Discovering Kerry: Its History, Heritage and Topography.
Author: BARRINGTON, T. J.
Dublin: Collins Press, 2004 (reprint). 336 pages. Illustrated. Folding maps. Hardback.
This book set out to discover three things about Kerry:
- what is special about its history?
- what is its heritage?
- how does one get to see what should be seen?
The legendary history of Ireland had a main locus in Kerry. Kerry history proper is a microcosm that sometimes clarifies, sometimes corrects, the history or Ireland as a whole. A major strand is religious history because so much of what one sees, now mostly in ruins, was built for worship. This book is the first attempt to tell that story.
Great geological forces have made the county beautiful. Curious creatures have made it distinctive - arbutus, red deer, the Killarney shad, the Kerry blue, the Kerry cow and hobby, the Kerry slug. Ancient and more recent ruins - stone circles, wedge tombs, rock scribings, ancient mines, stone forts, beehive huts, settlements or early hermits, medieval monasteries, old roads, modern buildings - make it puzzling. Here is a coherent account of this heritage.
To show how to find these relics, often hidden from casual view, to relate the history and heritage to the sites, is a major aim or this book. Each part of the county is taken in turn and each site is linked to specially prepared half-inch maps.
ISBN: 1898256713