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Ross castle, killarney town, rain rain rain, torc waterfall, muckross house, killeen house

Luckily for me the day started off quite nice, but it definitely was going to rain at some point.

I made a short drive from the Elyod House to Ross Castle. The castle itself fell into ruin many years ago, mainly because the english family that owned it at the time burned off the roof in order to save on taxes for secondary dwellings, and it's not a dwelling without a roof now is it? In the 70s a group of American businessman bought the castle and surrounding lands (16,000 acres) with the intent to be commercial use. One of these businessman, an Irish America, felt that the area should be preserved and bought out his partners. He then made a deal with the Irish government that if they rebuilt the castle using the same materials and methods originally used he would gift the castle and lands to Ireland. It took 20 years for them to rebuild the tower house and battlements. The curators give a nice tour of the entire tower which contains only 1 staircase, a spiral staircase with stumble steps. Also the stair winds upwards in a clockwise manner so that any attackers coming up the stairs would have major issues swinging their swords (the majority being right handed).

By the time the tour was over you got a great sense of how hard life was in those times. I was beginning to feel very lucky that I did not have to deal with daily cattle raids. I decided to go to Killarney town and spend lunch and a few hours walking around the town. It started raining right as I pulled into the car park. The rain is strange though, it would rain hard for 5 minutes or so then stop for half an hour. Sometimes even faster. Anyway, I walked around the entire town, it's a great place, especially for tourists, so many!! I made an early afternoon of it and went back to the B&B for a nap before dinner, which was AMAZING.

I went to the Killeen House just outside of Killarney in the Aghadoe area.  The walls of the pub/bar are lined with golf balls and bag tags from all over the world. I met with Michael Rosney, who with his wife runs the place. My mom and dad stayed there a few times over the years and recommended it for dinner. Dinner was phenomenal, I had the dining room all to myself. While chatting with some of the staff I learned that they seem to be having these every other night dead nights with absolutely packed nights in between. I was quite lucky to be there on the empty night.

Next: Kissin' the Blarney Stone!