Before visiting for the first time,  the image in my head of Ireland was always a fusion of greens and greys, Celtic symbols, and a language containing an abundance of b‘s, h‘s, and n‘s strung together in sequences that I have no clue how to pronounce. Shbhnnhsh. All set against some backing music provided by Enya.

Did my trip to Killarney, County Kerry, change any of that? No, but it certainly added a number of new features to that internal vision, and I fell in love with it instantly.

Even as soon as I alighted the plane I sensed something sweet about the place. Literally. The concourse of Cork airport smelled not of aviation fuel but sugar, and I couldn’t work out why. After spending the following days witnessing more rainbows than I’ve ever seen in such quick succession, I deduced that the air was full of Skittles, which we must have been tasting (or smelling), as per the tagline. I’d later find out the real reason and I’ll tell you that later, but in coming to Ireland, I had seemingly dived head first into a sugary bowl of Lucky Charms, and there were lots of those charms to find.

Sally being one. She was the 12 year old piebald horse that clip-clopped our traditional jaunting car through the crispy orange leaves of Killarney National Park under the instruction of her owner, Mikey, who was the third generation of guides in his family.

“She works two days then has a day off”, explained Mikey. I quite liked the sound of Sally’s working pattern, and briefly thought about becoming a horse, before being distracted by the sight of Ross Castle in the distance. There must be people who exist with the name Ross Castle. I expect it drives them around the bend – or moat – when people come to visit, particularly if they start asking about entrance fees.

I doubt that there’s anybody out there called MacGillyCuddy Reeks, though (and if there are I feel more sorry for them than I do Ross Castle). These unusual words form the name of the local mountain range which is home to the highest peak in Ireland, Carrauntoohil. My original plan had been to spend a day scaling Carrauntoohil, but on this occasion I gave in to sense, on account of not being sure if there’d be enough hours of daylight in mid-November to complete it. Instead I settled for Torc Mountain, the just as impressive 329th highest, and home to a waterfall that is one of the many must-see points along the Ring of Kerry, for which Killarney is the perfect place to base oneself for a few days.

The geography informed our choice to come here out of everywhere else in Ireland. People speak of ‘moving mountains’, but it’s always the mountains that move me. They make me weak at the knees, in both senses. On mountains, time disappears. Things disappear. The entirety of the wider world disappears, along with all its ugly parts. It’s just you and the product of a tectonic plate collision that’s been there for a billion years before you, and will be there for billions of years after. The mountains have seen everything there is to see as they look down on us (probably in more ways than one), yet they do not ever judge. Which is very kind of them.

I’m about three quarters of the way up the ‘prolonged climb’ of the Red Trail and starting to wonder if I should have just stayed in the town and drank Murphy’s in one of the warm taverns before I notice some pink writing painted on to one of the large stones that make up the ‘staircase’.

“Never give up”.

Clearly many before me have experienced similar feelings to those I’m feeling now: tempted to retreat back down, get back in the car and go back to bed. There’s comfort in knowing this.

I thank the anonymous scribe and obey the pink scrawl and I’m so glad that I do so, because I’m soon at the top and able to enjoy the plateaued ridge that runs along the top of the mountain affording misty yet magical views of Muckross Lake below. It’s at this point that a particularly heavy rain-shower occurs, and my thoughts immediately turn to the food in my non-waterproof bag, which wouldn’t taste nice wet. Somehow, just somehow, to my right is a stone shelter complete with a bench inside, the only one of its kind that I’ll see along this entire route. Is this what they mean when they talk about Irish Luck? Either way, I’ll take it, and enjoy the shelter for as long as is needed whilst the clouds get the rain out of their system.

The rain would feature a lot during our time in Ireland, as you would expect from an island in the Atlantic, yet Irish people don’t tend to bother with brollies, a stoicism underpinned by the strong winds that render them impractical. The equivalent of trying to heat a house with a single tealight. I overhear a rain-related joke that evening in the pub:

“Who ordered the rain?”
“I don’t know, but send it back”

The women laugh over their Dingle gins, a homegrown product from a peninsular just a bit further north here in County Kerry. Lady 2 is clearly very pleased with her quick-witted reply to her friend, but I get the feeling she’s maybe used it a few times before. There’s regular opportunity to do so in Ireland, afterall.

For every rain shower here on the Emerald Isle though, there seems to be a golden sunshine that enjoys dancing off the orange autumn leaves. That’s how those many rainbows come into being, a fact that always makes me smile as a metaphor for life’s varied paint palette itself. We see another beautiful one as we begin our tour of the Ring of Kerry. At the end of this particular ‘bow sits Kerry Bog Village, a museum in Glenbeigh consisting of a preserved 19th century village where real people lived and worked.

The minibus stops and allows us some time to explore Kerry Bog, and if it weren’t for the host of smartphones being waved about taking photos, we could have quite easily felt that we had stepped back 150 years or so. We venture into each of the buildings, all former homes of workers, and breathe in the surprisingly calming scent of burning peat whilst contemplating what it must have been like to share a kitchen with farm animals and climb up a long ladder to get to bed.

Nearby, an American tourist – one of over a million who visit here each year to connect with their ancestors – is excitedly rolling around on the floor with one of the Irish Wolfhounds. Despite their status as one of the largest and most intimidating of all breeds of dog, this one is looking quite embarrassed by the encounter.

“She said next time she gets a dawwwg, that’s the one she’s gonna get,” I overhear her companion sigh a little while later, as the one-way carry-on carries on in the background with no signs of abating.

These tourists are part of a different group, so I never get to know if they make it back to their bus without a new four-legged addition. Or if they even make it at all. Ireland’s charm is infectious and I wouldn’t hesitate to place a bet on everyone on these buses remembering this day for the rest of their lives. Even the lady behind me, who spends quite some time explaining to her partner – in one of the longest, most mundane conversations ever overheard – that looking at her phone whilst the bus is in motion makes her feel “seasick”.

Well, I guess we are traversing the Wild Atlantic Way…

When we eventually arrive back in the UK, the post holiday blues swallow me up in the way they usually do and I find myself doing the same old things I always do when I feel this way. Searching for documentaries on YouTube about the places recently explored so that I can see even more of them. Listening to Enya and pretending I’m back looking out over the patchwork of greens and golds that make up the beautiful Irish landscape. Carrying out important research on Google…

“Why does Cork airport smell of sweets?”

Well, it turns out that just over the road, as we alighted the plane, 35% of the world’s Tic Tacs were being produced at the Ferrero factory. My theory about Skittles wasn’t far wrong. But I think I prefer my own version of the truth…

Ireland, you were worth the wait, and I’ll be back to collect even more charms someday.