In western lands beneath the Sun
The flowers may rise in Spring,
The trees may bud, the waters run,
The merry finches sing.
Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night
And swaying beeches bear
The Elven-stars as jewels white
Amid their branching hair.
Though here at journey's end I lie
In darkness buried deep,
Beyond all towers strong and high,
Beyond all mountains steep,
Above all shadows rides the Sun
And Stars for ever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
Nor bid the Stars farewell.
The next morning, we had breakfast. I tried a little bit of black pudding, which looks kind of like a really thick sausage but tastes like really salty bread. Not my thing. I ended up eating cereal, pastries, some scrambled eggs, and other things that I can’t remember. It was yummy.
Then we took a tour of the town of Kenmare. The Gaelic name for Kenmare is An Neidín, which means "the little nest" because of how the town is nestled in the mountains. The old schoolmaster (who also leads the church choir) took us around. It was rather amusing, because Kevin would continually jump in and talk about random bits of history. I’m not sure how much the tour guide appreciated it. Kevin really likes to teach us. On the bus ride to the Ring of Kerry, Kevin had talked about the history of the Irish country people over the bus microphone for about an hour straight. It was very interesting. He talked about Irish family dynamics, about emigration, about how thin the country’s population became after the potato famine, about people’s connection to America and how, because there wasn’t enough inheritance to go around, most of a family’s children were expected to leave for America around age 18, and usually never returned. In fact, a lot of the emmigrants from Kenmare during the potato fammine ended up in the 5 points slum in New York.
Anyway, now we were in Kenmare and seeing the town. Unfortunately, I hadn’t been able to find a plug to charge my camera battery in the dark the night before (my roommate beat me to bed), so I kept picture taking to a minimum. …maybe that was fortunate. It means I didn’t take a lot of extraneous pictures. Here's the tourism center and some buildings in the town. Note the American flag, which they raised just for our arrival. Nowadays, a lot of the towns in Western Ireland depend on tourism to stay afloat.
See this tower through the trees? It has no practical purpose. It was built in honor of a man from Kenmare who fought in the battle of Bunker Hill. Weird, huh?
We saw the town’s elementary schools. There were two of them: one for boys and one for girls. Each one had 6 teachers in it. That gives you an idea of how small the town is. They are in the process of building a new school where the boys and girls will be integrated.
This building is the local hospital. It does not extend to the back, as far as I know. This is it. Very small.
During the potato famine, this building was a government-run work-house for those people who had no food. It wasn’t extremely successful, though. There were straw beds for the people working there, and it was said that if you went to sleep with four people in a bed, one of them would have died by the next morning, often of fever. So, anyone who caught a fever was sent into the fever house next door. It doesn’t look like a very happy place.
The town is surrounded by mountains, which are so beautiful:
Here’s the town church, and a great example of a Celtic cross.
The church is really beautiful and unique on the inside. The walls are a pale pink, and the ceiling is a turquoise blue.
The rafters have huge carved angels on the ends. They are very awesome. It reminded me of the idea that when we worship, we are worshiping with the entire heavenly community, participating in the worship of the saints and angels.
The church has a cool organ:
It also has a stained-glass window behind the altar portraying the crucifixion. The idea behind the design was that even if a person wasn’t literate, they could still get the story of salvation from the window.
Then we went to a really old bridge that was built by monks. It’s very cool. Take a look.
It’s made of only stone and nothing else. Let me say that again. This bridge is made out of nothing but stone. Nothing at all to hold the stone together. Just stone. Almost the entire group of us stood on the bridge for a group picture, which pretty amazing: after hundreds of years, this bridge is still standing and able to hold about 30 college kids on top of it. Also, I have a story for Maggie, and it is about Patrick. When everyone was getting down off the bridge, Patrick decided not to climb down like everyone else and took a flying leap into the air. It was an epically high leap! He flew through the air higher than my head and landed right in front of my feet. As he landed he rolled twice, and then popped back up as if he does that every day. Everyone was rather surprised and very impressed. I told him I would tell you about it. It made me happy.
After a quick lunch, we walked to a sports field. On the way, we passed a golf course. Pretty nice-looking for all you golf people, don’t you think?
This was the view from the filed where we learned how to play hurling and Gaelic football. Both are very fun. I was surprised how much fun I had. Gaelic football is like soccer, except you can carry the ball for a limited number of steps, and you can pass it with a volleyball-like hit. Hurling is kind of like lacross, except the sticks don’t have baskets on the end: they’re just big wooden sticks that you use to hit the ball across the field. You carry the ball in your hand as you run.
Then, the bus picked us up and it was time for a hike. We were going to Killarny National Park. Here’s some views from the bus window. Amazing. What else can I say?
Another random castle-ish thing next to the road:
Then, we started to hike. Please enjoy the pictures. This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve been in my life, and words just can’t describe it. As always, pictures don’t really do it justice:
I climbed up this rock, basically because I could. For a split second, with all the long grass, I was worried that I would step on a snake. But then I remembered, there are no snakes in Ireland. St. Patrick drove them all out. The long grass did make it hard to see where I would have good footing, but it wasn't really that hard of a climb. It was just neat to look out over everything from above.
These are frog eggs! Look at them all:
An old ruined house, hidden in the woods:
Wouldn’t this be a nice place to sit?
Ashley, Allison, Kaitlyn, and Jackie, acting like farmers:
Pictures from the bus ride back to Kenmare. Again, I can’t find anything to say. This is just one of the most beautiful places on earth.
Later that evening, we went to the same pub we’d been at the night before. I was walking with a group of about six girls on our way over there. Outside the pub, there stood a rather large, middle-aged man with a shirt that read, “Free Hugs.” His friend stood just behind him. This was not a good sign. But, I knew immediately what to do.
The man approached, arms held wide, blocking the sidewalk, and said “Free hugs ladies!” The awkwardness amongst the group of girls was palpable. But I, completely confident, pulled off my left glove and with a karate-esque swoop, brought my left hand up to my face, my palm facing inward.
“Sorry,” I said, pointing at my beautiful ring, “He doesn’t want me to.”
“Come on!” the man said. His friend tried to encourage us as well.
“Sorry!” I said again. “I can’t!”
As we were having this conversation, the other girls in the group snuck around the parked cars and made their way into the pub. As the last girl stepped into the street, I followed behind them, shouting to the men, “I’m taken! I’m off the market!” They gave up and left us alone.
This night, the pub had traditional Irish music. It was really great music, and everyone had a great time. Senator Mark Daly was there again (I’m stealing a picture off of Facebook to show you). He's the curly-haired guy. (That should have been obvious.) I have no idea who the lady or the two babies are. He's not married. Facebook says the woman's from Germany.
Here’s Kaitlyn and me at the pub:
Chelsea, the girl I mentioned in my last post that went up to sing with the guitar player, lead two songs at the pub that evening. She was really amazing. Her voice is beautiful. She sang a song that I knew only because of my freshman-year roommate, Karla, to whom I am greatly indebted for exposing me to a variety popular music (some of it very pleasant, in fact).
And so passed day two. We were all rather tired, but having an amazing time.
Next post: day three. But that might not come for a little bit. I'm going to go to sleep now.
Next post: day three. But that might not come for a little bit. I'm going to go to sleep now.
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