From Star Wars locations to a Dark Sky Reserve, Ireland’s
Iveragh Peninsula is a galaxy not so far away.
Words & photographs: Pól Ó Conghaile�ay 1
Out to sea
It feels like I’ve got Valentia Island to myself
(valentiaisland.ie). Before me, a heaving blue
ocean stretches all the way to the US. Behind
me, a milky-white lighthouse watches over
the rocks. At my feet, on this stretch of
Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way (wildatlanticway.
com) route, is a track of small holes that look
scooped out of the rock by a spoon — these
are the footprints of a lizard-like tetrapod,
made 385 million years ago.
It feels way off-grid, but I’m just an hour
and a half from Kerry airport, where my
journey began. Picking up a rental car, I
drove from Farranfore out onto the Iveragh
Peninsula, whose 111-mile Ring of Kerry drive
is the stuff of tourism lore.
In summer, it’s also a victim of its own
success — with tour buses, cyclists and cars
battling it out along roads that work better on
Instagram than real life. But I’m not here in
summer. I’m here off-season. I got to Valentia
with a five-minute ferry ride
from Renard Point.
I leave it via the bridge
to Portmagee, checking
into The Moorings, a bar,
restaurant and guesthouse
that does a mean platter
loaded with lobster, crab
claws and other treats from the
deep. Gerard Kennedy, its owner,
joins me for a bite. He’s been
on a roller-coaster ride since a
production team showed up on
his doorstep two years ago. That
set off a chain of events that ended with Mark
Hamill (aka Luke Skywalker) pulling pints in
his bar.
Locals are set dancing, the craic is flying,
and I ask Gerard about the weather forecast.
Will I get out to the Skelligs in the morning?
“We’ll have to wait and see,” he says.KERRY’S DARK SIDE
Kerry is home to the only Dark Sky
Reserve in Ireland — a 434sq mile
area of low light pollution. Galaxies
as far, far away as Andromeda, at
two million light years, are visible
to the naked eye on clear nights.
kerrydarksky.comWEST KERRY
Weekender
November 2016 53