Many of my friends who had visited Ireland warned me that the Irish drove with what they described as a reckless abandon. They drove on the wrong side of the road, tailgated like crazy and speed limits were merely a suggestion. Honestly, it didn’t sound very different from my daily commute to Boston. What they left out was the narrow roads. Along the Ring of Kerry the roads seemed about one and one-third lanes wide as traffic sped by in both directions. You could feel a collective inhale and sucking-in-the-gut from most on the bus as oncoming traffic approached. The drop on the side of the road was quite steep in many places, several hundred feet in fact, and the guardrails that prevented vehicles from careening off the road to certain death were barely knee high. I was glad we had an experienced driver who knew the road.
The scenery on the Ring (we were informed after completing the Ring of Kerry that we had been indoctrinated and could then refer to it as “The Ring” from that point on) was spectacular. The Lakes of Killarney were postcard perfect.
The quaint homes, villages and towns we drove passed were as adorable as imagined.
This part of Ireland had remained unspoiled and the only thing that made the view much different for us than it would have been from visitors a century ago was the pavement on the road we traveled on and the wires that brought electricity to the locals.
Along the way Steve, the tour guide, pointed out a number of beautiful scenes and had many wonderful stories to tell. I should have kept better notes but I was too busy taking it all in and living in the moment.
“Have I earned your trust yet?” Steve asked. “Do you trust me now?”
“Yes!” we all said in unison.
“I’m going to need you to trust me on this one,” he said. “Will you trust me?”
“Yes!” again, in unison.
We had all stopped daydreaming out the bus windows and turned our attention to Steve.
“I want you all to close your eyes,” he said. “I’ll let you know when to open them.”
The view was pretty extraordinary and hard to peel our eyes from but Steve had earned our collective trust so we did as asked and closed our eyes.
A minute or so passed and we felt the bus follow the bend in the road to the right and then a quick left. It felt like Steve had checked his mirror to see if we all still had our eyes closed.
“Now open them,” he said.
We simultaneously gasped.
We had pulled into a part of The Ring known as Ladies View, a panoramic viewpoint overlooking farmland and the Atlantic Ocean that was almost indescribable. It was simply breathtaking!
The wind whipped across the parking lot and made it challenging to maintain balance. Every time I lifted my camera to take a picture my equilibrium rocked. My eyes had teared up so much I couldn’t actually see some of the photos I took. I just knew the view was brilliant and, at times, blindly pointed my camera and clicked.
On the way back to Killarney that afternoon, we heard the Kerry football team, headquartered in Killarney, was favored to win league championship that day. What we didn’t know was the victory celebration was scheduled for the small square directly across the street from our hotel. Unfortunately, they lost to Tyrone. The town was not happy.
That night, Chris and I wandered the streets of Killarney and looked for a place to grab a pint and hear some authentic Irish music. We came across two guys who played Tommy Makem & the Clancy Brothers type music but that wasn’t really our speed. We headed back to our hotel to call it a night when we discovered the victory celebration scheduled across the street from our hotel had turned in to a consolation celebration. After, many in the crowd decided to drown their sorrows at the bar in our hotel. We thought it would be fun to join them.
One fan, in particular, thought she needed my nephew Chris’s assistance to help her forget her football loss. She grabbed him by his arms and tried to drag him on to the dance floor. I pushed from behind, Chris was not happy. When the song ended, she grabbed me.
“You’re next!” she told me. “You didn’t think you were getting off that easy, did you?”
Who was I to say no? We danced.
“Did I make your holiday a little more special?” she asked.
“How do you know we’re on Holiday and not from around here?” I asked.
“Please!” She laughed.
She was 18-years old and introduced us to her mom, dad and boyfriend. Before long she had them all belting out Irish songs at the top of their drunken lungs!
Another night of being serenaded by the locals, this trip was becoming quite the adventure!
Duke of Dead Air 