The Dingle Loop

The forecast yesterday was for rain - quite a lot of it. We geared up and headed out for the 35 km Dingle Loop, which would take us around the peninsula with lots of stops and interesting things to see along the way. Our first stop was Dunbeg, an ring fort built on the cliffs above the sea in the 8th and 9th centuries. It was pouring, but the sheep didn't seem to mind. I'm not sure what it would take to get them to stop eating, actually.


Loretta ducked under the entrance to the fort to wait out the worst sprinkles. I tired to share my cheapie umbrella from Edinburgh with her, but it's too small.


We had a debate over whether these donkeys minded the rain - I thought they looked miserable, huddled together against the wall during the worst of it, but Loretta says if they get miserable because of a bit of rain they'd have a pretty rough life indeed.


A few km past Dunbeg were some beehive huts, built and lived in about the same time as the fort. As instructed by our B&B host, Barbara, we pulled past the first set of huts and stopped at the second, with our few euros in hand to give to Mary, who owns the land. Sure enough, as we walked up her driveway, she appeared out of the door of her old white house - "Hello girls, nice day girls!" - in a quiet voice made quieter by the absence of most of her teeth, and wearing big, bright red sweater. We handed her our €4, she thanked us kindly many times, and told us to watch our heads going in and out of the huts.


The weather had cleared already, and we hiked up her hill, in and out of the huts, and past her horses, including a very brand new foal.




The views from up on her hillside were amazing - I don't think I could even imagine living here and seeing that all the time.


Oh - and movie trivia fact: right down the hill from Mary's place was a location for the filming of Far and Away.

Back in the car, our next major stop was a look out point (and cafe for a snack) over the beach and Blasket Islands, which were inhabited until 1953, and have a very significant place in Irish culture and history. Everyone spoke Gaelic there, and in fact this whole peninsula is still a Gaeltacht, which means that most people speak the language - the street signs can certainly attest to that. People from the big cities send their kids here for the summer to properly learn the language, and indeed we've seen packs of teenagers roaming around town.

The view of Great Blasket island: (there were several big basking sharks in the water, but unfortunately they don't show up in the photo)


And, looking across to the right, the hillside, which still has several abandoned and ruined "Famine Cottages", as this area was hit particularly hard during the Great Hunger - many people here were completely dependent on the potato as a food source and emmigrated, leaving everything behind.


View through a ruined cottage looking out to the sea:


After our snack, we headed down to the beach. By then it was a really nice day - hot even! Some of you may remember the Greece beach picture...here's an Irish version:


Continuing on, we stopped at the Blasket Island Heritage center, an amazingly well done little museum about this small corner of the world. But look who I found amidst all the books of Irish history, poetry, and culture:


Outside the museum, Lo perfected her digital macro skills even further. This is her favorite flower here on the Emerald Isle:


After a final few stops we headed home for the day and some mundane tasks like picking up laundry, dinner at the supermarket (can't go out every night!), and a little TV before bed. Here are a few things that struck us as quirky from the local news: A major report is out: 8,500 9 year-olds were interviewed by researchers from Trinity College, and there were three major findings: Irish children get on well with their mums, are partial to sweets, and show evidence of a growing problem with childhood obesity. Also, big sports news yesterday - there is to be an all-Irish sports event in Dublin's Croke Park in a few weeks, after the big U2 concert. Because of the concert, they're digging up all the sod, and they're planning to replace it with sod imported from England for the sporting event, thus creating the terrible situation of an Irish game not being played on Irish soil. Texts and phone calls expressing outrage were encouraged.