Local butcher shop... everything is grass fed, locally raised and amazing!
I finally bought an Aran Wool toboggan! ;)
This morning we left Killarney at 10AM and took the short drive to Inch Beach, Ireland's longest beach, connecting Dingle Peninsula to the Ring of Kerry. It was about 20 minutes away and was a very wide beach, surrounded by mountains and farms, with a few cars on it and surfers in the water. Very pretty!
Next stop, 30 minutes away along narrow winding roads, was Dingle, a charming Gaelic speaking fishing village. Our guide Sean told us we were really lucky to have sunny weather, as the Ladies View vista we were treated to late in the day yesterday is frequently fogged in and you can't see anything! Today is another cool, sunny day ;)
Dingle has a small harbor, brightly colored buildings and lots of fresh seafood. Featured in many films like Far and Away and Ryan's Daughter, Dingle is celebrated for having the most pubs in Ireland for a town of its size, 52 pubs and 2000 people.
Dingle's most famous resident is Fungie the Dolphin, and after an hour at leisure, we took a 90 minute harbor cruise to find/see him. ($15) He's been a local celebrity in the waters around Dingle for 30+ years! At the end of the cruise, he popped up near the boat! They have a money back guarantee... but no feeding allowed. He has to appear on his own, and he did. The cliffs and harbor views were amazing too...
One final shot from Dingle.. the amazing seafood market! Wow... SO fresh, from local waters. Such variety too!
At 3pm, we left Dingle and drove around Slea Head, a loop with amazing views of Sleeping Giant Island, the Blasket Islands, and Beehive Huts dating back centuries. Regarded as the most beautiful peninsula in the world by many photographic magazines, Slea Head has some of Ireland's most fabulous beaches and is definitely the highlight of Ireland's famed Wild Atlantic Way. This area is completely Gaelic speaking, and locals converse in this ancient language. Again, views and cliffs were stunning, and roads were winding and very narrow!
Along the way, we stopped at a farm located on a National Heritage site in Ceann Trá . The owner raises sheep and had some 2 week old lambs for us to hold! Back in 1991, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman were there to shoot Far and Away. The farm owner, 2nd from left, met them, and the movie set was located briefly on a field across the street!
The lambs were the sweetest things ever!
Also on the farm, there are beehive huts: The most common surviving house type in Corca Dhuibhne during the Early Medieval period was the clochán, a round house built using local stone, and roofed either in stone, using the corbelling technique, or thatched or perhaps roofed with wooden shingles. Although these buildings are to be found throughout the peninsula, both as unenclosed examples but also within earthen ringforts, stone cashels and monastic sites, many examples can be found in the area. They perhaps date from the 6th to the 10th or 11th centuries AD. These structures are found either singly, conjoined or three together. These were the houses in which people lived, be they of moderate or even high status, or monks within monasteries. Sometimes underground passages known as souterrains are found associated with them.
It was a beautiful evening. We got back on the road at 5pm and made a couple of quick photo stops...
The Great Blasket Island, the most westerly point in Europe, is the largest of a group of islands located 3 miles off the tip of the Dingle Peninsula Gaeltacht, 19 miles west of Dingle town.
According to popular tradition, the first people to live on the Blaskets herded animals, grew crops and hunted. The seine boat changed their way of life completely when it made its appearance for the first time on the Blaskets at the beginning of the 19th Century or shortly before. Until then they fished only from the rocks with hand lines. The seine boat gave them the means to take to fishing as a way of life, and they gave up tillage almost completely apart from potatoes, a little oats and some vegetables.
The number of people living on the Island has ebbed and flowed. There was a population of about 150 living there in 1840, but after the Great Famine that had decreased to 100. The population is said to have reached its peak in 1916, at 176. From then on it was in decline until 1953/54 when the Blasket was abandoned. Above is an island photo, and below a shot of the steep walk down to the pier where residents would venture onto the mainland on rare occasions until the 1950s.
This concluded our tour of the Dingle Peninsula, and we headed to Annascaul for the night, 30 minutes from Dingle. It's a quiet village and birthplace of famed Arctic explorer Tom Crean. He died in 1938, but a quaint little bar that he and his wife Ellen opened decades ago is still in town! Tom Crean was an unassuming Kerryman whose extraordinary exploits made him appear nearly indestructible, but his amazing life remained shrouded in obscurity for over 80 years, known only to a few polar aficionados or bands of devoted supporters in Kerry. It would be impossible to compose a history of Antarctic exploration without recognizing and saluting the massive contribution he made. He figured prominently in three of the four major British expeditions to the Antarctic a century ago and spent more time in the ice and snow than either of the more celebrated and instantly recognizable figures of Sir Ernest Shackleton or Captain Robert Scott. And he outlived them both. Fascinating story:
https://www.historyireland.com/20th-century-contemporary-history/tom-crean-1877-1938-an-irish-hero/
The South Pole Inn... a cozy pub and eatery in Annascaul.
I was hoping to eat there and try their reasonably priced lamb or fresh salmon, but our tour company, Paddy's, owns our accommodations in town as well as the adjacent pub, and tonight they're treating our group to a little dinner and revelry. Finally... an Irish beer! ;) Another great day in Ireland!
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