The Ring of Kerry and Dingle Peninsula

We drove round the Ring of Kerry and Dingle Peninsula on consecutive days. These peninsulas are just spectacular and resulted in over 250 pictures being taken. Apart from the views the contrast and range of bright colours from the red and yellow flowering hedgerows, blue sea and sky with white clouds, green fields offset by grey roads and stone walls is wonderful. Great light also helps - no smog here! The sign was a one off (although we did see one where the car was replaced by a person) but really applied to most of the roads travelled in these two days.The hedgerows are a mass of Fusia and Monbrecia which would be great garden displays anywhere else.

One of the oldest structures are Beehive huts dating from ancient times to 1200 AD. They are rather like an igloo made of stone. These buildings required quite a bit of skill to build. The stones had to step in progressively the right amount (corbelling) so that they eventually met to allow a capstone to be placed in the centre. The stones also had to be laid sloping down on the outside so as to shed water. They were remarkably draft free.

They also had passages between them which would allow one to hide or escape. (A bit too tight for my liking.)

We also passed a modern day version.

Dingle is a huge natural harbour with a tight entrance. While enroute we heard on the radio that a boat had gone aground and there was going to an attempt to float it off that afternoon with the high tide. Our timing was brilliant and we arrived while the fishing vessel was hard aground and then saw a tug start to pull on her stern.

She swung round and then floated off.

This enabled her to get underway.

She was reportedly a Spanish trawler called Concerto although her flag was Bayonne which is in France.

After some hull checks (and I suspect bill paying) she took off for the South 24 hours later than planned. Although I thought this was quite exciting to be on the spot, apparantly the locals were a bit more laid back as it is not an infrequent occurence! Must be the drink.

At the Eastern point of the Dingle peninsula we had a wonderful walk around the headland. From Helen’s perspective the key issue here was that this was where Ryan’s Daughter was filmed whereas I was more interested in the fact that this is the Western most point of Europe.

Nonetheless here is the school where Robert Mitchem was Principal (it was actually Kippary National School).
And here is today’s Principal.The high point of the walk was An Moinnán Mor (the pamphlet was all in Irish – the “o” in Mor should also have an acute on it but that is beyond the ability of my version of Word). Helen’s high point is a style with instructions on how to climb over!

For those with linguistic skills the walk is called..

It is the most public Western walk in Europe. The views over the cliffs along the whole coast were magic and enhanced further when we saw several pairs of Gannets flying past.

There are quite a number of renovator’s delights along the coast. This one had great views of the Blasket islands. These islands were occupied for over 100 years and in 1839 supported 13 families however all had relocated to the main line by 1953 reportedly as a result of poor fishing.

The Gap of Dunloe

Killarney was our base for SW Ireland. It is a beautiful area with lakes, mountains and peninsulas out into the sea. Our first venture was to the Gap of Dunloe. This wonderful trip comprised a coach trip up to the start of the Gap, a 7 kms hike, a boat trip and finally the coach home.

This is the gap viewed from the North.
We were picked up from the site in a green coloured version of a historical coach only it was made in 1989 (a Ford). For a change at the end of the day we travelled back on this red one.
Once at base camp we were dropped off, had the compulsory cup of coffee and started our journey. There was a choice of walking or going by horse trap. We opted for the former as we clearly needed some exercise after the last couple of week’s indulgencies.

The weather was misty (rather than rain) and helped to underscore the rugged beauty of the area. The path was reasonable steep with flat sections alongside the lakes.

The soft ground green carpet adjoining some of the streams was a wonderful contrast to the hard grey rock. The lakes were all formed by rock falls.

It was a good 1½ hour climb to the top which was both tiring and exhilarating.

When we got over the top there was a view of the Upper lake where we would catch our boat.

Towards the end of the walk is the start of the Killarney National Park. There is a gate and bridge at the entry which also depicts the limit for the horse traps.

This a view of the Gap from the South side (taken the following day). If you look closely just below the saddle you can see Helen’s comfort copse.

There are 3 lakes, imaginatively called Upper, Middle and Lower by the locals. They flow around the mountains and enable a boat to go back almost to Killarney centre.

The water level was particularly low (not quite drought conditions as we know them but..). The boats were moored at a lower point than usual. They could take up to 12 passengers but even with our 6 met the bottom a couple of times.

From the upper to middle lake is a quite narrow entry into the Long Range river.

However, we all had confidence in our boatman as he has been doing this since 1963 (when it was a case of 4 rowers rather than an outboard and the trip took 2½ hours as opposed to our 1½ hours).

The river flows into middle lake (sometimes called Muckross lake) at the Meeting of the Waters. This is a small rapid and we had to leave the boat and walk 100 metres or so while our boatman took the boat down using the oars to steer in rather an unconventional way.

We then travelled across middle lake

and caught a glimpse of the 19th century manor called Muckross House.

The entry into lower lake (also called Lough Leane) was through a spectacular bridge. It was quite shallow and we grazed the bottom of the boat but some 5 metres into the lake the bottom dives to 200 metres.

