Day 12: Kenmare to Dingle

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Friday, October 15: Checked out of the Rockcrest B&B this morning and drove into Kenmare for a stroll around the village centre on another beautiful sunny day. Ran into Patrick, whom we met in Kinsale two nights ago, as he was doing some shopping. Found an ATM for yet more cash and we were ready to hit the Ring of Kerry. Kenmare is the southeastern kickoff point for the Ring. We drove past the Staigue Fort, a glacier lake left 10,000 years ago, and Carroll Cove (a beautiful beach with the warmest water in Ireland). We stopped at The Blind Piper pub in Caherdaniel for a lunch of grilled ham and cheese sandwich. The bartender told us that years ago many disabled people became musicians as a way to support themselves. The real Blind Piper passed away in a county care facility many years ago. We moved along the Ring in awe of the views, looking towards the Skellig Islands and trying to avoid sheep in the roadway. We kept moving and ended up at Glenveigh, stopping at Peader’s Pub where we watched horse racing on the telly and the locals were doing some off-track betting. Farther down the road at Killorglin we were getting into the areas used in the film “Ryan’s Daughter”. We curved up and around to the Dingle Peninsula and stopped at Castlemaine at Jack Duggin’s pub. We met Griffin, who was a retired ‘domestic appliance’ salesman. There was a home cleaning show on the telly and Griffin shared his experiences in installing home appliances over the years. Griffin also shared that the capsule that was used to save the Chilean miners was designed by an Irish engineering company in Shannon and the Irish have been quite proud of that fact. He also talked about Jack Duggin being the “Wild Colonial Boy”, a bandit of Irish folklore with the song written about him and was supposedly from Castlemaine. We kept moving around to Inch, again a “Ryan’s Daughter” film location (we'll have to rent the movie when we get home), and then to Anascaul, stopping at the South Pole Inn. The South Pole was owned by Tom Crean, who is a local hero and Antarctica explorer. He was with the Shackleton Expedition when it was stranded. He survived the expedition and returned to Anascaul where he and his wife ran the South Pole Inn. The walls were covered with pictures of his expeditions, including a couple of pictures of Tom Crean with his puppies (private joke). It had started misting off and on as we arrived in Anascaul and there was a beautiful rainbow—our second since landing in Ireland. We found our B&B—the O’Neill’s—in Dingle and unloaded our stuff. After some downtime in the B&B, we walked up the street to the city centre—wearing raincoats because of the rain. We stopped into Foxy John’s Hardware which is a pub, hardware store and bike rental shop, all in one big room. There was a fire going in the fireplace, making this pub feel very warm and inviting. One restaurant recommended, The Goat Café, was closed for the season but we found The Global Village, and enjoyed a spendy but delicious dinner of beef tenderloin. Off to find music, we wandered into The Small Bridge Bar (An Droichead Beag) where a fiddle/guitar duo was struggling to get their act together. Candi became frustrated with the delays (two songs performed in 40 minutes with a lot of tuning and whispering in between) and we moved on to Ashes Pub to hear an acoustic solo act. He was supposed to start at 10:00 but was still setting up at 10:30. There were three couples in the pub from Omaha, Nebraska. They were having a very good time. They tried to rib us about Nebraska leaving the Big 12 and how bad Iowa State’s football program is but we just reminded them that ISU beat them on their home field last season. (and Nebraska got whooped by Texas on Saturday) We listened to a few songs by the acoustic dude and then moved on to the Marine Inn on the harbor where a duo of pipes and guitar were finishing their night. As they were tearing down, a young woman borrowed the guitar and entertained, along with her two girlfriends, with a couple of folk songs. We went on to Dick Mack’s because Ed had read about it. It was a quirky, little alternative spot with some real characters, mostly young. We ended our evening at the Dingle Pub and meandered back to our B&B on this wet evening in Dingle.

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