At 5 PM on Nollaig na mBan, we headed to O’Flaherty’s. Fergus is the leader of the Dingle Drum and Fife Band, so events involving the band start there. This article describes yesterday’s events. It has inaccuracies. This is not the first year, but the second that the band moved the march from New Year’s Eve until Nollaig na mBan. And it started at 5 PM, not 6 PM. We marched with the band and it’s police escort for the first part of their march. It was a nice quiet event, not the fiasco usually encountered when the march was on New Year’s Eve. It’s a nice tradition.

Then a final pint at Curran’s and home to finish parking and go to bed.

Sunday morning broke bright and clear and COLD. Frost on the lawn and on the car.

I had to warm the car up for 15 minutes to clear the frost off the windows. First frost I remember in Dingle. The drive to Dublin was weird. Clear when we left but soon we were in heavy fog. Then just before we stopped for lunch at the Barrack Obama Plaza in Moneygall, it cleared up again and there was more bright sunshine. Back on the road – more fog until we approached Dublin when it cleared again. I stopped for the obligatory picture of the Dingle Peninsula coast near the town of Camp. (Damn telephone pole. I could photoshop it out if I had time.)

At the Crowne Plaza there were horses and carts for rides in the huge park across the street. We demurred. Wine in the room. A nice dinner in the hotel dining room. A nice sleep. And off to the airport late morning for 3 PM flight to LA. We’ll overnight in LA and be home Tuesday at noon.

That’s it for the blog. See you in Norway in May.

Nollaig na mBan is Irish for Woman’s Christmas. When Sue and I were growing up, I remember January 6th being called “Little Christmas” and we took down the tree and decorations. (Do you remember, Sue?) That is sort of synonymous with Woman’s Christmas. In any case, Nollaig na mBan in Ireland is officially the last day of Christmas, and it is believed that taking down your Christmas tree or decorations before January 6th would bring bad luck. This tradition is still widely accepted today in Ireland.

A good article about Nollaig na mBan is here.

In religious circles January 6th is often referred to as Epiphany. That seems to be unrelated to the Irish tradition.

In Dingle the local fife and drum band (led by Fergus O’Flaherty) used to march through the town on New Year’s Eve. As Dingle became a destination for New Year’s Eve, the crowds often became unruly as young people from all over Ireland came here to be drunk and to celebrate. All the pubs needed security to keep the drunks out. Then Covid hit and it was all cancelled for two years. Post covid, Dingle has become a NYE destination once again, noted for a great fireworks show and lots of partying. But the local government and the fife and drum bands decided the tradition of the march through town was too dangerous to continue. Now that march of the fife and drum band has been rescheduled to Nollaig na mBan. 

So what did we do on Nollaig na mBan? The weather was uncharacteristically bright and sunny when we woke up. Could it be our third straight sunny day? I made my own breakfast. Then we have packing and cleaning to do, but . . . 

So we hopped in Le Grand Bleu and took the short drive up the top of Conor Pass above the town. The views are wonderful. Anyway, controversy is brewing. Most of the land directly at the top of Conor Pass is owned by an American. All the land is undeveloped and used for nothing except sheep grazing. But the American has decided to sell his land for $10.5 million. The people want the Irish government to buy it and create a national park. The government seems amenable to the plan but at nowhere near $10 million. Right now the situation is at an impasse. I was thinking of buying it to 1) build a house for us, 2) put up a multi structure pay parking lot for visitors,, 3) add a gas station and convenience store, 4) put in a motel and restaurant, and 5) charge admission. Here are pictures from the small (12 cars) parking lot at the summit.

Looking Toward Castlegregory and Brandon

Looking Toward Dingle Town

We had lunch at John Benny’s Pub, It’s always good. It’s quite near Out of the Blue (where Elaine looks longingly in the window) which is currently closed for the season. At Benny’s Elaine had sausages and leeks. I had steak and Guinness pie, We both drank West Kerry Brewery red ale.

More Nollaig Na mBan pictures and video in next post (which will be from the hotel in Dublin).

Great fire in the firebox last night.

Well, time to start winding down. Today is our penultimate (I love that word!) in Dingle. And the weather was darn good. Lots of sun with just the occasional brief spots of rain. We had two different rainbows. We didn’t do much. Returned library books. Lit candles in the church. Had a pint at Curran’s. Had another at O’Flaherty’s. We haven’t seen much of Fergus O’Flaherty this trip. His sons pretty much run the bar these days. But he was there today behind the bar, and we had a nice long conversation with him as we were his sole customers at that moment.

Our last dinner out in Dingle. It was at the Half Door and it just grand. Conor O’Connor is the son of the former owners, and he now runs the place. He’s the chef while his wife Eileen runs the front of the house. The wine was a German pinot noir. Elaine had terrine of duck confit for her starter followed by cod served in a sauce of lobster bisque. I had delicious Glenbeigh oysters from nearby Cromane followed by a whole black sole served on the bone. I don’t usually order fish on the bone because it can a mess to eat successfully. Glenbeigh oysters are in running for best oysters in the world (although the ones from Île de Ré in France are tough to beat). Pictures below including black sole on the bone and the bones when I finished. I deboned it like a professional! There was no room for dessert.

