Page 211 - WDT MAGAZINE IRELAND ISSUE WINTER 2018

That afternoon, we trekked up into the Glanteennasig boat to Skellig Michael, where monks lived in stone,
Forest in the Slieve Mish Mountains - home to Con- beehive-like “cells” or “oatories” from the 6th to the 12th
nor Pass - and hiked around several lakes. Yet another centuries.
day, we drove to Killarney and toured the restored Home to thousands of cute puffins, gannets, and
Ross Castle, built in the late 15th Century by one of the other nesting birds, the island is an avian preserve, as
O’Donoghue Ross chieftans. We also took a horse-and- well as a mecca for Star Wars’ fans, who gladly trek
buggy ride to the elegant Muckross House and walked up hundreds of precariously steep steps to commune
the shore of several lakes that dot the landscape of with the spirit of Luke Skywalker and visit sites where
Killarney National Park. scenes from “The Force Awakens” and “The Last Jedi”
If we’d wanted, we even could have taken surfing les- were filmed.
sons in the waters off Fahamore, but I’d promised my On the drive back to Fahamore, we stopped by the
son we’d visit Skellig Michael, a craggy island that bolts ruins of Ballycarbery Castle, which was once home
out of the Atlantic and has been in used in two Star to the legendary MacCarthy Clan (a different spelling,
Wars movies. but perhaps distant relatives of my paternal grand-
So we drove about 60 miles south to the little village mother?).
of Port Magee on the Iveragh Peninsula. There we The kids ran ahead of me to the ivy covered walls of
caught a Casey’s Tours (https://skelligislands.com) the castle and we climbed exposed stairs to the ram-

Brian Clark, center and his two
youngest children - Maddie, left
and Anders, right - pause during
a horseback ride along a beach
on Brandon Bay, where half of
Brian’s father’s ashes were scat-
tered 20 years ago.
Left: A puffin munches on a
sprig of grass on Skellig Michael,
an island off the coast of County
Kerry.
Right Maddie Clark (then 17)
plants a kiss on the nose of a
horse in the village of Fahamore
after feeding a slice of apple.

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