Irish Celebration: Killarney Weekend!

It's no secret that Ireland is an amazing place to live, but the gravity of this fact has sunk in and resonated with me quite a bit over the past few weeks. I am so lucky to be living in a place that I fall more and more in love with each day.

Last weekend, the Arcadia program took all of its students to Killarney for the weekend. We were originally supposed to go to Belfast, but because there are protests there, they made the judgement call to take us to Killarney in County Kerry for the weekend. Forty or so of the Arcadia students at NUIG piled into a coach bus at 10am Friday morning (February 15^th) and journeyed two hours to Limerick to pick up 10-15 Arcadia students studying at the University there. We stopped in an adorable town called Adare for a snack/bathroom break and were able to stretch our legs and walk around town. We took a few pictures and got coffee then got back on the bus. Our next stop was a guided visit of Muckross House which is a beautiful Victorian mansion which was completed in 1843. We got to explore some of the rooms and watch a woman knit Muckross scarves and hats which are beautiful, and sold all over Ireland. One of the boys in the program jokingly asked if he could try and to our surprise, the woman at the loom let him!

After the tour, we were able to walk around outside and photograph the beautiful Muckross Lake and Torc & Mangerton Mountains surrounding the house. We then checked into our youth hostel, Neptunes, explored the city a bit, and checked back in with out group for dinner at the Gleneagle Hotel Killarney. We had a lovely dinner then went and checked out of a few of the local pubs. We found live music which was wonderful – a man and his fifteen year old son played a set at Danny Man's that we listened to for a while. We were all tired though, so we came back to the hostel and went to bed fairly early. The next day was our day o' tourism! We got breakfast at the hostel then walked to a nearby Cathedral where our coach bus picked us up and drove us to the Gap of Dunloe, an incredible scenic area with valleys, lakes, and mountains. We started our journey through the 7 mile pass of the mountains at Kate Kearney's Cottage where four students each piled into a horse-drawn jaunty car! This was a wonderful way to see the mountains because it felt like we were actually in with the beauty, instead of just observing it from afar. Our jaunty car driver was a nice Irish man who had graduated from Cork last year. It was fun to talk with him about college in Ireland. He explained to us that the horses pulling the cars belonged to 30 different families who rotate out each week or so and that he works for his father and grandfather.

After the jaunty carriage ride, we went to lunch at a rest stop at a Cottage by the lake. We were all a little chilly and wet, so we happily ate our free soup, cocoa and sandwiches. After lunch, we walked down to the lake and were greeted by 5 12-person boats. We put on our life jackets and squashed into a boat where we set off for an hour and a half ride through the Lakes of Killarney. For the first half hour, we were all in awe of the natural beauty surrounding our boats and had a great time taking pictures, talking with our guide, and enjoying the scenery. However, the longer we were in the boats, the colder, windier, and rainier the weather got. By the end of the trip, none of us could even hold conversations because we were so cold! We met the other groups on shore and waited for our bus, huddling together for warmth. When the bus arrived, we all hopped on it as fast as we could and rode back to the hostel for hot showers and rest before dinner. Some of the girls and I decided to explore Killarney a bit before dinner and we went to a pub and tried Irish coffees (we got Bailey's instead of whiskey). We met up with the group around 7 and walked to another hotel where we were given a beautiful buffet-style meal. After dinner, we found a great pub where about 15-20 of the Arcadia students spent the rest of the night. The pub surprisingly had another section that turned into a club later in the night, so we spent the night dancing with our large group of students, which was really fun.

The next morning, we got to sleep in a little, then we went to another hotel where we listened to a talk by a local story-teller & folklorist. He told us stories about his experiences growing up in Killarney which was very neat – it obviously meant a lot to him that he was able to share his life with us. We got lunch in Killarney and shopped around a bit, we found an wool sweater market and I was so tempted to buy one but I think I'm going to wait until the end of my trip for an Aran Islands sweater.
I'll post another blog about the last week later today!