A Green, Wet Peninsula (Part 2)

To pick up from where I left off last night, we checked into our hotel. The view from our hotel window is above. From there we drove back to the town of Dingle, which was a few miles from our hotel, and began our westward loop around the coast.

As we set out west from Dingle the rain, which had been on and off all day, began to let up and the misty fog that had shrouded the peninsula since we had arrived began to gradually lift. We proceeded around Dingle Harbor to the next protected bay, Ventry. There we stopped at a beach and circled around the bay to look at it from the other side. At this point it is a lot easier to just use pictures:

We then proceeded further west towards the eventual tip of the peninsula, stopping a few times along the way to appreciate the breathtaking scenery and wonderful ocean views, which got better and better as the visibility gradually improved. We stopped at Dunbeg Fort, a Stone Age archaeological site on the edge of a coastal cliff. We stopped at a few curves in the road, passed a hairpin turn where a rather substantial stream flowed over the roadway, and suffered through the nerve wracking experience of driving on the incredibly narrow roads that were pretty much directly on the edge of cliffs. At one bend in the road (at Slea Head) we saw a crucifix which seemed rather randomly placed, and no obvious reason for its location was given. We passed Ryan's Daughter, the westernmost point on the peninsula, and eventually proceeded back to our hotel for dinner.

As we went to bed, we could hear rain pounding outside and the wind howling across the hills of Dingle. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and it was great.

The next morning we returned to Ryan's Daughter and hiked out through fields sprinkled with sheep to the westernmost point on the Dingle Peninsula. It was VERY windy on the summit of Ryan's Daughter, which is actually a slight hill in addition to a finger of land extending into the Atlantic Ocean. As we walked out to the small stone hut on the hill, it began to rain in a very light, misty, cold fashion, blown in from the ocean. This sort of rain persisted intermittently for the next few hours.

We then went about a mile north to hike out to the end of the next finger of the peninsula, which does not extend as far west and is a bit rockier and taller than Ryan's Daughter. From there we could see a good deal of the western coast of Dingle.

From there we completed our loop around the peninsula, passing Mount Brandon and the wonderful car-falling-over-cliff sign. We returned to Dingle town for lunch at around 1pm and then began the drive back to Cork city, passing through Inch and running into traffic due to Puck Fair (an event I know nothing about other than that it generates traffic in Killorglin). On the way home we listened to Cork's Gaelic football team beat Tyrone on RTE radio followed by Cork's hurling team losing to Kilkenny (also on RTE). Both were quite entertaining to listen to.

All in all, the Dingle peninsula is awesome. And to cap off my Dingle ramblings, here is a picture of Ryan's Daughter:

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Inexpensive Haircuts and Future Visitors + Completely Unrelated Picture

So the pint of Guinness to the left is completely unrelated to this post unless you want to start pondering the half full or half empty question. Actually, that is also pretty much completely unrelated to this, but it might be slightly more interesting if you're into internal intellectual questions that have no real answer. In any case I got a haircut today for 8.50 Euro. I was shocked at how cheap it was. I stumbled upon Frank's Barbershop completely by accident, it is on the 2nd floor of a storefront on the fringes of downtown Cork and is not particularly well marked. A small little place that seemed pretty much identical to an American barber shop except for the Cork accents.

Also, my dad will be in Ireland starting tomorrow and will be spending some time in Cork. The plan is to head over to the west coast into West Cork and Kerry, possibly Dingle, and do some sightseeing. It should be a good weekend.
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Ennis and the Cliffs of Moher

Yesterday two of my housemates and I traveled up to County Claire to the town of Ennis and the Cliffs of Moher. The final destination of the trip, the Cliffs, was the furthest point north I had yet traveled to in Ireland and was the first time I had seen the Atlantic Ocean from Ireland. I had also never been to County Claire before, so the trip included a number of interesting new places.

It began with a bus that left Cork City at around 7.30 in the morning, which was not so much fun to wake up for. We then switched buses in Limerick and eventually stopped in Ennis. We had about four hours between our arrival in Ennis and the next bus to Doolin and the Cliffs of Moher so we had lunch and wandered around town for a few hours. Ennis is the largest town in County Claire and since Claire play Cork in an important hurling match tomorrow the town itself was draped in yellow and blue banners.

In Ennis we visited the creatively named Ennis Friary, which is right next to the Fergus River and was built in the 13th century. The town itself grew up around the friary, which was built by the ruling O'Brien family near their stronghold. Ennis itself is a nice town, considerably smaller than Cork with narrow streets and a rather small downtown area that includes a few main streets. The picture at the top of the post is of the main street of Ennis taken from the base of the O'Connell monument at the center of town. Below is the Friary.


After a few hours and lunch in Ennis we returned to the bus station to start the 50 minute bus ride to the Cliffs of Moher. The bus ride from Ennis to the cliffs provided gorgeous views of the Claire countryside. Claire is far rockier than Cork. Rolling hills extend into the distance covered with rocky-spotted fields bordered by rock walls, a sharp contrast to the empty grass fields bordered by hedges and trees of County Cork to which I am more accustomed. The main road to the cliffs passes a large quarry not far outside the town of Ennis. After about a half hour or so we came over the crest of a hill and saw a large bay (Lehinch, i believe), which was the first view of the Atlantic Ocean I have had since landing in Cork. The town of Lehinch (once again I am not positive that it is this specific town) had a couple of really cool-looking golf courses that had ruins of some ancient-looking fortifications between fairways. After we passed the golf courses we passed a very long, wide beach. We followed the curve in the bay and then started climbing the hill that would eventually take us to the top of the cliffs. Looking back from the bus:


We eventually got to the cliffs themselves and they were rather breathtaking. It was actually sunny or only partly cloudy for most of the day and fairly clear, so we got a good view of the cliffs and the surrounding countryside. The cliffs are about five miles long and rise slightly more than 700 feet above sea level at their highest point. They're pretty incredible.

The picture above is looking in the wrong way for them, but since it was clear we could also see the Aran Islands in the distance. There was also a stone watchtower near the middle of the cliffs, O'Brien's Tower (in the picture below).

Just as we were about to catch a bus back it started raining faintly and as the bus ride began it started pouring. Good timing on our part.
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