The trip across Lower lake was quite a long journey and swimming to shore would have been quite a challenge as it is significantly larger than the other lakes. Fortunately the boat made the journey OK and we alighted alongside the 15th century Ross castle. This was the last Irish stronghold taken by Cromwell back in 1653.

A great day followed by an excellent nights sleep!

Dublin and drink

We planned to spend a couple of days in Dublin and on the way up travelled through a little village called Ballykissangel. Well that is not its real name but what most would know it by. The well known BBC series was actually set in Avoca. This is the pub which was a regular feature.Another part of the plan was for me to play Royal Dublin Golf Course as there are reciprocal rights with Royal Canberra. I was able to get a 3:30 tee off time and seem to have most of the course to myself. It is on North Bull Island which sits in Dublin Bay. Getting to the island is by a long one way timber bridge. The course is beautiful but challenging. Many holes comprise very narrow fairways (15 – 20 metres) 2 metre second cut and then lost ball country. It is a typical links course with 9 holes going out (in this case into a headwind) and 9 holes back. Fortunately the weather was warm with a light breeze so I only lost a couple of balls and had a reasonable round for much of the 18 holes. I would not want to play this in the more normal wet and windy conditions!

Dublin city has many attractions and figures; too many for this blog which is probably soporific enough. Nonetheless some examples are the statue of Jim Larkin leader of the 1913 general strike outside the General Post Office (1818). This rebellious nature resulted in Ireland gaining independence in 1922.

Another key figure in Ireland’s history was Daniel O’Connell who organised huge rallies over a 5 year period leading to The Emancipation Act of 1828 which gave (some) Catholics the right to vote. One of the uprisings resulted in much of O’Connell Street being destroyed and most of the angels in this statue sport real shot wounds. One of the lasting statistics in my mind is the great famine in 1845 – 8 resulting from the complete failure of the potato crop. Over 1 million died and many fleed to North America. As a result the 8 Million population was halved to 4 million by 1900 which remains the current population figure.

A popular statue is that of Sweet Molley Malone selling Cockles and Mussels. She was also a lady of the night and appears to be dressed more for this activity than selling shellfish.

By stark comparison The Monument of Light (a Millennium statue) is a 120 metre stainless steel needle which is the largest free standing structure in the world. It is another example of a love it or hate it feature. We travelled round Dublin using open top hop on hop off buses and it was interesting to hear how the various guides described the needle. Some were not too praiseworthy.

However, we were really in Dublin to savor the drink and where better to start than the Guinness factory? After running a small brewery in the country Arthur Guinness moved to Dublin in 1759 and leased land and water rights for £45 pa. He must have thought he would live for ever as he signed up for a 9000 year lease when he was 34 years old. This is the original manuscript set in the floor of the original brewery building (now a heritage site).

There are some wonderful old barrels and copper kettles. I was taken by this copper lid which is so similar (features and size) to the porthole and storm cover that hangs outside our house (except ours is brass).

The self guided tour takes you through the barley preparations, hops, water and yeast (without the very secretive ingredients) and is well done. The only Guinness brewery outside Ireland is in Australia as the draught has only a 10 day shelf life. The brewery makes 4,000,000 pints per day half of which is exported. This means that 2M pints are consumed within Ireland. As the total population is only 4 million then either some are drinking quite a bit or the children have a problem!

You can even take lessons in how to pour a pint and gain a certificate of competency!

We decided that we would cut to the chase and went to the 7th level bar where Seamus (how could he be called anything else) poured us a pint each with a Shamrock on the head.

It was a lovely pint and with a panoramic view over the city on a brilliantly sunny day it was as close to heaven as a mortal can get.

Now that we had a taste for Guinness we decided to take in a show with an Irish band and Irish dancing (and of course another pint). The energy of these four dancers to hold a half hour show was quite amazing and obviously they had been raised on Guinness (it gives you strength if you believe the advertising). It probably does as Arthur’s wife had 21 children.

The lead in the Irish band encouraged requests from the floor and there were chits that you could fill out with your request. When he read Helen’s he apparently had not heard of Canberra. This caused a little banter from the floor and it turned out there were another 6 people from Canberra in the audience and some 15 or so Aussies in the 100 strong audience. Small world.

Unfortunately we did not have sufficient time to go around the Jamison distillery which is Ireland’s best known whiskey. Apparently the reason Jamison’s is so smooth is due to it being distilled 3 times as opposed to Scottish whisky (without an “e”) which is distilled twice. Both of course are superior to the single distillation process used in the American Bourbon.

One of my favourite drops is Kilkenny so a trip down to that fair city was essential. We went to the brewery and asked the security guard when tours occurred as we enjoyed their drop. The reply took us aback. Oh, it is not brewed here. Our brewery is Smithwicks which was thought to be hard to pronounce overseas so exports were branded as Kilkenny. It has been bought out (as with Guinness) by the Diagio group so who knows where it is brewed!

Rather disillusioned we had to settle for a trip to the castle with its huge park. In the centre is the top of the spire of St Canice’s Cathedral which is about 1km beyond the castle. The castle is unusual as it is three sided with one of the sides slightly splayed out.

The town also sits on the river Nore where the ongoing theme of colourful flower displays continued.