Trip over. Time for the dreaded plane rides home. We are at Dublin Airport for the night, once again in the Ducati Suite. Sweet. Tomorrow morning at 8:45 we fly to Heathrow, then change terminals and planes for the 11 hour flight to PHX. We’ll be home by 8 PM, asleep by 8:10 PM.

The guy working on the wall at Murphy’s (in yesterdays photos) has been in exactly the same spot for 15 years. Progress is slow.

For those not seeing pictures, press “Blog Home” under the title. That should bring you to the current home page complete with pictures. They are there; trust me.

January 2nd was the best weather day so far. There was actually a live sun sighting. We have been blessed with mild temperatures and little rain. We went into town for lunch and tried a new place, Grey’s Lane Bistro. Very nice little place. Hugh lunch.

Stopped in various venues to say our goodbyes to friends. Saw Grainne for the last time. She has graciously agreed to store a box for us to be in our new house when we arrive back in April. Saves lugging all those adapters, converters, plugs, and wires home and then back again, especially since we won’t need them until we get back.

Some final pictures. Note the very small brick tower on the highest point in the last picture below. That’s Eask Tower. The view from up there is supposed to be fantastic. We’ve never gone up. It’s high on the list to do on our spring trip back here.

There is a Sun

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Dingle Pubs – Part V

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So that’s all the pubs in Dingle town. But there are many more on the Dingle Peninsula (including Quinns’s and Paddy O’Shea’s in Ventry, the South Pole Inn in Annuscual, Brick’s near Wine Strand, a couple in Ballyferriter, Krueger’s in Dunquin, and Tigh T P in Ballydavid. We have been to all of them.

We haven’t seen a lot of sun, but we haven’t a lot of rain (by Ireland’s standards) either. And the temperatures have been relatively mild. I think it was warmer here yesterday than in Scottsdale. Go figure.

We slept late, as usual. It doesn’t get light here until 8:30 AM. Elaine cooked breakfast. It was cloudy but clear in the afternoon. No rain and no fog. So we decided to take Grom and drive up to Conor Pass, down the other side to Castlegregory, and then back up through Camp and Annascual to Dingle, a nice circular loop. We stopped at the top of Conor Pass for some pictures. Normally buffeted by wind, the pass was oddly still. Down the other side we drove onto a beach, Kilcummin Strand, and took a leisurely walk. No campers, buses, trailers, or large vehicles of any kind allowed on the Conor Pass road! You’ll see why in the pictures.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews show just thumbnails of the pictures

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We walked into town in the fine weather for dinner at the Chart House. I had exactly the same thing as last time. Elaine did not.

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Dingle Pubs – Part Four

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Hhhmm, I think I missed a day. Must have been napping.

Sunday

A quiet day. Elaine took her walk early and stayed dry. As she returned I went for a walk. As I got to the farthest point, it started raining and I got pretty soaked on the way home.

Lunch was grilled cheese sandwiches at home. Dinner at home too. Delicious lamb sausages from Mr. Kennedy’s butcher shop. With local Maharees potatoes, the creamiest and best tasting potatoes in the world.

The big event for Sunday was the concert we attended at 7:00 PM in St. Mary’s Church. It was sponsored by and was a fund raiser for the Billy Riordan Trust. The link tells the whole story. In brief, Billy Riordan was a recent graduate from Galway College when he died of a brain hemorrhage while trekking in Malawi, a very poor country in Africa. His mother, Mags, a Dingle woman, went there to lay a memorial stone and fell in love with the people and the small town on Lake Malawi where he died. Hundreds of miles from the nearest medical clinic, the residents had no local health care, not even a doctor. Mags started the trust to set up and run the Billy Clinic which was set up in 2004. Mags Riordan now spends her life raising money for the clinic which is entirely supported by private donations. She spoke eloquently at the concert, and we are proud to have helped in her effort.

The concert was grand. There was music of all types by notable local musicians. The highlight for me was the fiddling by a local, John Kelly. The highlighter of the concert was Mary Black, a noted singer from Dublin who spends much of her time in County Kerry. Listen to her sing A Song for Ireland. It was all grand!

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews show just thumbnails of the pictures.  And enjoy the videos.

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Monday – New Year’s Eve

Beautifully dry day! We had walks in the morning. For lunch we went into town for seaood at Sheehy’s Anchor Down Restaurant. I had a mackerel salad and classic fish and chips. Elaine had local calamari and deep fried monkfish. The Sheehy’s are fishermen and catch all the fish they served. It turns out we had met one of the sons in O’Flaherty’s when he was playing the fife there on night. I had talked to him and he was in the restaurant and remembered us.

I took a nap in the afternoon, and then we headed into town for New Year’s Eve drinking and reveling. We got good seats at the Dingle Pub before the crowds rolled in. There was music and frivolity. We had no intention of lasting until midnight as the plan was to head home at 9:00 PM for appetizers while we watched the Dingle Harbour Fireworks from our window. Grand show of fireworks! After that we briefly considered walking back into town for the fife and drum parade that leads up to midnight, but we demurred.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

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