We woke to dark but promising skies. The weather apps always give mixed message when compared to what you can see out the window. All clear on the app (and yes, we have tried them all #IrishWeather) but rain out the window!
But like always we headed out hopeful of clear skies. Our first stop was an indoor thing, ? a museum of prehistoric and bronze age “stuff”. It was actually interesting, it had the largest Woolly Mammoth Skull in Europe, impressive, and yes big, with large tusks. There was a large collection of stone age items – flint axes, some carvings, bones, fossils and more, all very interesting. The complete fossil of a Psittacosaurus was very catching. The bronze age items were more extensive with axe heads, spears, knives, coins and jewellery. I liked the imposing European Cave Bear skeleton at the bottom of the stairs.
As we left we found the rain had stopped, a good start to our day. Our path today took us on the Slea Head Drive, a circular route that basically follows along the west coast through a number of historic sites, movie locations, important recent history event locations and scenic outlooks.
Our next stop was at Caher Conor, or Cathair na gConchuireach, a Cashel of 5 structures, otherwise known as “Beehive Huts”. They were stone houses, 100% dry stone constructions. To this day where these huts have been left undisturbed they are water proof, no leaks anywhere. Very impressive for buildings that date back to about 1200AD.
We drove a bit further around the coast to Coumeenoole and took a walk out around the edge of the headland to see the most westerly point of mainland Ireland, Dunmore Head. From there we had a great view over to the Blasket Islands and a somewhat foggy view of the “The Old Man”. The “Old Man” is a description given to the contour of an island the looks like just that, an old man lying down on his back. Great Blasket Island is a protected Island, it is so to protect the pure Irish Gaelic spoken there. It has a history of over 300 years of relative isolation, and as such it retained a pure language. In more recent times it gained fame when, in December 1953 the whole Island was evacuated during a large and violent storm. Everyone was told to take all their possessions to the main beach for evacuation, but things got wild quickly, and it finished up that only the people could be saved. A small population still lives on the island.
The views were very rugged and wild from the path we took. Wildly beautiful is the only way I can describe the untamed coast and islands we saw. It was extremely windy and it was mesmerising watching the seas. At the highest point of the headland was a WWII lockout shelter and next to that was a Ogham Stone. An Ogham Stone is a standing stone that has script in a primitive Irish language carved into it. Fascinating. Martin had a website where he could translate English into the script. The carvings in the stone were too indistinct to translate. ?
Try this link, it’s a bit of fun. https://ogham.co/?q=
From there we drive to Dunquin Harbour. It has a very narrow path, that is not a road!, leading down the cliff to the beach. It is notorious for the occasional tourist that attempts to drive down it, invariably getting stuck wedged between the rock walls. It doesn’t help that all the warning signs at the top are in Gaelic Irish only! Nothing in English or any other language.
We had lunch at the Blasket Centre and heritage museum. It was interesting watching a film about the culture and life of the people on Blasket Island before the evacuation in 1953Flim about 1953 evacuation.
Next was onto Clogher Beach, a small beach in a cove surrounded by very rocky headlands. We walked on the beach, put our hands in the Atlantic Ocean waters and watched the waves thunder in. Very relaxing, Deb found this the best part of the day, just us, the beach and the waves.
From there we went to the Reask Monastic site, a small medieval monastic site, an interesting site within an enclosing circular stone wall. At a time there was around 5 dry stone buildings there, all would have been totally made of stone and water/weather proof. Amazing building skills.
Gallarus Oratory was our next stop, a complete dry stone building with an unsupported stone “gable” roof. This was used by monks as both a permanent settlement and as a refuge for use during a pilgrimage. There is a small stone covered graveyard next to it. Tradition has it, that whoever could climb out of the small window in the Oratory would have their soul cleansed, allowing them guaranteed access to heaven.
Next was Kilmalkedar Church, a 12th century church ruin in very good condition. There is something about these old churches and their doorways that is interesting and photogenic. The church surrounds and graveyard were interesting. An inscribed standing stone sundial stood in the middle of the cobblestone path leading to the church. In the graveyard there were a mix of graves from old to recent, it was interesting to see that the same families had been in this area for a long time. There were a couple of old very rustic looking box mausoleums in the older side of the graveyard, I was surprised they were still standing.
We called into another Stone circle fort, just down from the church. It had 5 circular dry stone buildings in it, all within a circular wall of some 30m diameter. All the buildings would have had stone roofs as the others did/had, there was a small stone covered graveyard and religious items suggesting it may have been used by monks.
And then it was Whiskey time! We took a short drive the Dingle Distillery. We did a tour of the Distillery and it was very informative and really interesting. They started life as a Whiskey Distiller, but Whiskey takes a minimum of 3 years to mature so to help with cash flow they started making Gin. Gin is ready to bottle in 7 days, instant cash flow! They have become very good at making Gin, winning an award for the Best Gin in the World this year. They now also make Vodka, again a quick process. We learnt that the colour and flavour of Whiskey comes primarily from the barrels it is matured in. At Dingle they mainly use a mix of American Bourbon barrels, port barrels and sherry barrels, but they also have some wine and champagne barrels as well. I finally learnt the proper way to drink Whiskey, the secret is to breath out after you swallow, don’t inhale. It takes away the burn!
For dinner we went to Out of the Blue seafood restaurant, the food and company were great. Tomorrow we leave Dingle and head east, more adventures await.
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I can’t imagine the planning that has gone into this holiday but you have done an awesome job. Since I am half Irish and visited Ireland 2 years ago, I especially liked reading about Dublin (I have relatives outside of Dublin in Kilkenny), Galway, the Cluffs of Moher, the Irish pubs and music/dancing, the rain and lush green countryside and the castles. While we were there we saw a sheep herding demonstration which was amazing.
It is such a beautiful country Georgie, I am glad you gave enjoyed reading our blog. My mum’s family come from County Cavan Sadly our time here is coming to an end and we will be heading home.