,Ireland 2023 - Day 6 & 7- Ring of Kerry I - Knights Town & Portmagee   

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On Wednesday morning (day 6) I acquired a rental car in Killarney & left for the Ring of Kerry drive about 10:30 am. The plan was to drive (anti-clockwise) from Killarney to Knights Town, on Valentia Island (50 miles), then the next day to Portmagee (only 4 miles away), and finally to Kenmare (56 miles), giving me three nights out on the 110-mile loop that begins & ends at Killarney. 

It was an uncrowded & easy drive, until I hit a pothole (due to pavement washout), near Killorglin, and instantly had two flat tires, on the passenger side. The tow truck driver said it was the result of especially heavy rains, lately. It took the rest of the day to get back on the road and I was relieved to get to Knights Town, on Valentia Island, just before it became dark.  

Knights Town - The Royal Valentia Hotel is in the center of this tiny town, on the water. Built in the 1830s, the Hotel has an old-timey feel, and there were a few uneven places in the plank floor as I walked to the restaurant, where old black & white photos of nearby shipwrecks lined the walls.

During the tourist season this place is known for having traditional Irish music, especially on weekend nights, but tonight & this time of year, it was a quiet dinner, with only a few locals there. I enjoyed a terrific fish chowder, all locally caught, after all, the Wild Atlantic is just a stone's throw away. I think the restaurant and bar closed around 8 pm.         

The Victorian style upstairs bedroom had tall ceilings & windows. There was a good view of the harbor, and no other cars  were parked out front, so I was probably the only overnight patron.      

On Thursday morning (day 7) I had a solo breakfast around 8 am, served by a pleasant young woman from Ukraine, who spoke perfect (US) English. She said her husband was in their apartment, cramming to learn the language, so he could get a job, too. 

The Americano with steamed milk that came with breakfast was so good that I asked for a second one to go, and took a walk to the end of the town pier & back.  

What a sleepy out-of-the-way place, and what a beautiful morning, wind-free & quiet, except for the town's flock of Jackdaws (Crows).  

note - you can enlarge any part of a picture by left-clicking in and then out again (with some exceptions). 

	Knightstown (web shot)		Royal Valentia Hotel		Rescue Boat w/ Reynard Point  behind
		heading out		Knightstown from the pier

The Transatlantic Cable Station was a ten-minute walk along the waterfront. This is a 'birthplace' of modern communications technology, during an era of copper wire & Morse code.  

In the late 1850s, after 5 repeated attempts, and 5 cable breakages, a complete Transatlantic Cable (2,000 miles long) was finally laid on the ocean floor between Valentia Island, Ireland, and Newfoundland, Canada, connecting the US to England (via copper wire) for the first time. 

Two key persons behind the success of the cable installation were American Cyrus West Field (1808 - 1880) who became wealthy at 34 and developed an interest in telegraphy, later being a partner in the original American Telegraph Company, and, Sir Peter Fitzgerald, 19th Knight of Kerry (1819 - 1892), who grew up at Glanleam House in Knights Town, and whose prime interest was to improve the economic conditions of the residents of Valentia Island (his tenants). The two eventually commissioned the largest (steam) ship in the world at the time, called the Great Eastern, to finish the job, in 1858. 

The first message was between US President James Buchanan & England's Queen Victoria, and although short & sweet, took hours to transmit. Nonetheless, immense public celebrations broke out on both sides of the Atlantic, in London, and in New York City, where fireworks accidentally set City Hall on fire !   

	Transatlantic Cable Station		continuous copper wire was the key		Sir Peter Fitzgerald, 19th Knight of Kerry.
		model of the Great Eastern		NY City Hall on fire in 1858		see note

note - this photo shows 41 delegates from 26 nations attending the International Meridian Conference in Washington, D.C., in 1884. I liked the photo, but didn't find a connection to the Transatlantic cable. 

In 1858-60, more than 200 technicians & admin staff came from Britain to live and work at the Knights Town operating center for the international cable system, and over time the techies here (probably early electrical engineers) made significant improvements to the link until Operations ceased in 1965s. 

The Docent said the Brits at first tried to not mingle with the Irish, and had their own schools, but eventually they came to know and rely on locals for skilled labor, food, and supplies. The 19th Knight's idea of improving local economics (via the presence of the Cable company) did come to pass.  

A display stated that in 1858 the fastest transmission was one word every 19 minutes; within two years it improved to 13 words per minute (wpm). By the 1890s it was 50 wpm, still very slow, and now it is 84 BN wpm.

The docent said that 90% of today's IT communications between the US & Europe continue to travels via underwater (fiber optic) cable, rather than satellites, which is more expensive.   

Glanleam House & Garden - I noticed on a Valentia Island map in the hotel lobby that a historic house, not far away, had a public access tropical hillside garden. Once there, the owner said the house was built by the 18th Knight of Kerry, and, that the tropical collection was started by he & his gardener, and added that it has been expanded & improved upon ever since, by subsequent owners and gardeners. 

