Advertisement
Geo: 52.1433, -10.2687
I was awakened this morning by a strange banging sound. I didn't know what time it was but figured someone had forgotten their key and was just coming back from the pub, so was banging on the front door of the hotel (which is more or less below my window). But it kept happening, and there's very obviously a doorbell down there, so that's not what it was. It wasn't rhythmic, and there would be longish stretches with no sound at all, but it went on for long enough that I finally looked at my clock: 5:50. So not spectacularly early, but still early enough to be annoying. I got up at one point and looked out my window but couldn't see anything. Still it went on. I couldn't really place if it was coming from outside or from somewhere within the hotel. It sounded like someone was opening cupboards and closets and banging them closed again. I fell asleep again at some point (and dreamed a group of people were trying to abduct me!) but woke up again to more banging. I didn't have to get up till 8:00 this morning, but I was still quite tired. I
asked around at breakfast to see if anyone else had heard the noise. Declan's room is right beneath mine, but he didn't hear it. Sue and Paul are next to me on the front side of the hotel, but they didn't hear anything. Barb and Jerry are across the hall from me, but they didn't hear it. No one rooming at the other end of the hotel heard anything either. So. Either I'm going completely wackadoo, or – as Declan diagnosed – I have a poltergeist.
Other than that, I got a decent night's sleep. This is the first hotel on the tour (I guess it's actually only the third hotel anyway) that has duvets. The only problem with duvets is that if you get a bit too warm, there's no layer to throw off. Breakfast was served in a room on the ground floor that looks over the field behind the hotel. A cow came into view at one point,contentedly munching grass. As good as she made the grass look, I opted for eggs, bacon and sausage with tea and toast. As I was the only single in the breakfast room when Declan came in, the Polish girl waiting on
us made him sit with me. We talked about his artwork (he passed around his portfolio on the bus yesterday) and how he's considering moving back to Ireland, and how both of our Johns (his brother) are in IT. I should get him to teach me how to say something rude in Gaelic.
We met our local guide, Tim Collins, at 10:00 for a drive around the Dingle Peninsula. Tim used to be the police chief in town and is very knowledgeable about the area's flora. Because the Gulf Stream gives this area a very mild, temperate climate, there are plants growing here that you wouldn't expect to see in Ireland. Palm trees and plants imported from Africa and South America line the roads, and fuchsia grows like a weed here. (The Gaelic for fuchsia means “tears of God.”😉 He was also constantly pointing out spots used during the filming of “Ryan's Daughter” and the Tom Cruise movie “Far and Away.” In front of the library in one of the small towns on the peninsula is a large standing stone with a cross carved into it, and it looks ancient and Celtic. It was used in “Ryan's Daughter” and put there
as a reminder of the filming. “As if we needed one,” said Tim. The stone, however, isn't a stone at all. It was a film prop and made of fiberglass. When it was brought into the town, the papers ran a photo of a young man carrying the stone on one shoulder, captioned, “Guinness for strength.”
We passed through a smaller village that had a church on one side of the road, a grocery store next to it, and a pub across the street. Tim said it's what's known as the three Gs: God, groceries and Guinness.
We stopped to look at the gorgeous views from Slea Head, which looks out toward the Blasket Islands and the Atlantic. Unfortunately, we had pretty low clouds today, so we didn't get the best views. There are sheep that graze on the steep hillside that falls away from the road into the ocean. There are cows here and there as well, and I saw one small herd of cows with an attentive border collie. I also saw a corgi sniffing around his own little front yard.
The Dingle Peninsula is a Gaeltacht, meaning that the people here speak Irish (Gaelic) as their first language. All the signs are in Irish and English, and some of the schools are Irish-only. Declan says that when he was a kid, if he misbehaved, his parents would threaten to send him to Irish college, where
everything is conducted in Irish and a student caught speaking English is automatically expelled. Nowadays, sending one's kids to an all-Irish school is not a threat but a mark of pride in Irish heritage. Speaking of pride, the people hold particular allegiance to their county and to their parish. The counties have their own colors, as do the parishes. I think you'd have to live in Ireland for a long time before you could really interpret all the colors and various flags and banners.
Anyway, back to Irish. Gaeltachts receive money from the government to develop the Irish language and culture. Because of this, some people feel that the road and street signs should be in Irish only without the English translation. So you'll see signs directing you to An Daingean (“on DANG-un”😉, with Dingle beneath that. The Irish-only people have gotten to a lot of signs and blacked out the “Dingle” part. This, however, confuses the hell out of tourists, so Dingle residents (Dinglers?) have come back and stenciled “Dingle” in again. This leads to some signs having multiple layers of paint.
