Southern Ireland (Part 2) 2010

"Ballycarbery Castle Rewind!"

Something that is never hard to find in Ireland are abandoned castles!  As I mentioned before, It's been a few years since I went on this trip, so the dates and times of some of the events are a little rusty.  I forgot a VERY important part of our trip on my last blog.   Our accidental Irish castle exploration.   

At some point before or during our drive through the Ring of Kerry, we were aimlessly driving through some random backs roads looking for who knows what, and stumbled upon our first castle ruins..........Ballycarbery Castle!

I can still remember when we first saw it from the road.  We were probably about 3 miles from it, but when the first one of us saw it and pointed it out to the others in the car, we started screaming and bouncing up and down in our seats like a bunch of 12 year old girls at a Justin Bieber concert....sadly, I'm not making this up!

I love pic's of my feet on Vacation

We followed what we hoped were the right roads until we finally arrived at this beautiful abandoned castle.  Not exactly a tourist spot.  While there was a sign explaining the history of the castle, there was no designated parking or sidewalks leading up to the building and we were the ONLY people there.  It felt more like we were pulling up into someones private pasture and trespassing on private property.  This actually might have been the case, as there was a modern house just across the grassy area.  This castle was the view from their back yard.  CRAZY!!!

Window View!

We spent the better part of at least an hour, climbing up and around the sides of what use to be walls and extremely decrepit staircases.  There was even a little bit of a fortress wall that had a hollowed center that must have been used as a walkway inside the wall for some reason.  I have so many photo's of this castle but the ones here are some of my favorites.  Being there was a little magical.  I could almost imagine what it must have been like in the 16th and 17th century when it was a full castle before it was destroyed.  It looks over the most beautiful country side and water.

Me wandering around inside.

When we left Ballycarbery Castle we wandered to Leacanabuaile & Cahergal Stone Forts that were just a few miles down the road.  Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from this location, because Mike and Phil STILL have not sent them to me!  ;-)

After visiting these areas, we did the entire trip around the Ring of Kerry as I mentioned in the previous Ireland Part 2 post.  We still have three days of travel in Ireland, so I'll promise to wrap this up in Post #3....Just wanted to get this addition to the last entry in before I forgot!!

On to Kilkenny, Waterford & Dublin!