The following are images from the week I spent in various locations across
the southern coastal areas of Ireland. I started with a couple days in
Dublin, then drove along the coast to Killarney. From Killarney I did 2 day
trips, one around the Dingle Peninsula, the other around the Ring of Kerry.
From there I drove along the coast to Galway, then Sligo, then back to Dublin.

This is one of the fountains in St. Stephen's Green. St. Stephen's Green is essentially the Dublin version of New York's Central Park - only MUCH smaller. The hotel I stayed in was about a block from here.

Another of the landmarks in Dublin is Trinity College - one of the oldest Universities in the UK.

While driving about I saw a sign for something related to the "JFK" home. I was interested and not in a particular hurry so I followed the sign. What ensued was a 30 mile detour down a one-lane rural road that ended at a rather non-descript farmhouse with this plaque. This one's for you Kay...

This is the image of a bit of the lowland coutryside on the Dingle Peninsula. The dividers you see are stone walls about 4 ft high overgrown with ivy. The little white specks are sheep (you'll need to look at the full-size picture to see them). Just like Iowa has more pigs than people, Ireland has more sheep. The sheep also appear on the roads quite a bit in the rural areas since fences are less than effective in most areas.


This is an image of one of the few real beach areas I came across. This one happens to be on the southern coast of the Ring of Kerry.

This beach also had some rather cool old ruins on a little island in the surf...

The next few shots are some of the cool shoreline areas from the Ring of Kerry.








It wouldn't be Ireland without some rainbow love. This one was taken from one of the major "mountain" passes on the Ring of Kerry.

Here's another fairly cool shot of some ruins from the Ring of Kerry.

This is a landscape of Galway Bay.

Here's another cool outlook picture from around Galway Bay.

This is the one and only castle I found in the whole week I could get close enough to take a picture without a 5 mile hike. It's from the west coast north of Galway.

One of the coooler tourist traps around Galway is Kylemore Abbey. It's a functioning nunnery with a school for girls situated on a lake with some really cool mountains all around. If you have the means for the tuition, I think it would be an awesome way to suck up to your daughter :-)

There's a little walking trail around the lake where several of the mountain streams come down in some cool waterfalls.

This is a shot of the actual Abbey.

This is a shot of the Gothic Church (the one peeking out from the trees in the first shot). It's modelled from a full Gothic Cathedral somewhere in the area, but in minature. The whole thing is only about 1.5 stories and 20' x 40'.