Waterville, Ireland

We woke up to rain and the plan of not quite filling the day as we had reservations at the Butler Arms Hotel for dinner. We had a relaxed start and Karsten planned a visit to the Kissane Sheep Farm. Two years ago it just didn’t work out to see a sheep dog at work. This time it was going to be different and it was. We started off with a small buffer, which was a good thing. Heading out of Waterville towards Caherdaniel was a sign: Slow Funeral. Another good reason to die in Ireland. It seems the whole village is there. So many cars and so many people and the Garda regulating the traffic. This was the second funeral we saw and were amazed by the sheer amount of people. I’ve never seen anything like it in Germany. Only when a really famous person passes away. We continued on our journey to Moll’s Gap and arrived on time at the sheep farm, which was open! We went inside paid and waited. In the meantime we looked at the little lambs and sheep and wondered why all of them had horns, thinking for the shearing demonstration we would only see male sheep being sheared. We learned something new. First of all we learned the downside of belonging to the EU. For the wool of one sheep the farmer earns approx. 0,30€. Which isn’t much, since the shearer has to be paid, the food , vaccinations etc. But it was fascinating to watch. Afterwards we went outside to watch the sheep dog demonstration. John Kissane works with Border Collies and it was truly enjoyable to watch how the dogs and their master interacted. Afterwards I had a chance to have a short chat with John and learned that most sheep farmers do this is a part time job as no one can live off this anymore. Sheep are Important as the keep the vegetation at bay and the wool shouldn’t be sent off to China. For 50€ you can adopt a sheep. One of my birthday wishes. Ireland without sheep just wouldn’t be Ireland. From there we headed to Killarney, in the past we hadn’t gotten round to Muckross House or Muckross Friary. This time we hoped to get it done. A little time pressure was upon us, so we did the tour of Muckross House and once again were speechless of how wealth was spent. The house is beautiful, we didn’t see all the rooms, so I assume there are some hidden gems, but what we were shown gave you a good idea of how things were like when you had money in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. We didn’t tour the gardens but headed straight for the friary as I wanted to see the 500+ year old yew tree. Again the cemetery had me. A beautiful location next to Lough Leane. The tree was also astounding, right in the middle of the cloisters. Since there are many Americans visiting Killarney, they were having a 4th of July parade with fireworks, so we headed back the way we came from and were lucky to catch some sunlight at Ladies View. We continued on back home for a change of clothes and set off for dinner. We had reservations at the Butler Arms Hotel. The food was good, the service mediocre. For starters Eric had the crab claws and we shared chicken liver patê. For the main course Eric had hot lobster and we had the hot and cold seafood platter. We had ordered our platters with half a lobster, when they arrived we wondered where the lobster was. Turned out they forget,mother same went for the table they reserved, Eric’s dessert and the occasion for which we had booked. The first time we had such poor service in Ireland. We headed back to our house and were able to catch the last sun rays going down behind Eightercua.