We drove WeeKa over to Killarney, and parked by the giant St. Mary's Cathedral. Free parking right on the edge of town. It's a huge church, so we walked in to look and ended up watching a practice run for the greeting of the new Bishop of Kerry, who will be installed tomorrow.
The entire town of Killarney has flags hanging over the streets, flags of every county in Ireland, hundreds of flags, for a bike race last week. It is so colorful and really makes it look great here. The houses are all painted different colors again. OK, I get it. It must be the national law now: to designate your community as a "cute" tourist town, you must paint the houses different pastel colors. Cute!
We drove on through Killarney National Park, really a small place between Killarney and Kenmare, maybe 20 KM long. There are a couple lakes in a valley, and Ireland's highest hill... I mean mountain. Cute! We could see the whole thing, almost hold it in our hand, from a pull out up the hill.
We found our guest house in Kenmare. It is very comfortable, kind of old fashioned looking, like our home, with a big room that has, get this, three single beds in it! Ha! You just never know. Stupid me, I gave Gail first choice of the beds and she picked the best one! Anyway, we can hear the sheep across the road, the cows the next field over, and we walk along a creek and over a stone bridge into town. Cute! The town has two main streets of businesses, all painted d_________ c_______. Cute! If you can't fill in the blanks, you are not paying attention. There is a nice park slash square with a huge tree, and every second business is a pub.
Well, at this point of the trip I am craving a fresh salad, so we find a pub that has such salad, and we both get a glass of white wine. Gail has a crab cocktail. It's a warm day again; according to the news they set a heat record yesterday at 30 degrees. The pub owner is almost apologetic, "It is never this hot and uncomfortable. If you come next year at this time it will probably be raining."
We finish walking through town, then go sit in the park. I read while Gail falls asleep with her head in my lap. On the next bench over two white haired ladies sit in the sun, one wearing white pants and a brown sweater, the other brown pants and a white sweater. Next to me a dad watches his daughter in a red stroller, mom and two kids walk back over, the little girl running up with a coke for him. The church bell tolls six sets of three (18:00) while a couple sleeps in the shade of a huge oak tree. An older guy in red flannel shirt, sleeves rolled up, sits in the sun along the fence, smoking and listening to soccer on a portable radio. Three young guys in front of me flirt with one pretty, brown haired girl. They see who can throw a rock in the open garbage can; all miss, she picks the guy with tattoos anyway. They walk off to be replaced by a young mom, watching her daughter run around in circles. A family eats ice cream on a bench, the youngest drops his. A boy rides his bike across the grass while the circle girl's brother shows up and they play hide and seek by the statue. The little girl in the red stroller is out now, doing the stiff-legged walk that babies do; she is wearing a blue dress with big white polka dots and white leggings. When she turns around, everyone is ignoring her so she shrieks. They look, turn away, so she goes and starts chewing on a tree branch. Two kids about five race each other around the park, the brother wins every time. Another lady with two kids goes around picking up trash, looking disgusted. Her kids follow, "mom mom MOM!" She tries to shove the trash in the bin, it is so full that it falls back out. She laughs, shrugs. Two girls kiss goodbye, the polka dot baby goes over to the white haired women and smiles. Smiles all around. A slight breeze, Gail is asleep, people walk the streets and the pubs are getting full of Saturday afternoon meetings.
We walked out of town to the Kenmare Stone Circle. It is the biggest one in south-west Ireland, built about 2200BC. This one might be oriented to the setting sun, and it has a "burial boulder" in the middle. It is a really nice size circle, about fifty feet diameter and has fifteen greenstone rocks. The local rock is brownstone, so these were brought in from out a ways. When we walked up a girl was sitting on one, writing in her journal. We joined her, picking different rocks, and sat. She left, the shadows lengthened, the cathedral bells rang the call to mass. There is something comforting about sitting against, or lying on a rock which has been warmed by the sun, in this place, for the past 4213 years; old grey rocks picked for their shape? Size? Or just because. What have they seen, and how much longer will they sit here and observe it all?
We walked back into town, past the square (a new cast of characters now) and up the street to Tom Crean Fish and Wine, a restaurant named for him. Today happens to be Tom's 136th birthday. We weren't very hungry, but did need to bulk up for the evening's pub hopping, so I had a simple prawn ravioli appetizer, and Gail had a salad. The food looked cute, but was only OK in quality.
We headed out looking for a good pub with traditional music, after all, they were all advertising it. They should rename Kenmare, and Dingle for that matter, Disappointment City. Every pub, and we walked every street and poked onto each one; every pub had people, mostly guitarists, playing standard American tunes. Somehow, at least for me, I Don't Get No Satisfaction gives me no satisfaction when it is bring murdered by a couple older guys strumming chords. Not so cute. So we sat outside at one last pub, had a drink and walked home in the dusk, along the creek.