The handout map & plant list showed that once beyond the woods, open fields and the (19th) Knight of Kerry Monument were to be found, so I headed that way.

It had become clear and sunny and the hillside climb was surprisingly long and steep. so I rolled up pant legs like shorts, and peeled off a layer, to cool off, but later had to put it all back on at the Monument, a high point, where the wind from the Atlantic was strong.

This turned out to be the most unexpected & scenic day of the journey, perhaps the high point of the trip.      

	view from Glanleam House, see note 1		Reenard Point & Killelan Mtn. to the north		maple leaves in fall
				Mediterranean fan palm		(stile) passage from woods to open fields
	lay of the land		former mine at upper right		horses
		the Wild Atlantic in the distance		start of an uphill walk		Lighthouse, see note 2
	Knights Town is on the right		Knight of Kerry Monument		stile from fields to woods
				Japanese andromeda (a little out of focus)
	back at the Knight's home

note 1 - This view includes the three highest peaks in Ireland, about 20 miles away to the NE.  They are Carrauntoohil at 3,406 ft., Beenkerach at 3,314 ft., and Caher at 3,284 ft., Killorglin being the nearest town on the RoK drive.  

note 2  - The Wild Atlantic Way is a lengthy stretch of rugged coast that starts at the Cliffs of Moher in the west, near Ennis, and extends along the SW and SE coast to the coastal areas close to Cork. Knights Town and Portmagee, like Dingle, are all part of it. In the photo, the landscape in the background is part of the Dingle Peninsula. 

The drive to Portmagee was only 9 km and I got there in late afternoon. A road crew was paving the main street through town, and the giant paving machine happened to be in front of the hotel, just as I drove up and managed to block their work for a few minutes, feigning ineptness (which wasn't hard), as the hotel proprietor directed me to a parking lot across the street. 

Since she runs the hotel where the crew has breakfast each day when they work in the area, she has clout, she told me, and she even made them wait until I got my luggage across the street & to the Hotel entrance, before they resumed paving.  

The 7 man crew was irritated at first, but an unscheduled break from babysitting the paving monster has to be a positive thing, and the foremen were in a forgiving mood, plus a few of the crew got in a smoke or two.    

Portmagee is the jumping-off point for seasonal boat tours to Skellig Michael. The hotel manager said boats stopped going there at the end of September, due to rough weather. (See Postscript for Skellig Island info).

The drive to Portmagee was scenic....

	on lovely Valentia Island		heading downhill to the bridge at Portmagee		Skellig Islands, 7 miles out
		rental car & the bridge at Portmagee		another view from the room		Portmagee (web image)

note - see Skellig Island info below (Postscript).

Moorings Restaurant & Hotel in Portmagee (formerly the Bridge Bar w/ Rooms) was recently renovated and has comfortable upstairs rooms, on main street & on the water. The downstairs pub/restaurant has a vast seafood menu, a food magnet for locals & those on the RoK tour.  

The two main (guy) servers were Czech & kept bragging about their home beers, supposedly pretty good, but none were on tap, and there are no Czech Stouts or Porters, so who cares ? But all pay homage to the awesome Guinness brand.         

It was a dark wood kind of place, with low ceilings, medieval & cozy, with great service. Irish people are exuberant conversationalists, so you can just sit & listen, which I did. After dinner I tried a Murphy's Stout, a worthy competitor. 

Being so close to the Atlantic, air quality was amazing, and later in the room, I had a window open & radiator on low, and could hear gusting winds outside. I enjoyed reading the Judge's book and also looked at maps for tomorrow's drive to Kenmare.    

Judge Gillian presided over some of the most sensational Criminal trials in Dublin, when local Catholic School Priests were finally convicted of decades of child and adolescent abuse, and, as Judge Gillian writes, every day the Courtroom was packed to the gills, with victims ! Talk about drama....! (Such trials were mostly from 1990 -2010).  

Go to next page - Portmagee to Kenmare to Killarney  

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Postscript - Skellig Islands, a Unesco World Heritage Site, are "the site of Ireland's most remote and spectacular ancient monastery.  Early Christian monks established a community and survived here from the 6th to the 13th century", outlasting murderous Viking raids in the early 800s. 

The taller island, Skellig Michael, is about 650 ft. high.To reach the monastic ruins, such as stone beehive huts or Oratories, visitors have to climb a (non-stop) 618 stone steps, carved into the mountain, gaining 450 ft.

"Due to the sheer (and often slippery) terrain and sudden wind gusts, it is not suitable for young children or anyone with limited mobility."  

To relieve the frustration of people who reserved for one of the few boat rides to the islands, only to find out - upon arrival - that it is another "too windy to go out" day, there is a Skellig Experience Visitor Center back across the bridge on Valentia Island.  

(Skellig Is. info is from Lonely Planet Guide to Southwest Ireland, see Bibliography page).