Wednesday

Well, Wednesday was rainy. Of course. We ventured out for lunch only. We had the usual great fish and chips at the Fish Box. The Fish Box usually stays open throughout the year, but it too is closing next week for two to three months as they double the size of the seating area and greatly expand the kitchen.

Other than that, we stayed home. We had a roaring fire in the fire box and cocktails by the fire. Nothing else to report.

Thursday

We awoke this morning to sunshine. Could it last?  There hasn’t been a day yet when it would have been worthwhile to venture west onto Slea Head Drive for the views. Oh well, we’ll give it a shot. The sun lasted! Here are the Slea Head Drive views on the most beautiful drive in the world. (You’ve seen them all before, but they always look great!)

First, some pictures of Water’s Edge House. There are four almost identical condos, two on the top and two on the bottom. We previously stayed in the one top right as you face the building. This time we are below that in Unit #2. The sea views are taken from in front of the building looking left and right.

First stop on our ride was at Ventry Beach with it’s holiday trailers. That’s Elaine walking down the beach in the first photo.

Along the drive

At Louis Mulcahy Pottery. Elaine’s sister Ann spent about $1 million here back when she visited.

At Clogher Strand, my favorite beach. The cows are looking at me strangely. Don’t they remember me?

Finally a couple of pictures as we took the back road over the hill back to Dingle.

A very nice day! Glad we got a good weather day in. After that, I had one at Curran’s and we had dinner at home in front of another fire.

As I said yesterday, we finally saw some prolonged sunshine. Elaine got to take a walk and I drove in to meet her at SuperValu. Just to prove there actually was sunshine looking out our windows:

Click all photos to enlarge

Dinner at Solas was grand as usual. Ann and Nicky, who run the place, have become good friends, The food was delicious. I look old and tired. Hopefully that’s partly because of the bad cold I continue to battle as opposed to impending death. (Little joke, sort of) Solas closes Thursday night until March. The Half Door where we eat Friday closes this weekend until the end of March. And the Chart House closed last night until March when we were the last ones to leave the building. Restaurant-wise, Dingle will be pretty desolate for the rest of January and February.

We shared, amongst a couple of other things:

Solas Confit Tomatoes with Grilled Bacus Sour Dough Bread (YUM)

Pino Doncel Wine from Spain

Queen Scallop Ceviche with Apple, Ginger, & Soy

Moorish Spiced Chorizo Sausages

Annascual Belly of Pork with Carrot and Anise and Sesame and Grilled Baby Gem

There was no room for dessert! As we left it was still rain free, so we walked up Green Street past St Mary’s Church and had a drink at Curran’s and watched some of the British World Dart’s Championship from London. It was the semifinals. The eventual winner will get £500,000. For throwing darts! One of the semifinalists is 16 years old. Women compete in the same competition but all (two, I think) were eliminated early on.

Then it was home to bed.

A new year. January 1st marked my return to the living. We went out to dinner. The weather remains miserable – wind and rain, heavy at times. But it dried out Monday night and we headed out for our dinner at the Chart House. Usually one of the busiest (because it’s best) in town, it was oddly quiet on New Year’s Day. It’s their last night before closing for a 2½ month break, reopening in March. The restaurant is owned by Jim McCarthy who is by now a good friend. His hostess who also serves is named Susan McCarthy. She and Elaine have always hit it off. With the restaurant so quiet, they had a lot of time to chit chat. We were the last ones to leave the restaurant and sad goodbyes were exchanged until next time (undetermined).

We had parked across the street in front of O’Flaherty’s Pub, so we popped in for a pint. We both had Smithwick’s. Oddly since being sick I have lost my taste for Guinness.

Then home to bed.

It was cloudy when we got up but, miracle of miracles, the skies cleared and we had sun in the morning. Elaine went for a walk. I’m still recovering. I leave in five minutes to drive in to meet her. We will pick up some groceries for our last few days and return some library books.

Dinner will be out again tonight (at Solas). Our last meal out will be Friday at the Half Door.

Back at you tomorrow. Sorry for the lack of pictures. The weather has not been conducive (to say the least).

Can you translate Irish? It’s Happy New Year.

Well, what can I say? Not much. What with the weather, we scrubbed plans to visit a pub or two (or three) for a pint or two. Elaine bet me a Euro that the fireworks work go on as scheduled. That would have been nice as we have a good view of the site from our windows. Well, I am a Euro richer. Fireworks cancelled due to extreme weather conditions. If they sent fireworks up at Dingle Harbor, they would have exploded over Tralee some 25 miles away.

We had nice hors d’oeuvres instead, served in front of a roaring fire in the fire box. We made some mulled wine, but it was awful, so I had Dingle gin and tonic while Elaine had plain pinot noir. Delicious bread (from the SuperValu, no less), goose liver paté, cheese, and apple slices. We brought the Christmas candle that my sister sends us every year with us to Dingle. We lit that to celebrate the arrival of 2024. Don’t be fooled by the seemingly calm conditions out the window – it’s wet and wild out there.

