CO: KERRY SNIPPETS: When Queen Victoria of England visited the misty lakes and grandiose mountains of Kerry she was instantly smitten. Although familiar with the loveliness of the Scottish Highlands, she pronounced the Kerry panoramas the finest in her Empire. The Macguillicuddy's Reeks is a mountain range in SW Ireland, Co . Kerry, Province of Munster, Republic of Ireland. It extends west of the Lakes of Killarney, reaching 3414 ft. at Carrantuohill, Ireland's highest peak. Kerry (Irish Chiarraighe), borders on the Atlantic Ocean, chiefly mountainous with a deeply-indented coastline; it rises in the South to the Macgillicuddy Reeks and contains the famous Lakes of Killarney, noted for their exceptional beauty. Kerry is known for the romance of its island, the Blaskets and the Skellig Rocks. The Blaskets, hard berths for man or beast, are thrown into the Atlantic, off Dingle, the last land in Europe. Until the 1930s they were home to a mere 30 souls including on Tomas O Crohan, whose book, "The Islandman," is a testament to the faith and stoicism of a simple man and his island neighbors. When measles and whooping cough came to the island, he wrote,"Three months I spent sitting up with those of my children who took them worst, and I got nothing for the time I spent, only the two best of them were carried off. That was another discouragement for us, God help us. I fancy the sorrow of it never left the mother, and from that time she began to fail, for she was not to live long, and never lasted to be old." But, if there was tragedy on the island, there was also great joy and humor. He speaks of selling lobsters to a passing vessel in a rare time of plenty. "It was a good life ! in those days. Shillings came on shillings heels..." He tells of the bonanza of cut timber swept off the deck of a ship, his childhood, his first visit to the mainland. He writes of match-making and wedding feasts; of gathering seaweed; of seal hunting. He brings to life the love and faith of these unique foks. "We are poor, simple people, living from hand to mouth. We were apt and willing to live, without repining, the life the Blessed Master made for us, often ploughing the seas with only our hope in God to bring us through. We had characters of our own, each different from the other, and all different from the landsmen. I have done my best to set down the character of the people about me so that some record of us might live after us, for the likes of us will never be again." The last 22 inhabitants of the Great Blasket, the largest of the Blasket Islands, were finally evacuated to the mainland in 1953. With no longer a school nor a doctor on the island, the dwi! ndling population - mostly bachelors - had become increasingly isolated. The Kerry Blue Terrier was bred to help herd sheep and cows, and to kill rats and otters. The Kerry blue stands about 18 inches high and weighs 30 to 40 pounds. Its coat is soft and wavy. On its head it has a thick tuft, or forelock, which is usually combed down between its eyes. The dog's beard makes its muzzle appear large and long. Kerry blue puppies are born black, but become blue-gray as they grow older. Kerry and Cork have fuchsia hedges, rhododendron forests, and plants found nowhere else north of Spain. Kerry has a very large colony of natterjack toads which live in dunes backing the five-mile (8 km) long strand at Inch. Munster province has a richer variety of warm-blooded wild creatures than any other province including the pine marten, bank vole and red squirrel. In summertime, the landscape of the Iveragh Peninsula is splashed with color There is scarcely a square foot of grass that is not speckled with wild flowers; each small field a jewel in "the Ring. Heather purples the road side, fuchsia reddens the paths, montbretia edges the verges, loosestrife brightens the bogs. The rock faces are painted with contrasting grey and yellow lichens. Above, the clouds, moving across the sun, pattern the hills. In Munster, the softest Irish and the most melodious English is spoken. When Cork men or Kerry women speak, you might think they were singing to you. The Kerry fiddle style, like so many other strains of traditional Irish music, enjoys worldwide popularity. It is said that the people of Kerry often "answer a question with another question," i.e., asked if there is any chance of catching a few fish in a local wide stretch of the Atlantic Ocean, the dyed-in-the-bog Kerry person will eye one cutely and respond, "Is it the way you're fond of fish?" Daniel O'Connell, "the Liberator" was born in Kerry. Skellig Michael, on of the two Skellig Rocks which rise, gaunt and romantic, out of the Atlantic off the coast of Kerry. Beehive huts still cling to the clifftop 700 feet above the sea, built in the 6th century by members of a religious order whose successors remained on the island, cut off from the world by eight miles of often raging ocean, for the next 600 years. The island of Little Skellig provides nesting sites for 22,000 pairs of gannets, making it the second largest gannetry in Europe.