"For always I am Kerry."

A lighthouse and ponies!

Did I come up with this place in my imagination? 

I don't seem to stop asking myself this, no matter where I go.

Think I'm going to blink and wake up.

"Don't you know me? I'm your kin."

Poem by Sigerson Clifford about this land:

"My heart is looped around the rutted hills,

That shoulder the stars out of the sky,

And about the wasp-yellow fields,

And the strands where kelp-streamers lie;

Where, soft as lovers' Gaelic, the rain falls,

Sweeping into silver the lacy mountain walls."

"I should have put a noose about the throat of time,

And choked the passing of the hob-nailed years,

And stayed young always, shouting in the hills,

Where life held only fairy fears,

When I was young my feet were bare,

But I drove cattle to the fair."

"'Twas thus I lived, skin to skin with the earth,

Elbowed by the hills, drenched by the billows,

Watching the wild geese making black wedges,

By Skelligs far west and Annascaul of the willows.

Their voices came on every little wind,

Whispering across the half-door of the mind,

For always I am Kerry."

So happy to be home!

I think my eyes came from here, maybe!

"Oh, the town it climbs the mountains 

and looks upon the sea...

In sleeping time or waking time, 

'tis there I long to be."

Cahirciveen

I found a CD of my dad's three years ago, listened to it, heard the word "Cahirciveen" in it and then the word "Sheehan"! I went crazy! I found the email of the artist on the back, Sean Garvey, who is considered Ireland's best ballad singer, and we began emailing back and forth. The song was "The Boys of Barr na Sráide" - and now look where I am standing!!!

"So here's a toast to them tonight, those lads who fought with me

By the shores of Carhan River and the slopes of Bean an Ti

John Daly and Bat Andy, and the Sheehans, Con and Dan;

Those boys of Barr na Sráide who hunted for the wren."

Maybe we lived in this house? :D

Ballycarberry Castle

Jackie, my lovely hostess

Brian, standing perhaps where a lord would have feasted after a hunt.

Trying not to step backwards and fall out a five story castle window... :D

I asked if this was smog. No, they said - the farmers are burning fields of gorse, so the sheep have more room to feed!

The church my ancestors attended...

The Sheehans' home parish!

Thousand-year old ringed fort! These are mostly just found in the west here. They would have been much deeper but have been filled in with soil overtime; we are seeing the tops of them.

They are unsure of their purpose, but this one was possibly a meeting house: see all the steps and "seats"? 

When not exploring (or "gallivanting" as Brian called it!), I'm still busy. ;P

Sweet milk from a farm down the road! I am getting so healthy here in Ireland - eating organically, working five hours a day in a garden, breathing sea/mountain air, no cellphone...

Somehow I have magically turned my 10-day Kerry trip into three weeks... but I'm also missing these "siblings" back at Anverna, too! Here we are, eating royalty-worthy chocolate cake and watching a movie in bed. Not what you'd be expecting "hard-working" WWOOFers to be doing. ;)