Ireland Trip Day 5

Today, we went on a tour of the Ring of Kerry. The Ring of Kerry is a circle driven around the Iveraugh Peninsula on Ireland’s southwest coast. Absolutely gorgeous scenery! We traveled from Killarney to Sneem (I kept calling it Smee – lol) in a counterclockwise direction around the peninsula.
On this day we stopped and watched a man named Brenden give a sheep dog demonstration. The dogs were amazing! The first part of the demonstration consisted of Brenden showing us the different kings of sheep they raise in Ireland (he had at least a dozen). He then took us over to a field that went up the side of the mountain. Through a series of whistles he demonstrated how he could communicate with each dog in order to bring the sheep down the mountain. Not only could the dogs bring the sheep down, but they also could separate the sheep into the groups dictated by Brenden! I think I got an overload of sheep pictures there.
We also made a stop at the Bog Village. This gives tourists an idea of what life was like in a little community in the late nineteenth, early twentieth century. We also found out that when fireplaces burn turf, the smell can get quite strong and the smoke very thick! We were also able to try Irish Coffee or Bailey’s Coffee here. I do not care for coffee so I did not have any.
We went to Mass at the Catholic Church in Killarney tonight. Some were brave enough to sit in the front row, but I was not one of them! I thought I was doing good on warning people that they don’t stand as much as we do, but that must have just been a thing at the campus center. Going to church in Ireland does, however, test how well you know the responses because as soon as the priest’s done with his bit, everyone races to the end of the congregation’s response! It’s quite confusing, even during the Our Father! Everyone was also amazed that we were out in 40 minutes rather than the usual hour allotted for Mass.
We went back to Danny Mann’s tonight, but didn’t think the band was as good as the night before and the microphone was REALLY loud so we didn’t stay long.