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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Dingle is filling up as we approach New Year’s Eve. Surprisingly, Dingle has become a New Year’s Eve destination for the Irish and the English and even beyond.

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From the Irish Times:

They know how to throw a party in Kerry, oft referred to as the Kingdom. From Killorglin’s Puck Fair to the Rose of Tralee, you can be guaranteed some serious devilment. Nowhere is this more true than in the coastal town of Dingle on New Year’s Eve. Perched on one of the westernmost tips of the country, there’s a wildness to the landscape and a wildness to the locals. NYE is celebrated in spectacular fashion, starting early in the evening, when it’s standing room only in the town’s pubs. Consider Dick Macks on Greene Street and Foxy John’s famous hardware store/bikeshop/pub on the Main Street to be at the centre of the action. At 10pm the entire town takes to the streets and heads down the hill to the harbour. There’s an impressive fireworks display from the pier (this can be seen from around the town, even if you don’t make it to the water’s edge). Then it’s back inside for a hot whiskey to warm your bones (they make a great drop in the local Dingle Distillery) before heading outside again to follow the Dingle Fife and Drum Band on its procession around the town. This culminates just before midnight, when thousands gather on the Main Street to ring in the new year.

Anyway, Saturday was a quiet day for us. Elaine took her walk in the morning. I stopped at the SuperValu for another bottle of Dingle Vodka. Of late going back to 2012, Dingle has it’s own distillery, aptly named the Dingle Distillery, just at the edge of town. It started by brewing up Dingle Gin and has since expanded into vodka and three types of whiskeys. It is very highly thought of, and I can vouch that their vodka, whilst expensive, is deliciously good in gimlets. (I can’t find Rose’s lime juice like I use at home, so I use Robinson’s Crushed Lime & Mind cordial – very good!) .

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On Saturday night we decided to try a relatively new entry on the Dingle restaurant scene – the Random Restaurant. We arrived at 7:45 for our reservation to a bustling scene. We started with glasses of champagne – what a surprise. Notice the Christmas ornaments made by one of the staff – Christmas trees made entirely of pasta! Then we both had seafood chowder for starters and agreed it was the best we have had in Dingle – high praise indeed. Elaine had hake, a haddock like fish, for her main while I had the 1/2 duckling. Excellent and plentiful food! That duck had to be a fat critter when he gave it up to be my dinner. No room for desserts.

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We stopped in at the Dingle Pub to see old friend Richie O’Brien of Dreams of Freedom, an excellent Irish Rebel Band. He wasn’t starting until 10:30 PM, so we just chatted a bit. He plays at 9:30 on Sunday and we may see him then. We also stopped at O’Flaherty’s (where we had parked the car), but there was a private party going on.

Tomorrow is another day – see you then.

Some replies to some of the comments people have made – we read and appreciate them all!!:

• Yes, I am feeling better. Good, in fact. No more bloody noses since that first day last Saturday. Elaine visited the local Medical Center and asked if they could do a cauterization (in case I needed it). No go. That would require a trip to Kerry General Hospital in Tralee. That’s about a 40 minute ride away. Hopefully I won’t need to visit. Fingers crossed.
• We return home on January 4th. On the 3rd we will drive to Dublin and stay overnight near the airport. I hope we get the Ducati Suite again. We couldn’t really enjoy it last time because Elaine didn’t have her suitcase yet. We didn’t check in until after 10 PM and we left right after we retrieved the errant bag from the airport. (I will point out that we have never flown British Airlines without some major issue or other. But that’s another story.)
• The Galloway cattle are called Belted Galloways (or at least we call them that). They originated in Scotland, but we have encountered them around the world on our travels.
• Mianne: GREAT pictures from Puerto Rico. We couldn’t be in more different places. Hope you are having a great time.
• Happy Christmas and Happy New Year back to all who have sent similar wishes our way.

Friday was very Irish, weather wise. Clouds, light rain off and on, fog. The whole Irish thing. We had a very quiet day. It ended on a high note with a grand dinner at our favorite Dingle restaurant – the Chart House. It has no connection with the US chain. Jim and Susan are the proprietors and are now good friends. We have been dining there since the late 1990’s. After Kir Royales, Elaine had Dingle Bay Seafood Chowder with croutons and a dash of citrus oil followed by the Salmon which was the special fish of the day. I had Croquet of Skeaghanore Duck with Confit Leg, Pak Choi, and Date Jam (OMG!!!) followed by the other special, West Kerry Rack of Lamb. For dessert Elaine had a trio of ice creams with praline sauce and I had the scrumptious flourless chocolate cake with ice cream. The wine was a German Pinot Noir that was quite good. (You almost never see any California or other US wines on menus in Ireland. Lots of wines from Australia, South Africa, France, Germany, and Spain.)

Here are some pictures from dinner and another round of Dingle Pub fronts.

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Dingle Pubs – Part Three

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Best weather day yet. No rain until at night, still relatively mild, and we even had a sun sighting or two. That’s rare for Dingle at Christmas time.

Elaine took her morning walk and we had just yogurt and granola for breakfast. Then we took Grom out for a spin around Slea Head Drive, Ireland’s prettiest drive. It’s magnificent when the sun shines brightly, but it’s beautiful any time. One advantage to seeing it now is that there are no tour buses on the road. Lunch was at John Benny’s Pub (no relation to Jack). Dinner was at home – leftover steak, Rogan Josh, and veg. And wine, of course. And some more of those delicious mini mince pies with whipped cream for dessert. After dinner we wandered downtown for a walkabout and some drinks (Guinness for me; Hot whiskeys for Elaine) Pictures will tell the story.

