Dingle Peninsular - Cliffs of Moher - Galway

After breakfasting with three people from Mississippi (David and Mary-Lou and Mary-Ellen or something similar) we left our B & B on the Dingle Peninsular and headed to Tralee by Conor Pass. We were warned about narrow roads - God knows what they call the roads we've already been travelling on! Our Mississippi friend had the added pressure of driving on the opposite site of the road and found driving quite stressful, particularly as he said there were three drivers in his car - him at the wheel plus his wife and sister-in-law.

The Plough B & B 

Conor Pass overlooking Dingle Bay

Once again, the scenery was quite spectacular. We followed the route suggested by our Irish friend from UNE, John Hickey.  First stop was Listowel where we were tempted to have lunch at 'Kevin's' but there was a food market in the Town Square and we had some yummy seafood tapas and paella from Carlos, who was from Cordoba, Spain.

Listowel, Co. Kerry

We caught the Tarbert car ferry across the River Shannon into County Clare and, after having a little argument with the gps, we headed off towards Doolin, just north of the Cliffs of Moher. It was a mostly bright and sunny day. I say mostly because you never know what the weather the next corner will bring.

Tarbert Ferry

We had a short stop at a tiny fishing village called Quilt. The stain glass windows in the chapel depict fishing boats - I loved the blue glass:

Quilty chapel

The travel agent had suggested we stay at Ennis, a larger town about 30km inland. We decided to stay closer to the Cliffs in the village of Doolin. Great decision.  First stop, however, were the Cliffs of Moher.  We arrived around 3.30 pm when the sun was just starting to go down over the cliffs, making visability not quite as good as I expect it would be in the mornings, however it was a clear sunny day and yes, they were spectacular:

Cliffs of Moher

We met some lovely people in Doolin: Eugene who ran the Ferry between Doolin and the Aaron Islands. He phoned Maeve for us to check if she had a vacancy at her B & B - she did.  He advised us that, due to weather, the ferry hadn't run for the last five days but he thought it would be running tomorrow, Saturday.  After checking into Maeve's we walked the three minutes to one of the four or five pubs in the tiny village, McGan's - 

There Peter had the best sausages 'toulouse sausages' he has ever had. I couldn't resist fish and chips as the town is known for two things, its music and its seafood. We then sat back and enjoyed the music, the highlights being Christy's Moore's 'Black is the Colour' which has beautiful lyrics - Black is the colour of my true love's hair; her lips are like some roses fair; she has the sweetest smile and the glentlest hands, I love the ground whereon she stands... and Peter Gabriel's 'Biko' - although not Irish, it was very moving. 

We woke to a foggy and misty day but were pleased to find that the ferry was still running to one of the three Aaron islands, Inisheer (Inis Oirr). We would catch it around 10 am and return around 3pm. Peter of course made a new best friend in who we would later find out was Eugene's brother, Dony.  Once Rugby and fottball (soccer) were mentioned, they had a great time. Dony told Peter he had just received a text advising that Sky TV would only be telecasting South African Rugby in future. England would be shown on the history channel, Ireland on the cartoon channel and I can't tink of the rest. He showed us a map of Ireland's view of football nations:

It was fantastic fun. The ferry looked like it would hold about 100 and the trip over could best be descried as being in an elevator which would go from the first floor to the third floor and back again in a second. This particular elevator, however, would treat you to semi verticle angles at the same time.  There were a number of people who seemed to be breathing as a woman would through contractions, while one poor lady just lost it, that is to say, lost the lot. While Peter and I were laughing and saying "isn't this great fun?"  As you can see from this photo, I was holding on for dear life. 

When we reached the island we went on a 40min tour with Ollie. Now Ollie would have to be the quietest tour guide I've ever come across.  He was about 30, had lived on the island (population 300) all his life, and was an 8th generation islander. He provided information  only when prompted and we were quite surprised that when he told us he made a living from tourism and "a little fishing". I thought it would be the other way around. 

The island itself was quite fascinating.  It had hundreds of small paddocks all enclosed with limestone fences. Also was interest was the sunken church of St Kevin's (Kevin and Mary seem to crop up an awful lot in Ireland). 

After our tour Ollie dropped us off at a little B & B which had a little front room acting as a cafe. Well, what a great little find this was. We shared the room with a young couple from Canada and a couple from the US. Everything was homemade by the lovely lady of about 55. She was originally from Dublin and had met her husband while holidaying on the island. She was a font of information. She told us how she uses sea weed as a thickener in her cooking.  peter couldn't resist the crab claws which had been caught just down the way, and I went for the seafood chowder because it was a bloody cold day. Both great hits. The six of us agreed that it is the simple things like this place which makes a holiday. As you can see from the photo of the graveyard, it was a very bleak day indeed. 

I've never seen anything like St Kevin's sunken church, dated 10th - 14th century. 

Something that has been particularly prevalent along the west coast is the amount of people speaking Gaelic. In fact, around Dingle, in particular, it was often difficult to find signs in English.





On the road again, Peter took it easy on the wet roads, arriving at our Galway B & B around 5pm.

 We walked up to Shop St (as recommended by John H) and ended up in a side st restaurant called 'Kirby's" where we had an absolutely delicious meal. Our table was right next to a group of about 30 girls on a hen's night.  Peter had "the best mussells' he's every had while my pate was right up there. Peter's chicken stuffed with parmesan & prosciutto was delic. I was determined not to have seafood as my last three meals had been fishy. I had salmon - enough said.  Here's a photo of the hen's girls. For those who are familiar with the term, a lot of them wore Gosford skirts - some of them got a way with it and others not. However, they were lovely girls from Northern Ireland. One told me "it's my first time in Galway", I responded "mine too".

After dinner we called into our B & B's local pub, The Crane, where we were told we'd find music sessions that weren't quite as busy as the city.  It was grant, the highlight being a 65yr odd man singing a beautiful ballad .