Dingle in the rain

Well today wasn’t quite what we hoped for. Our intention today was to tour the Dingle peninsula which is home to some of the quintessential Irish countryside - all those lovely green fields separated by hedges and stone fences with magnificent vistas out over the sea. But it was not to be - although we got glimpses of the coast and glimpses of the occasional field, most of the day was what in skiing parlance is termed “a whiteout”. Even the view of "our mountain" from our room was wet. 

The wind blew, the rains sleeted and it was a most unpleasant day all up. We got to see bits and pieces of the countryside as glimpses through the various rain showers and mists that we encountered, but missed the full splendour of what we were hoping to see. 

We drove from our overnight stay at Killarney after a very nice breakfast - lovely poached eggs and bacon for me - to the township of Dingle,  which is an old fishing vivillagthat still hosts a significant fishing fleet.  It has some lovely old streets with highly coloured buildings along narrow lanes in the Irish style (and a stream running under households).

We wandered around Dingle for about an hour and then headed out towards the Slea Head, which is where the most spectacular views of the coast could be expected. The drive out was pretty interesting because it’s another one of those Irish roads that’s about a car width wide if you’re lucky and two cars wide is a bit of a stretch. Combined with the rain and the wind and all the rest of it, it made for an interesting drive. We arrived at Slea Head with a quick break in the weather, which allowed us to see the view. 

Unfortunately, the weather closed in afterwards. It was raining pretty heavily and blowing a gale, so our intended walkout to Dunmore head didn’t happen. Instead we headed down to the local pub and had a quiet drink and a yummy  pizza for lunch.

Nearby was the Blasket Centre which is a museum highlighting the history of the families that lived on a group of islands near the coast here. They were there for centuries up until 1953 where the islands had to be evacuated because they community was no longer self sustaining. It was really interesting to see the history and quite poignant to hear their stories and learn about the passing of what was many hundreds of years of habitation of these islands. 

Since the weather was so bad, we chucked it in and decided to head straight for Limerick where we are spending the night. It’s about a 2 ½ hour drive and again we caught glimpses the Dingle peninsula countryside but actually saw very little of what we were hoping to see in the area. 

We’re staying at the Woodfield House Hotel,  which is a nice old hotel with a really nice bar where we had a quiet drink after we got here. We had dinner here, which was good pub fare, and we’ll be heading to bed soon.

Hopefully, tomorrow we are heading towards the Cliffs of Moher and, fingers crossed, the weather will be at least good enough for us to experience this spectacular and picturesque natural wonder.

Cheers. Stay well.