Ireland '23 - Day 8, 9 & 10 - Ring of Kerry II - Portmagee, Kenmare, Killarney & train to Dublin 

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Portmagee - On Friday (day 8) I woke at 6 am to the sound of sea mist slamming into the windows at 50+ mph, making a metallic sound. Across the street, in parking lot light, I could see small surging waves. 

'Nor man nor beast should be afoot at this hour'...came to mind.   

Over a few cups of Barry's tea, I read until the 8 am breakfast downstairs. Many of the attendees were familiar from the night before, so the tourist season here is still alive.    

Afterwards, clouds lifted & rain stopped, while intense wind continued. Once the car was packed, I noticed the road paving crew, post-breakfast, mobilizing outside the Hotel, in multi-layers, complete rain gear, equal to the elements. The wind was furious, impossible !

I walked over to the foreman and said "I can't believe you guys can work all day in this $&#% weather", and he leaned in & said "so would you ever consider moving to Ireland?". I replied "I always wanted to, until now"....all in good humor.      

With the wind behind me, I was on the main road (N72) to Kenmare by 10 am, and there was little traffic today, a good thing. Below are two local scenery web shots.

Kerry Cliffs, just south of Portmagee

Ring of Kerry drive (see note)

note - this is how the Ring of Kerry looks in good weather. This wide sweep of the bay at Waterville is looking west, back to the two small hills of Valentia Island, in the far distance & just right of center.   

On the curvy 90-minute drive, I stopped just once, at an ocean-side city car park/restroom at Waterville, where the wind was so strong I could barely get out of the car, or back in.  

On the road just south of Waterville part of a well-branched (but not huge) tree was hanging horizontally across the road in my lane & at eye level.  The road was narrow, curvy and busy, so I had no choice but to plow into it. It caused no apparent damage.

Kenmare - It was good to get to this small town, with only two main streets. I stayed at Davitt's Guesthouse on Henry St. & was directed to park off a back alley, just behind the kitchen, possibly the only overnight patron, once again.  

Kenmare is a colorful town, "20 miles inland from the raging Atlantic" as Fodors says. It was a calm & overcast afternoon, and I went for a walk down by the sleepy Kenmare River & tidal marshland, and then back through town alleys to a Neolithic stone circle, on higher ground.    

note - you can enlarge any part of a picture by left-clicking in and then out again (with some exceptions). 

	walk along Kenmare River				turn around point
		tidal marsh		stone circle

I had 6 pm dinner at Davitt's on a Friday night, and only a small number of diners were there, another sign of the end of the tourist season?   

I sat near the beer taps, where the women servers hung out, and spoke about the need to relocate soon, like to the Mediterranean, to stay employed. This is Europe, I realized, with a fluid job market, especially in the hospitality industry. Some were returning to University.... 

On Saturday morning, I was the only attendee at the 8 am breakfast & ended up having an enjoyable 45-minute chat with the woman server, possibly the manager's wife. I noticed that the bar had a Tom Crean Brewery beer on tap and asked about it. 

She said that Tom Crean's great-grand daughter (Eileen) until recently had a popular restaurant in Kenmare, but then closed it & opened a brewery, w/rooms, just one street over. 

Around 9 am, I walked 5 minutes to the Tom Crean Brewery to get photos. Who is Tom Crean ?....see Postscript below.

	next street over		I stayed on Henry St.		at Davitt's Guesthoue
		I bought a woolen cap here the day before		City Park with impressive tree
	Tom Crean Brewery		Antarctic legend from  Anascaul (near Dingle)		note 1
		note 2		The Lakes O'Killarney, see note 3

note 1 - this photo from the brewery beer garden shows Antarctic (British) Explorer Robert Falcon Scott's doomed five man summit team to the South Pole in 1911/12, all standing towards the front. Crean was a fellow British Navy Officer and a key support team member, but he is not shown in the photo. 

note 2 - this is one of Shackleton's two crews pulling an ocean-going vessel across the ice, after abandoning the (ice-bound & crushed) ship Endurance, in 1915. Crean is in there somewhere, probably singing an Irish song, the 2nd ranked officer on the expedition.    

note 3 - This is Upper Killarney Lake on an overcast & cold day, looking south, from a road stop on the N72.

Between Kenmare & Killarney, the N72 is amazingly narrow & curvy, and one-lane bridges suddenly come up, but thankfully it was uncrowded. The weather was so cold & drab that I passed up the chance to take a walk I had wanted to do for months in advance, and instead arrived in Killarney early, checked in at Castle Court Hotel & dropped off the car keys at the rental office in Killarney.

Then I wandered around, and being Saturday, it was a little crowded with locals. 

The City cleverly arranged it so that different street musicians can tie into the town's vast speaker system, for a few songs or tunes at a time. Musicians are often in non-descript places, for instance, on a side alley I walked past a fiddler playing the (profound) tune from Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, and it was being broadcast across town. 

It was stunning, and the fiddler was talented, and I was teary-eyed a bit.      

view from hotel room in Killarney

On day 10, a cold & sunny Sunday, at 12:30 pm, I boarded a non-stop train to Dublin, and during the next three hours saw a lot of empty fields with horses and trees arrayed in fall colors.  