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A Drive Around Slea Head

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Lunch at John Benny’s

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Cocktails at Sunset (4:30 PM)

Downtown for a Few After Dinner

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The Pubs of Dingle (Part II)

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

Christmas Day is Dingle’s quietest day of the year, so there not a lot to report. We slept late. Elaine made breakfast. The eggs in Europe taste so much better than at home. And we had rashers of bacon from Micilín Muc (Mikey the Pig). Yummy

After breakfast we took a long into town one way and back over the hill past the house we will be staying in come April. It was mercifully dry. In fact it hasn’t rained much at all save for our first day here. And it’s relatively mild – temps in the mid 40’s. Everything in Dingle was closed, as expected, except for St Mary’s Church, so we had a look around and lit some candles.

A Walk Through Dingle Town

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We had cocktails in front of the tree and opened the presents that Santa left. A 2019 Dingle calendar for me. And two sets of string lights from Grainne’s shop for Elaine that she wanted for Christmas 2019 in Scottsdale.

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Dinner was at home. Beautiful hand cut strip steaks from Mr Kennedy’s. Potatos au gratin. Locally grown carrots. And a nice bottle of French pinot noir. Alas, there are no local wines in Ireland, but we make do.

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Since I have a bit of a bug, it was off to bed early for a long night’s sleep.

Wren’s Day (Boxing Day, St Stephen’s Day)

Still a bit under the weather, but I soldiered on as best I could. I stopped in SuperValu in the morning for some nice cheese and crackers and grapes for tonight’s dinner. Elaine made hamburgers for lunch and I had a last nap before we headed into town.

I’ll let pictures tell the story. We had drinks, as usual, in O’Flaherty’s and the Dingle Pub. We also stopped in a new pub (for us), Nelliefreds. The bartender was a hoot and we made friends with a local named Neville who had previously worked in both O’Flaherty’s and the Dingle Pub. In fact, we talked to lots of nice people during the day. Sarcastic Trump masks are a very popular costume.

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It’s the day after Christmas. No post today. Will do a double post tomorrow.

It was overcast by dry except for brief sprinkles on Christmas Eve. We had a quiet day. Elaine went for a long walk early in the morning. While she was gone, I was doing the blog. Before she got home I drove into town to 1) pay Grainne the rest of the rent (which I forgot to do yesterday), 2) pick up an extra good bottle of wine for Christmas dinner and some more fire logs, and 3) have a walk around and start photographing all the pubs of Dingle.

We had lunch at home – sandwiches and potato crisps (not chips in Ireland!) I took a brief nap and then we went for another walk through town together. We stopped at the Dingle Pub for a pint and to wish our friends a Happy Christmas. Then we stopped at O’Flaherty’s to have a pint and to wish our friends a Happy Christmas. Good thing we only know people in two pubs.

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We had cocktails by our Christmas tree with a Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers Christmas CD playing. Dinners was home made Chicken Rogan Josh with peas. Delicious. For dessert we had scrumptious mini mince pies with whipped cream. Grainne gave us the pies (made by a friend of her’s). Even Elaine, not a mince pie fan, had to admit that these are delicious.

Then, guess what? BED! See you on Christmas. Happy Christmas to All and to All a Good Night.

The Pubs of Dingle Chapter One

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Click on the top of a pic in a gallery to bring up a scrollable window with full size pictures – the gallery previews show just cropped thumbnails of the pictures

Sunday – Typical Dingle weather – overcast and occasional rain, temperature in the upper 40’s. No sign of sun today. The long range forecast suggests we won’t see much sun while we are here.

Quiet day. We slept in, getting up at about 8:30 just as it started to get light out. In the morning we drove by the house we will be staying in when we return for six weeks in late April. It’s owned by the same lady, Grainne Kavanagh, from whom we rent this apartment at Water’s Edge House. She and her brother each owned two of the four apartments here. She has sold this one to help finance the house she is buying to live in herself. €435,000. She owns three other rental houses as well, and she owns and manages the Coach House, a high end interior design shop here in Dingle.

We stopped in at the Coach House to deliver Grainne a Christmas present – a nice bottle of French wine. Then we stopped in a few shops to pick up some items we needed and also returned to Garvey’s SuperValu to get all the provisions that we didn’t get on our first visit yesterday. Oh, and we visited Jerry Kennedy’s butcher shop where Mr. Kennedy cut me off two delicious looking sirloin strips that will be Christmas dinner on Tuesday. And we picked up some locally grown Maharee’s potatoes at O’Connor’s Fruit and Veg. Best tasting potatoes in the world!

We had lunch at home and rested up for dinner tonight and a visit to a pub or two. Today is the traditional Twelve Pubs of Christmas when Dingle’s young go out in groups to have at least one drink in twelve different pubs. Oh, to be young again. Elaine and I do the Two Pubs of Christmas – the Dingle Pub and O’Flaherty’s.

Dinner was at James Ashe’s Bar and Restaurant, one of our favorite spots. Read their history on the link. We started with Kir Royales. Then I had six local Glenbeigh oysters (scrumptious!) while Elaine enjoyed Gambas Pil-Pil (Shrimp Spanish style). For our mains, I had the special, Monkfish Scampi, while Elaine ate Roasted Local Scallops and Pork Belly. A great French pinot noir. No desserts.

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Then it was off to the pubs. A fun night. We were home by 11:00 and off to bed.

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