As a special flashback moment, here are two videos that appeared on the blog back in 2018 – the Dingle fireworks from better weather days and taken from Water’s Edge House where we are now:

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This will short and not too sweet. As Elaine reminds me, I always get sick somehow in Ireland. I thought I had passed that obstacle with my stomach virus thingie awhile back. But no! Now a sore throat and congestion. Saturday was a lost day – we stayed in. I had scrambled eggs for dinner after we cancelled our reservations at the Half Door – no sense getting their staff and customers sick as well. It was a long Saturday night – I could hardly swallow. (By the way, I do NOT have Covid. I tested! Taking Panadol Cold and Flu which seems to help some.)

Anyway, I was much better Sunday morning (YAY!), but we still decided to take it easy. It 2 PM now. Maybe we will have an early pint at the pub before settling in for cheese, crackers, paté, and mulled wine in front of a roaring fire. We will be able to see the airborne portion of the fireworks from our window. If there are fireworks, that is. The weather has been fierce – 40-50 mph winds and bouts of lashing rain that may never hit the ground since it seems to be going sideways. I cannot imagine they will have fireworks if the winds are blowing 40 mph.

More on that tomorrow. Yikes, as I write this sentence, the sun came out. It won’t stay out.

Looking for something to do? Read columnist Dave Barry’s End of the Year Review. It’s, as usual, hilarious. I just finished reading it on the Boston Globe site. It’s also here.

Irish weather, as usual. Periods of sun. Rain. Wind. We successfully moved from 18 Ard Na Mara to Water’s Edge House. We were all settled in by 9:30 AM.

It was a do nothing kind of day. Some shopping for essentials. A stop at the pub for me. Dinner was at home – chicken with potatoes and fresh carrots with honey.

The big happening of the day was the concert we attended in St Mary’s Church is support of the Billy Riordan Trust.

The story of the Riordan Trust is sad but uplifting. Mags Riordan is a local woman who lost her son when he drowned in Lake Malawi in Africa. Here is her story:

In February 1999 my only son Billy was drowned in Lake Malawi. He was just twenty five. He had visited the small African country on several occasions and had grown to love the country, its people and in particular the village of Cape Maclear. It was ironic that in his last letter to me he referred to Cape Maclear as “Paradise”. He lost his life in paradise less than 48 hours later.

One year later in February 2000 I travelled to Cape Maclear to place a memorial stone by the Lake in his memory. I spent three months there getting to know the villagers and their way of life.

I returned to the village five times over the next two and a half years spending some time teaching in the primary school. I wanted to identify a project to undertake in the village in Billy’s memory. An outbreak of cholera and continual deaths from malaria and simple childhood diseases very soon made me realise that a medical clinic in the village was not just necessary but essential. For these people medical treatment was almost non-existent. There was no clinic, doctor or nurse here and the nearest hospital is in Mangochi, a difficult four hour journey away. I decided to return to home which is Dingle, County Kerry in Ireland and try to raise the money to build a clinic in Cape Maclear.

The Billy Riordan Memorial Trust was formed and with the generosity of the community at home, and the local chief who donated the land for the Clinic, the original Billy Riordan Memorial Clinic was opened in 2004.

22 years later the clinic has expanded considerably and today it provides a wide range of medical services to the community. The staffing structure has altered. Working with our partners to provide a sustainable and secure future for the Billy Clinic is an ongoing challenge. My personal commitment to my work as CEO of the charity and to the maintenance of acceptable standards of best practice at the clinic continues as strongly as always.

Mags is now trying to add a maternity unit to the clinic and upgrade it to a community hospital. The concert is to raise funds. The musicians are all very well known locally and perform gratis. Eleanor Shanley and Éilís Kennedy are probably the best known. The concert was grand.

Before the Show

During the Show

Some nighttime photos looking out from Water’s Edge House across the waters of Dingle Bay. The Christmas tree is in the apartment above us.

After returning from Killarney, we spent most of the day napping and getting ready to move tomorrow from 18 Ard Na Mara to #2 Water’s Edge House, another Grainne and Marion property. Dinner was at the Chart House, our favorite Dingle restaurant (No, it’s not connected to the US chain and it’s the only Dingle restaurant that is Michelin rated. We have known Susan and Jim at the Chart House since back in 2001. Here’s a potpourri of pictures from the day.

It rained off and on all day, but we had some nice bright spells. From the backyard at 18 Ard Na Mara.

Dinner was grand. Kir Royales to start. The wine was Tin Pot Hut, a pinot noir from New Zealand. We both had the delicious Chart House seafood chowder to start. Then I had rack of lamb while Elaine enjoyed her hake. For dessert it was rhubarb parfait with a ginger crust.

As we walked to O’Flaherty’s just up the street, the moon was shining brightly.

On Friday morning we moved our tack and settled into our new digs. Water’s Edge House is where we stayed for our Christmas’s here in 2017 and 2018. Another concert tonight (in Dingle). See you tomorrow.