Ireland from a Polish perspective

After the mountain trip we went to the Ring Of Kerry and Ring of Skellig road trip.
I must admit that landscapes and skylines I have seen during those days impressed very much. The high roads bend above the very steep slopes or on the tops of the mountains, the small houses in the valleys, seen from a height, the ocean, the rocky Skellig Islands standing out of the waters of the Atlantic and nice and quiet Valentia island and lazy waters of the surrounding shallow bays. Unfortunately we had no time to go for a trip to Skellig Michel. I want to see the best preserved early Christian (so called “Iroscottish” in Polish lang.) monastery made in drystone technology very popular in Ireland and Scotland since neolith, a late stone age period. I am trying to imagine how those monks lived in such hard conditions.
The begining of the Ring Of Kerry road trip - DIngle Bay

Dingle bay and Dingle peninsula (click to enlarge)

Dingle peninsula (click to enlarge)

Lovely houses in the small vilages and towns of Kerry

Shallowed bays

Kingstown on Valentia Island (click to enlarge)

Begginis Island

Portmagee

Skellig Islands

Skellig Islands

a wider view (Click to enlarge)

The next stop during our Ring Of Kerry road trip was one of the late iron age circular forts. Those structures are interesting for me very much, because of their similarity to some of the Broch towers or just finest roundhouses in Atlantic Scotland – a topic of my master thesis.
Both Irish circular forts and Scottish Broch towers/Atlantic roundhouses are commonly recognized as a late iron age structures, but the first roundhouses in Scotland appeared in the late bronze age/early iron age. Some of them have early, late iron age, and Pictish period stages. Both structures were made in drystone technology, but while Irish circular forts were a defence system enclosing the settlement, the Scottish roundhouses and Broch towers were a building and settlement itself.

Fort Staigue (Click to enlarge)

Fort Staigue (Click to enlarge)

Reconstruction drawning (a photo of the information board)

After living Ring Of Kerry we turn to the south east to the West Cork. The road and the landscapes were excellent too. The bends on the steep slopes and tunnels carved in rock were amazing. I was wandering about the speed limit to 100 km/h which was too much. We drove 80km/h and it was really scary and too fast for that road.

Later, at night we finally got to the place called Sheeplake and took a shelter in a cozy and lovely hostel placed in a traditional house.

(click to enlarge)

Entrance to one of the houses

Livingroom

Livingroom

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