An older Irish woman came slowly through our car trying to locate her husband and passengers were laughing at some of her caustic comments, but as soon as she found him, she became silent. 

Once again it was "mind the gap, and, thank you for riding nor here nor there".

Back at Heuston Station at 3:30 pm, I had a NERO coffee in the Victorian station for 30 minutes. 

Later after a 10 minute cab ride, I checked into Camden Court Hotel, and soon found Doris, Mary & Roger, in the lobby/mezzanine restaurant, having drinks with friends. All were de-compressing from their 10-day bus tour with 120 others, enjoying the first few hours of being 'free birds'.  

Mary & Roger left to attend The Elders last concert, somewhere nearby, while Doris & I had dinner with her friends Sandra & Lee. Lee was a good conversationalist, with a scientific background, and we hit it off well, and Doris and Sandra, long-time friends, were equally engaged.

From a Mezzanine window seat, I looked out onto Camden St., where it was a cold & rainy Sunday night in Dublin, and pedestrians with umbrellas & cars were streaming by, a blur of lights & colors.      

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Postscript - about Legendary Antarctic Explorer, Irishman Tom Crean: (feel free to skip)

While (British) Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton are best known among Antarctic explorers, Irishman Tom Crean was a key member who worked for both of them. He survived the failed Scott attempt on the South Pole in 1911/12, when Scott's (5-man) Polar team all perished, while returning, having reached the summit, one month after Norwegian Roald Amundsen had accomplished being the first one there.     

Tom Crean was in the final support group for Scott's 'summit' team, reluctantly ordered to turn back, on the Polar Plateau at 10,000 ft. and only 150 miles from the South Pole. On on the 750 mile walk back to Hut Point, in a three-man team, Crean became a hero for undertaking a solo 36 mile walk to save the lives of his two comrades, who were exhausted & nearly out of food/fuel, one of them having a bad case of scurvy. They were only 36 miles from the Hut when the two wore out.

Crean only had three biscuits and two chocolate sticks for food, and walked for 18 hours. When he arrived at the Hut, he gave his report about the stranded guys & collapsed. Within 30 minutes, a fierce 48-hour blizzard commenced and in zero visibility conditions, Crean certainly would have perished, so it was a very close call !   

After the blizzard ended, two guys from the Scott Expedition Hut went out by dog sled and rescued the two stranded men within hours. Anecdotal info says one of the Eskimo dogs rushed into the tent & began licking their faces, when they were first found.    

Tom Crean's most impressive exploit occurred in 1914-16, when Shackleton's ship Endurance was frozen in for 15 months, finally crushed by the unforgiving sea ice surrounding Antarctica, and sank, another failed polar attempt.

The 28 person crew only had three lifeboats and they somehow made it to Elephant Island, an open-ocean journey of 150 miles. Twenty-two men were then left behind and the most sea-worthy vessel was reinforced and six crew members, including Ernest Shackleton, Frank Worsley, and Tom Crean, took off for an open boat voyage of 800 miles (via dead reckoning) and thankfully Worsley was an experienced navigator. They also had some navigational instruments, not very effective when a boat is getting tossed around, and the sun is obscured by clouds. 

They were in search of the miniscule South Atlantic island of Georgia, their last hope in saving 28 lives, and they found it.  

Once they landed on South Georgia a difficult hike up and over impressive mountain passes brought them to the only whaling station that far south in the Atlantic. In the end all expedition members survived, a near impossibility.

Tom Crean, like Ernest Shackelton, became 'the stuff of legend'.  But poor Shackleton soon died of a coronary, at the start on his last trip to Antarctica in 1922. His wife wired instructions for him to be buried on Georgia Island, at the whaling station, where he most wanted to be, and where a statue of him stands, looking out over the sea.    

After his Antarctic expeditions, Kerryman Crean resumed service in the British Navy, in the end serving for a total of 27 years. His polar exploits had earned him many accolades & promotions and he had a rewarding career, and, a decent pension. He also had earned two of England's most prestigious Military medals for his contributions to Royal Navy Expeditions.    

Back in Anascaul, near Dingle, where he grew up, the retired Tom Crean opened the South Pole Pub,in a house he bought next to the attractive Anascaul River bridge, with its three stone arches imitating old Roman architecture.

Tom's wife had grown up in a Publican family, and knew how to run the business, while Tom hung out by the river, smoked his pipe & talked to people all day. Locals say he rarely spoke of his Antarctic adventures, and, he was often singing Gaelic songs. He was also known to take long walks with his dogs, in the surrounding hills. 

Because of the troubles between Ireland and England, Tom had to keep a low profile as regards his service to the Crown.

On the occasion when Crean was visited by former shipmates, he usually kept it small & private.    

Tom's South Pole Pub in Anascaul is still there, and generations of Creans are buried in the surrounding hills.

To be a bartender there you have to be able to sing old Irish ballads while you pour beers. 

(Crean info ref. - see the Bibliography page.)

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