The County Kerry Coast line

 Our stay in Doolin found us in the middle of an Atlantic storm. At least that's what the locals called it. The Cliffs of Moher were fogged in and we were so excited that we had the chance to visit them the afternoon before. As we drove by the entrance in the morning, we watched people walking out to the viewing areas in dense fog and our hearts went out to them. We were thankful.

As we passed through Lahinch, just south of the cliffs, we passed the local golf course which was loaded with golfers. In spite of the dreary and cool morning, they were carrying-on through their rounds. On the other side of town we spotted surfers in the water at the beach. You'll have to zoom in on the picture to see them, but they were there. 

The surfers are in here.

Crossing the River Shannon on the ferry. A 20 minute crossing that saved us 4 hours of driving. 

There is a road called the Wild Atlantic Way. It runs from Inishowen peninsula in the north to Cork in the south. It meanders into scenic one-lane roads taking you to out or the way, but special places. We did some of it but barely touched the surface. But it seemed to be our homing-beacon that told us we were on the right path. Notice the signs in both English and Gaelic.

Typical small town traffic and low rise housing.

Making our way down the road we came across an old church in ruins. We stopped. There was a cemetery in the church yard and most of the tombstones were new, or at least from the last 30 years. But the church was in ruins. Only fitting that on the eve of all souls day, we stumble upon the final resting place of a number of souls. It also appears that after abandonment of the church, burials were made inside of the church. Many of the graves were unmarked. We appreciated the irony of the eve.

A sixth century saint built his church on this site. Saint Macreehy is remembered in folklore and tradition as the one who banished the otter and the eel who were robbing the bones of the dead from this cemetery. His legend makes him famous for his capacity to banish monsters. 

Ruins such as this really dot the countryside. So even though it is unusual to us, it really is not to the Irish.

The driving that day was much more tense due to rain and occasional fog. Our plan was to visit Killarney National Park and then to make our way to Valentia Island on the western edge of the ring of Kerry.

We stopped at the Killarney National Park with the intention to see the Gap of Dunloe  and the old Muckross Abbey, but between the rain and the early darkness, we decided to drive on to Valentia Island for our evening. We planned to catch both on our drive from the other side of the Ring of Kerry.

We had dinner at the Royal Hotel in Knightstown on Valentia Island. There was a large gathering of locals and all their kids, parents and grandparents. Everyone in town must have been there since we needed a reservation to go to dinner. There was even a fireworks show put on over the bay by the locals. This was more evidence of how big a holiday Halloween is for the Irish. We found this guy on the sofa next to us at dinner.

Our local lodging had a Star War's theme to it. Then it dawned on us that one of the Star Wars movies was filmed on Skellig Island, about 10 miles offshore from here and our suspicion is that many of the actors and crew stayed on Valentia Island at the time. Thus, we should not have been surprised to see dolls of Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, et. al.