist Killarney, and such gatherings can't be left up to chance. This group of musicians is well paid to play for the crowds of mostly Americans.
They just called themselves Irish Dancers. Sure is a small world.
The next day life gets underway with the empty kegs lining the streets as reminders of the previous night's revelries. As we roamed the town in the daylight, we learned about other lives dependant on the tourist trade.
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The Ring of Kerry forms the
centerpiece of many vacations to Ireland. It's literally
a ring-shaped road that spans from Killarney to the
ocean. We only scratched the surface with a day's drive
through it.
This sign says something
about the aspirations of the local towns.
No trip to a part of
Ireland would be complete for Henry and Kathleen without
a detour to look at megalithic stones.
These stones are some of
the tallest in Ireland. We looked out over a blue-green
lake in the background and heard the wind whistling past
the tall, thin stones.
After our long day around
the Ring, we stopped at Killarney for the night.
Most towns in Ireland shut
down at 5:30, but not Killarney. It starts to bustle at
that time, when all the tourists have left the ring and
the nearby national park, they go to the stores and pubs
looking for the 'Irish experience.'
The
night we were there, a group of American teenagers were
doing Irish step dance routines to this paid band for the
amusement of the American crowd.
Here
you can see the Dunne family passing on the proud family
tradition of playing in the streets for money. They held
forth earnestly out of key for hours as we kept passing
them through the day. They drew quite a crowd and had
cassettes for sale.
Farming
doesn't bring in a good living for many anymore, but
those who still have land and livestock can do well in
the 'on season' by providing these 'jaunting cars' as a
service to visitors.