Our Travel Journal: Dingle Peninsula, Ireland

Our AirBnB host had provided us with a box of eggs, Irish bacon, butter and a loaf of whole grain bread. I made a dash into the town of Ventry, about 12 minutes away, for some raspberry jam, and we were set for breakfast. I have been enjoying our big hotel "Full Irish Breakfasts", and this breakfast is more than I have back in Lancaster, but still it was good to start slowing down on the sausages and black and white puddings.

Sandy and I are in agreement that of the places we have seen in Ireland, Dingle stands out as the prettiest part of Ireland. Our goal was to tour around the coastline of the Dingle peninsula. Since we have several days here we were in no hurry and spent plenty of time at sites that we found interesting. The first place we found was the little berg on a corner that only had a pub a grocery and a church...(as Rick Steves says, the three G's...God, groceries and Guinness) Honestly, in Ireland, a town need nothing more. Paddy O'Shea was a household name in Ireland. He was on eight, all Ireland champion Gaelic Football (like rugby but clearly different) teams for Kerry, as a player for 18 years. He then trained the Kerry team for many years after that. But, what has made his fans truly cherish him most, is that he opened a pub.

Paddy O'Shea statue in front of his pub

The church

Dunbeg Fort is a promontory fort. It is small but impressive. Built on a sheer cliffs with land facing defenses that at one time stretched completely across the promontory making it a particularly defensive position. The site has been occupied on and off since 500BC, however, the stone work of the fort seems to date from 700AD

This is what the fort looked like before a major storm in 2014

The fort today

During the great famine, families eventually abandoned their homes with many ending up in the United States. We visited a home that had been left mostly undisturbed since the day a famine family walked out.

Goat followed Sandy inside the house

Ireland is full of sheep and to manage those sheep they have sheep dogs. Sandy and I enjoyed a sheepdog presentation on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. These dogs seemed to love what they were doing and they were good at it. They also liked the attention of the spectators.

Cashel Murphy is a conglomerate of five beehive huts. This is an ancient Celtic and pre- Celtic settlement, and is one of the best examples of a stone settlement in the country, where five families lived ,and where the Druids performed rituals.It also has an underground souterrain, a tunnel which leads to an underground building, where they stored food and grain, and also hid from enemies.