Ring of Kerry - Kerry Way

If we were driving it would be called the Ring of Kerry Drive but we are walking so it is the Kerry Way.  We cover just a small portion of the trail on the southern side of the peninsula but the views from here were spectacular especially since we had a gloriously sunny day.

The path we walked is also known as the Old Butter Road when the locals whould walk this way to take their butter to market in Kenmare.  My favorite part was the walk on a grassy lane lined by low rock walls.  We also walked down a rocky farm track and into open moorland near Caherdaniel overlooking Derrynane Bay.

Derrynane House was the vacation home of Daniel O'Connell who is considered the father of the Irish emancipation from the Church of England. This was during a time when the Irish were immigrating to the Americas, Scotland, Australia and England, numbering in the millions. The potato famine played a large part in the immigration but so did the English tyrany of the times when they allowed no schools, no worshiop, no savings and no land ownership by the Irish. O'Connell felt change had to be made by negotiations and not by violence and uprisings.  And he accomplised his goal of allowing catholic worship by the Irish in the mid-1800 but then the famine hit and the Irish left home to start anew in the US and other parts of the world.

Derrynane is a large park with a sandy shoreline, fairy houses in the forest, a museum, a garden and an old cemetery.  The remains of the building date back to the 500's. Tombs, cripts and burial grounds have taken over the old church and its surrounds with families laying to rest on top of their ancestors.

We had our farewell dinner tonight with toast presented by each person to another person in the tour.  There were lots of laughs and good feelings, but sorrow upon our parting ways.