During a tour we took of Charles Fort yesterday, the guide mentioned that a young man had been beaten to death somewhere in Ireland last week for the crime of being Catholic. Not to make light of this tragedy, both Jennifer and I sort of scoffed. “That’s kind of a daily occurence in the US,” we told him. “Though it isn’t necessarily over Catholicism.”

It’s a sad truth that human beings will use just about any excuse to feel superior to other people and try to kill them for it. I mentioned this to the tour guide, and he said, “True. People will use any excuse at all. I, for example, could claim that I am superior to you because…” He paused, and then held up his walkie talkie. “I am superior to you because I have this walkie talkie.”

Jennifer replied, “I bow to your walkie talkie!”

I turned to the two others in our small group (both woman from the US) and said, “I say we beat him up and take his walkie talkie.”

Anyway. So yesterday we left Cork (have I mentioned how much I hate driving in Cork? I haven’t? Well, I really fecking hate driving in Cork!) and drove to Charles Fort, which is one of the star-shaped forts on the Irish coast. Built originally in the 1600’s to help defend English interests in Ireland against the possibility of a Dutch invasion — or possibly the other way around, since European politics of the time are just a bit, shall we say, Byzantine, to say the least. It was a well built fort and served its purpose soundly for centuries. It was taken a couple of times, and helped defend the Irish against the English when the English decided to take back Ireland from the rebels (or, possibly, the other way around — again). Alliances could shift according to which way the wind blew across the Irish sea.

At any rate, the fort also saw action during the first World War (did you know that the average life span of a British officer after being sent to the front during the first World War was approximately nine days?). In the 1920’s it was burned by Irish anti-Treaty forces (said treaty being the one that separated Ireland into the Republic and into Northern Ireland, which remains part of the UK to the consternation of various groups that fight on today) in a fit of pique over a battle lost with the Irish Republican Army. Or, perhaps, the other way around.

The point is, Charles Fort was an active and manned fort for nearly 400 years, until it was abandoned in the 1920’s. More of that continuous history that is such a part of Ireland that I find so fascinating. The history is everywhere! You can’t swing a dead leprechaun without hitting some sort of medieval abbey or something. Many Irish noblemen during the medieval period built tower houses, sort of mini-castles that stood in the middle of an easily defended field. Over a thousand of these little tower houses still stand today in various states of repair. Some of them are in the middle of farmers’ fields. The cattle graze right next to them, and the farmers curse the obstruction to their plowing.

Pictures from Charles Fort are here.

After Charles Fort, we made our way to Blarney Castle, where neither of us felt particularly inclined to kiss a stone which hundreds of thousands of other people have kissed over the past couple of centuries. I figure I’ve had enough good luck over the past few years; I don’t need any more right now. The castle itself is the closest thing to a tourist trap that I’ve witnessed here in Ireland; it’s centuries old, of course, and in the inner bailey you can find a booth selling little ceramic leprechauns and T-shirts that say, “I kissed the blarney stone!” In case you needed one. I prefer the other kind of historic site, the kind where a tour guide will guide you around the site, telling you the history of, say, a particular chimney and how the Butler family used it (because the Butler family did everything in Ireland), and put it into context so you can see just how that fireplace played a pivotal role in the development of the fighting groups in Northern Ireland today. Blarney Castle lacked such history, interpretation, and context. Still, I suppose we had to go, just so we could say we could.

However, Blarney Castle did feature a really neat cave that made me wish seriously that I’d brought a flashlight. And dungeons. Actual dungeons! How cool is that? I thought to myself, “This must be what God feels like when he runs a D&D game.”

Pictures from Blarney Castle are here.

We checked into our B&B in Killarney after that. And here we are now.

Today after waking up, we drove the Ring of Kerry, a 120+ mile drive around the Kerry Peninsula. Notable mostly for excellent scenery, small towns, daring sheep, and herds of tour buses which will drive you insane if you end up driving behind them. We stopped in Skellig and learned about the monastary on Michael Skellig (which included tiny little stone huts, and a stone staircase that ascended in steep steps 200 meters above the surface of the water — there go those wacky medieval monks again), and then pushed out little car to its absolute limits as we ascended over the highest drivable road in Ireland and then down again to find the Skellig Chocolate Factory just by the Fiobhan Bay. Excellent chocolate, if you ever feel a perverse need to find this place on your own.

We also went to visit a stone fort located on some farmer’s field. Technically we were supposed to pay €1 to “trespass” on his field to visit the fort, but we never saw a box for money or anyone collecting the money. The fort has stood in that spot for nearly 2,000 years. It stands almost six meters tall, and the walls are four meters thick. And there was not a single ounce of mortar involved in its construction, and that’s the part that blew me away. Because, as I mentioned, the fort has stood, intact, for nearly 2,000 years. I poked at some of the smaller stones in the walls, and while you can shift them back and forth, you can’t really pull them out of their spot. The engineering ability of those ancient Celts was truly overwhelming. I stood in the middle of the fort, looking around at it and marveling at the skill and determination it took to build it. The fort, it appears, was originally built as a home for a wealthy family; the interior grassy area was probably full of huts and tents belonging to the family members or their tenants. Built into the walls themselves were two chambers which might have served as living quarters for people who really get their kicks out of sleeping in the mud on cold rainy days in Ireland. I’m guessing it was the monks again.

After the Ring we came back to our B&B in Killarney, then drove into town for dinner and a little Internet time. And that’s where I am at this very moment.

It’s fortunate that Jennifer brought along her digital camera, by the way; almost all of the pictures in our on-line album are hers. I brought along a camera of my own, but the card seems to have died an early death, and now every time I turn my camera on it insists on formatting the card. This Internet cafe, fortunately, has the facilities to possibly retrieve my photographs from the card, and then sell me a new one. Let’s just hope it’s the card, though, and not the camera itself which has blown a bit of silicon.

Today’s pearl of Driving-In-Ireland wisdom, by the way, is this: never, unless you are on one of the major motorways, get comfortable with any gear above third. You will not spend more than a few minutes in fourth or fifth at a time. Especially if some damn tour bus is in front of you making its way from Killarney to Waterville.

Or, possibly, the other way around.

Pictures from the Ring of Kerry are here.