‘When Erin first rose from the dark swelling flood,
God bless’d the green island and saw it was good;
The em’rald of Europe, it sparkled and shone, In the ring of the world the most precious stone!’

William Drennan, From ‘Erin’

I consider myself to be a pretty blessed individual. I wake up in my bed, in my house, I have a steady job, dogs and an amazing husband, family and friends.

It all becomes very elevated when I travel. It doesn’t matter if I travel to a new town in New England I’ve never seen, or taken a different trail on the mountain…my awareness of how lucky I am starts to swell.

This is how I felt when I visited Ireland for the first time. It’s definitely lives up to the hype.

Here is the first part of our Journey.

From Limerick we were driving, by car, to Kilkenny, where ponies run free at the bottom of the city.

Along the way we stopped at a small town called CASHEL. This way one of my favorite places.

Here you will find the rock of Cashel, which is quite amazing, but the gem lies below in the valley. Here is Hore Abbey-It was built in the 12th century by Cistercian Monks and you can see the massiveness of it by the people on the right. There was a presence there for sure.

“Wherever you go in Ireland you tread consecrated ground. Here among these mellow hills and serene valleys you find the restored domination of the primitive monks” -Frank Mathew, Ireland, on Wilcklow

We golfed and drank in Kilkenny…

 

The next day we headed to Kilarney and the Ring of Kerry. We did not do the full ring of Kerry. We only made it about an hour around, but it was spectacular. Here are photos from Rossbeigh Beach. This was a great beach tucked at the bottom of these mountains that was so very special. The rocks were great to look at. They were so smooth and colorful. This place reminded me of being in Burlington VT looking over at the Addirondacks in NY.

 

Thanks for visiting, and look for Part 2 coming soon!