Category Archives: Ireland 2016

After dinner Finbarr took me to see Abby Island. It is no longer an island–the small gap between it and the mainland has been bridged–nor is it still an active Abby, as you can see from the distinct lack of roof. Instead it serves as an active graveyard both inside and outside the walls of the ruined buildings.

This morning Finbarr drove us down to his place in Castle Cove on the Ring of Kerry. It’s what you think of when you think of Ireland but, today anyway,  without the rain. What you can’t see in the photo is the seals that are basking on the narrow rock behind the large one.

After lunch we took the kayaks out and paddled out past them to the Kenmare River, really a bay on southeast side of the Iveragh Peninsula that the Ring circumnavigates. When we swung out into the incoming tide, it and the wind carried us back to his front yard where we started.

As we returned, so did the sun. A beautiful afternoon!

I’m off to County Cork, sporting my locally made SkySkarf, to visit Finbarr, my graduate school housemate, and Janet, his lovely wife. Since I last saw them in 1985, they’ve lived in Seattle, Berkeley, moved back to Cork, and raised 3 children.

Finbarr is the smartest and most hospitable man I have ever met. If I arrived home while he was eating, there was a plate set for me before I got my coat off. When my brother and I visited him and has parents in 1983, they took my to his brother Dhiarmuid’s house in Kerry where they took us around the bay by boat. When he had to return to Madison, his friend and family continued to take us around and would, no doubt, have continued to host us had we not attempted to hitchhike to Galway…but that’s another story.