Day 6: the last full day

Our hotel in Killarney was way nicer than we expected for a smaller city and we were pleasantly surprised when we found out that a buffet breakfast was included in our rate. So we fueled up before heading out to see some of the local sites, despite the rain.

Stop one was Muckross House–a name given for the area, not a family, which I consider a fortunate thing. With the rain and wind coming down hard on our way in, I didn’t get a photo of the outside and indoor photography was prohibited. If you’ve been to the Newport Mansions in Rhode Island before, the Muckross House was a little like that on a smaller, less grand scale. They did it up for a visit from Queen Victoria that nearly ran the family bank accounts dry and many of the features from those updates to the decor are still in tact.

Going much further back in time, we stopped at Muckross Abbey (the rain was much more misty at this point) and because it’s outdoor ruins I got plenty of photos, including one with the pupper that wanted to play with us.

For our last stop in Killarney, we made a small hike down to the Torc Waterfall. It was still raining at this point so potentially getting sprayed by the falls didn’t sound so problematic. They were impressive enough that I’m glad we made the hike down. (And back up to the car that greatly contributed to my phone registering a total of 42 flights climbed that day. )

At this point it was around noon, so we decided to start our long drive back to Dublin. Of course pretty quickly after we started, the rain let up, but we got some beautiful views this way so I forgave the weather.

The drive was long and by the time we got dinner I was ready to wolf it down without letting the searing hot potatoes cool. Beef and Guinness stew covered in potatoes seemed like a fitting last meal in Ireland!

Day 5: it finally rained

We lucked out a lot for the majority of our trip with more sun than I ever could have wished for. On Friday, that finally changed a bit. We made a couple of final purchases (a stop at Butlers and Charlie Byrnes!) downtown in Galway before hopping in the car to head south to Kilarney.

The Burren was along the way, so we made a stop there despite the rain. I couldn’t remember where the bus tour took us when I’d been there before, so we didn’t see the classic table structure that you see in a lot of photos of the Burren, but we still got to see the landscape, which was the main point. Those are what I deemed “Oreo cows” in the picture.

Getting back in the car, I got to have my highly anticipated experience of driving on the left side of the road! Frankly the whole thing wasn’t nearly as challenging as I thought it would be. You can ask Matt how scared he was, though. I took us the rest of the couple hours to Killarney.

Killarney is right on the Ring of Kerry, so there are a lot of attractions around. With the rain, we wanted to find something indoors to start so we hit up Ross Castle.

Despite the rain, we also attempted to see Muckross Abbey that afternoon, but it started pouring so hard that within a few minutes along the path, our pants were soaked and it was no longer an attractive idea. (We were able to see it on Saturday when the rain was more of a mist.)

The rain let up by the time we went to dinner and to a couple of pubs that night. Killarney is considerably less touristy than Dublin or Galway, specifically at the beginning of March. (I’m sure it gets super busy in the summer for folks driving the Ring of Kerry.) We saw a lot more locals at the pubs that night.

Day 4: Connemara & Irish Radio

Important update: we found Matt iced coffee for breakfast on Thursday! Okay so it was an iced latte at Caffe Nero, a place we could easily go in Boston, but it was a step in the right direction.

After getting our things together, we hopped in the car to spend most of the day outside of Galway City. First stop was The Quiet Man bridge–famous for its role in the movie. Matt recreated the classic pose on the bridge. You’ll have to do a quick search to determine for yourself how he did. For context, he might have fallen off the bridge if he pushed more for accuracy, so I was okay with this version. Pretty nice scenery though, right?

From there, our main plan for the day was to head a bit northwest from Galway to the town of Recess, where Matt’s family is from. We visited their church and the cemetery where many of them are buried.

We finished up our time in Recess with Joyce’s Bar (finally got some soup and brown bread!) and Joyce’s Craft Shop.

Our stop at Connemara National Park was rather short-lived for a couple of reasons. One was that upon making the sharp turn uphill into the parking area, a light flashed on the dash of our rental car and we heard a loud beeping noise. While it went away almost immediately, we weren’t about to risk being so far from our accommodations without an Irish phone to contact the car company if we needed it. The second reason was that frankly I really needed to use restroom and they were closed up at the visitor center. So we found a pub down the hill and continued back to Galway for the evening.

The drive from Connemara back to Galway was one of our most beautiful. Matt slowed down a few times for me to get better pictures and there were so many sheep around that if they were grazing too close to the road, he had to give them a beep beep, thought many were unfazed by this.

Side note: Irish radio in the car has been an adventure in itself. We found the Irish-speaking channel, the typical pop hits channels, and this gem, pictured below:

Our last dinner in Galway was the Quay Street Kitchen. I don’t have a photo because I was too hungry. But we hit up both the Front Door and King’s Head as our farewell pub tour afterwards.