Muckross House and Ennis

I am now in Ennis, a lovely little town in County Clare. We went out to dinner at Brogan's, which has won the James Joyce award for the most authentic food or something in Ireland. Tonight is the last night of a music festival in Ennis, and we got to hear the most wonderful traditional Irish music played at the bar.

Today has been a long day, but a good one nevertheless. When we woke up, we were still in Killarney, of course. We wanted to see Muckross house. This is a house in the Killarney national park that has been donated (along with the park). It was built in the Victorian era and has ornate Victorian furnishings. We took a taxi out to the park b/c there is no bus service, and it was five miles from our hostel, and we didn't have time to walk, though many people do rent bikes. The house was fabulously ornate, and the grounds were so beautiful. The gardens and grounds are covered in flowering trees and bushes, hedges, flowers, et cetera. There are wonderful rocky groves and ancient thick-trunked trees.

In addition to the house and grounds, there is a traditional working farm. You follow a country lane past many meadows and fields where sheep, cows, and horses graze. Along the way, you can stop at three different farms: small, medium, and large. The set-up is that you can see how people on farms worked and lived back in the days before electricity. The houses use peat or charcoal fires, and each is set up as if people still live there (maybe they do?). The first house also had a pig and its litter out back; the second house had soda bread samples; the third house (the big farm) diverged from tradition with a very modern football (soccer) field out front. We passed a goat along the country road, and several chickens (definitely "free range," though I still wouldn't eat them). The farm also had a working blacksmith who showed us how he created an iron piece for a gate or fence. There is a carpenter and a saddle maker, too, but they weren't there.

We basically spent all day at Muckross house and farms, then we headed to the bus station (via taxi) to take the 14 to Limerick, where we caught the 51 to Ennis. The countryside! It is so beautiful. If we had more time, I'd like to rent a car and drive the Ring of Kerry to see more of this wonderful scenery.

Now we are in Ennis, and we are at a very nice hostel named The Rowan Tree. It's a bit nicer than the ones we have been staying at,. I'm not sure what we're doing tomorrow besides laundry. I am hoping to go to an island where monks lived in the 7th century.