We then visited the Great Blasket Centre, which gives a look at the way of life of the Blasket Islanders. The biggest island, Great Blasket, was inhabited until 1953 when it was evacuated by the Irish government. The people were re-homed on the mainland, but by that time there were only 20-23 residents left on the island. They all spoke Irish, and they had a great heritage of storytelling. Their life looked fairly hard – fish, potatoes and milk for breakfast and dinner; a near constant threat of drowning or being cut off from the mainland by the ocean – but they weren't odd or backward or anything like that. When the island was evacuated, there was one 7-year-old boy ... only one child left on the island. The press dubbed him “The Loneliest Child in the World.” The guide inside the Centre reckoned that he wasn't lonely at all: he probably had ten sets of “grandparents” doting on him.
The Centre itself was nice: bright and airy, with some interactive displays and quotes from the islanders and the books they wrote. My favorite went like this: “I fell to thinking of all the happy days I had spent ... and recalled the words of my grandfather: twenty years a-growing, twenty years in bloom, twenty years a-stooping, and twenty years declining.” There is a nice view from the Centre of the Great Blasket (though not so great today), and there is a beautiful abstract stained glass window in the foyer.
After lunch in the cafeteria we continued our drive to the Reasc Monastery, which was active from the 6th to the 12th century. For centuries, the only visible part of the monastery was a stone pillar that stuck up a few feet above the ground. Then in the mid-70s, an archeological dig uncovered an entire settlement that included several dwellings and a small church, as well as a graveyard. The monastery actually came well after the settlement was originally built ... in about 500 B.C.
Farther on, we visited the Gallarus Oratory, the only example of an intact “beehive” structure. From the front, it looks a bit like a beehive. From the side, it looks like an upturned boat. This was an early Christian church, built roughly 1300 years ago. There is a small door at one end, and a small window at the other end. It's built entirely of stone, without a speck of mortar and without any sort of keystone. Each successive layer of stone sticks just a little farther into the space than the previous layer, and this helped to keep the walls from collapsing. This method is called “corbelling.” The space inside is limited, but we were able to fit all 28 of us, plus Tim, inside. If you hold your hand right up to the wall, you can feel the air coming through. Even though it was another windy day, we felt quite sheltered and warm inside the oratory.
I used the ladies' room afterward, and Katherine spent a few minutes in the gift shop. She found Celtic birth signs and bought a necklace with hers. The explanation with the necklace says something like “a god who sets people's heads on fire.” But I, I am a salmon! One of the key words associated with salmon is knowledge. Ergo, I am a Salmon of Knowledge! Who knew?
Our final stop before getting back to Dingle was Kilmalkedar Church, built in the 12th century. The last services there were in the 1500s, so it's gone to ruin. In the cemetery that surrounds it, there is an early Celtic cross that acted as a sundial, as well as an ogham stone. Ogham is the original written language of the early Celts. The stone apparently marks a grave, but later a hole was drilled vertically into the top. This gave people a place to seal a deal: they would touch their thumbs through the hole in the stone and swear on the graves of their ancestors in front of the house of God.
When we got back to Dingle, Katherine and I (and several others) ran up the street to get our laundry. Yay, clean clothes! It's the simple things that make you happy when traveling.
We all had dinner at a place called Doyle's. I had goat cheese bruschetta (goat cheese is really big here), Guinness and beef stew, and a chocolate brownie. Katherine had a baked hake that looked really good. From there we all went to a concert at a little church. The first hour or so was Tommy O'Sullivan on guitar (Declan's been playing his CD on the bus) and Eoin Somethingirish on uilleann pipes and tin whistle. The next hour was a husband and wife on guitars singing lovely songs. Their names might be Noel Shine and Mary Greene, but don't quote me on that.
Most everyone went off afterward to the Courthouse pub (owned by Tommy O'Sullivan) to listen to more music. I enjoyed the concert, but I'd had enough mournful songs and chirpy, whistley music for one night.
Crossing my fingers that my poltergeist or banshee or whatever it is stays quiet tonight.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.199s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 9; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0592s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Mom
non-member comment
Tell me you didn't have another egg salad sandwich today! It's sure hot here and due to get even hotter. John's coming for birthday dinner on Saturday....BBQ ribs, baked potatoes, spinach salad and pineapple, coconut upside down cake.