Day 10 - Killarney to Dingle

100% chance of rain predicted for today…not good news for driving the Dingle Peninsula. So instead of rushing out of Killarney into bad weather, we spent the morning at Muckross House and Gardens. The 19^th century Victorian mansion sits in the middle of Killarney National Park on the shores of Muckross Lake. It is gorgeous.

Muckross House was built for Henry Arthur Herbert and his wife, Mary Balfour Herbert and completed in 1843. With sixty-five rooms, it was built in the Tudor style. Extensive improvements were undertaken in the 1850s that lasted 6 years in preparation for the visit of Queen Victoria in 1861. It is said that these improvements for the Queen's visit were a contributory factor in the financial difficulties suffered by the Herbert family which resulted in the sale of the estate. In 1899 it was bought by Arthur Guinness, 1st Baron Ardilaun who wanted to preserve the dramatic landscape. He rented it out as a hunting lodge. 

In August 1911, Muckross House was sold to William Bowers Bourn, a wealthy Californian mining magnate. He and his wife passed it to their daughter Maude and her husband Arthur Rose Vincent as a wedding present. The couple lived there until Maude's death in 1929. Arthur and Maude were also responsible for building Filoli Mansion in 1919. The  Bourns chose the site by Crystal Springs because it reminded them of Killarney. There, they decorated Filoli’s ballroom with murals depicting scenes from around Muckross. FUN FACT: The gardens at Filoli were planted with clippings of Yew, Holly and Myrtle from Muckross.

In 1932 Maude’s parents Mr and Mrs Bournes and their son-in-law Arthur Vincent decided to present Muckross House and its 11,000 acre estate to the Irish nation. Being called the ″Bourne-Vincent Memorial Park″ which finally became Killarney National Park.

During our one hour tour, it felt like we were living in an episode of Downton Abbey, complete with the bell ringing system for each servant. There were 35 bells each with a unique ring that rang down in the servant’s quarters. Photos of the interiors were prohibited. 

After the tour, we walked the grounds. They were stunning, even on a cold morning with storm clouds on the horizon. The rhododendrons were in full bloom. I have never seen rhododendrons the size of a 2-story building before!!! The colors were magnificent. Walls of flowers creating wonderful passage ways through the trees. I really could have spent a day there.

 The area is also home to the Mucros Weavers who are famous for their tweed and woolen wear. I was eyeing a beautiful tweed pattern on a pageboy hat with matching scarf. I’m not supposed to be making any purchases. Matt took the hat and scarf from me and treated me to a very special gift. I promptly put them on and happily walked the grounds in my new tweed. We had a quick lunch and made a lucky selection of 2 sandwiches, turkey-stuffing and bacon-egg salad. They could have gone horribly wrong, but they were rather good.

 

On to Dingle we go! Storm clouds are getting darker. Not good. The drive to Dingle takes you along narrow country roads that are exactly how you would imagine this country to be like. It was nice to be in the countryside, complete with the errant sheep who has strayed onto the road. We made a stop at Inch Beach. It boasts as the longest beach in Ireland with the prettiest views of the ring of Kerry peninsula.  Well, it was definitely long, but it was a white out and we could barely make out any land masses. I could not believe surfers were in the water.

We got into Dingle by 2:00 and checked into the Lantern Light B&B. Before heading out to drive the Dingle Peninsula, I had one shop I wanted to stop into, The Dingle Crystal Shop. Right now I can hear my brother moaning in sympathy to what Matt was about to experience.  Here’s the deal, back in 1997, I made multiple visits to the Waterford Factory. There I watched skilled crystal cutters hand make each piece of Waterford crystal and fell in love with it. One of the cutters at the time was Sean Daly. He was easy to remember because he had a large forearm tattoo. I even took photos of him working. 15 years ago, Sean left Waterford to begin his own studio featuring his own designs. His designs have a reputation for very deep cuts. I was particularly interested to see his “Celtic Flame” design pattern. Upon entering the shop, I walked right into Sean. He was dressed for BikeFest in his Harley Davidson finest. I kinda geeked out for a moment. I was able to say, “Hi, nice to see you here.” I wasn’t expecting to see him. But there he was greeting people before he hopped back on his Harley to head down to Killarney. His wife poured me a shot of Dingle whiskey into the exact Celtic Flame glass I had wanted. OH NO! Now I was sucked into the crystal vortex unable to resist the urge to buy what I so desperately wanted. I wanted a set of 4 glasses too…not just one of something.  In the end, I got the 4 Celtic Flame whiskey glasses, each signed by Sean. I was offered a deal if I paid cash and saved 25% off my purchase. That is the only way I was able to justify the purchase. But I love the crystal. It’s a unique pattern and the crystal is only sold here in Dingle. I wish we could have gone by his studio, but he is off tomorrow. Otherwise, you can watch him work the crystal in his studio. I’ll have to have friends over to do some whiskey sampling so I can use my new crystal glasses. As we exited the shop, the rain finally hit.

Stupidly optimistic, we began driving the Dingle Peninsula. Our guidebook had detailed descriptions for every notable historic spot and vista plotted to the kilometer. According to our book, at 14.6 kilometers, we were suppose to “enjoy the views of Ventry Bay, a 4-mile long beach and in the distance you will see Skellig Michael.” Well, it was a complete white out with rain coming in sideways. I have made multiple trips to this area of Ireland. I’m convinced summer does not exist here. I have only experienced rain and zero visibility conditions. I have yet to see a Skellig for myself (an island jutting out from the ocean). Every vista was the same. We could see nothing. No islands, No rolling hills of green. No beautiful beaches. No needle-like cliffs. No patterns of the old potato farms...Nothing.

We stopped at the Beehive huts and paid 3 euro each to see 3 small round stone houses. We stopped at the Gallarus Oratory and wisely avoided the neighboring farm who was charging 4 euro to park and walk across his property by finding a hidden parking spot down the road. We walked down a fuscia lined path to the Oratory which is a 1300 year old stone church built by the monks. It’s shaped like an upside down boat. However, with the rain pelting us in the face and the bitterly cold wind penetrating our Polartec fleece, this stop was beginning to feel like a major accomplishment of actually seeing something. It had taken us 2 hours to drive 40 kilometers along the coast and we still had some more stops on our vista list. The weather showed no signs of letting up, so we cut our losses and zipped across the peninsula and was back in Dingle in only 20 minutes. The peninsula is only 10 miles wide. Back in Dingle the rain continued to hammer down. 

We found Reel’s Fish n’ Chips which was awarded the title of being 1 of the top 17 places in the world to have fish n’ chips before you die. It was good, but I’m now wondering where the other 16 places in the world are. 

Around 10:00pm, the rain subsided and we ventured out to find Murphy’s Ice Cream. It’s made in Dingle from a Kerry cow that is said to be rarer than the pandas in China. Not sure if I believe that fun fact. They make unique flavors. The Jamieson’s Whiskey ice cream was a keeper, but Matt gave the flavor of Brown Bread a decisive thumbs down. After our late night treat we walked around for an hour through the streets listening to the music spilling out from all the pubs. The pubs themselves were overly crowded with Hen and Stag parties. It was Saturday night and everyone was out having a lot of good craic! Our B&B is right next to a pub so with our street facing room, we basically have a private box seat to the music.