Monday in Dingle – Blog Catch-Up

FRIDAY

We spent a relatively quiet day. Drove to nearby Mussenden Temple, a National Trust site, and happened to encounter a wedding taking place in the temple. Also met an annoyingly talkative (one way conversationalist) bus driver who was shuttling wedding guests in his restored antique bus. Then we had lunch at a mountain overlook with a view of Benone Strand.

SATURDAY

This was the longest driving day of the trip, so we didn’t expect to have much to do, but there were two unexpected developments and a wonderful dinner. The drive is about seven hours, mostly motorway from Belfast to Dublin and on to Limerick, then normal Irish two-lane roads the rest of the way. It being Saturday, traffic was light except for some congestion around Dublin.

We made a couple of rest stops along the way. One was in Barrack Obama’s ancestral Irish town of Moneygall (population 300). Moneygall is the home to Obama’s great-great-great grandfather on his mother’s side. There is a service area located on the motorway here. We had to stop if only for Jane and Fred. We even had our lunch at a picnic table in town.

Then we arrived in Dingle to find that it was mobbed for the Dingle Tradfest (music festival).. We’ve never seen Dingle so crowded! Before checking in at Greenmount House, we stopped at the Dingle Pub to have a pint with publican and friend, Tom Geaney. Music at the pubs in Dingle usually starts between 9:00 and 10:00 PM, but because of the festival, there were multiple events scheduled throughout the day. We got there at 3:00 PM and to our luck we discovered that Tom’s son, David, was scheduled for a dance performance at 3:30 (which means about 4:00 in Irish scheduling). David Geaney, age 19, is a five time world champion Irish dancer. We also know David’s grandfather, Eddie, who was the publican at the pub before Tom took over. He brought David over and introduced us. He is a very poised and polite young man. We sat at the bar, chatted with Tom, and watched David perform right in front of us. Video is next to impossible to upload to my blog.  I do have a pretty good video which I upload sometime later when I work out some technical glitches.

Checking in Greenmount House threatened to be a potential crisis as Garreth, the young manager, told me immediately that he had screwed up our reservation (made months earlier) and didn’t have our room available for the first night. Uh, oh! But he had also had an amazingly good solution. His parents, the former managers, have just finished renovating a home in Dingle near the seafront, and they had agreed to let us stay there for the night (or, at our option, for the whole four nights).

We settled in and definitely decided to stay in the house for all four nights. It meant a leisurely walk or short drive back to Greenmount House for breakfast, but once settled in, we didn’t want to move.

Dinner was at our go-to Dingle restaurant, the Chart House (no connection to the US chain). We know Jim, the proprietor and his wife, and we were greeted like the old friends we are. Dinner was grand! Most of the food is locally sourced. After Kir Royales, pictures best describe what we had to eat:

SUNDAY

The weather continues to be unbelievably good. More sun. No rain. We drove from our house up to Greenmount House for breakfast and dropped off some laundry for them to do for us. Then we drove to the gas station to top off the tank. And we discovered through some posters and some inquiries at the gas station that the Bhéal Bhán races were on for today at 1:30. These are horse races on the beach at Smerwick Strand in Ballyferriter, so that cemented our plans for the day.

We drove over to Ballyferriter at noon and secured a good parking spot for the races. This is real horse racing complete with bookies taking bets. The jockeys are pre-apprentice – i.e., they are very young, some as young as nine or ten. They can only ride in these sub-apprentice races until they are fifteen; then they have to graduate to become real apprentices at the major tracks or “retire” from being jockeys. There were 11 races, but we only stayed for four. I hit one of the four races because I bet on a jockey whose mother we had met and chatted with near the sandy paddock.

Then we went back to the Dingle Pub for a couple of pints and a little conversation with Tom Geaney. We learned that Tom has two nephews, one from each brother, who will be playing for Kerry against Donegal in the All-Ireland Irish Football championship game next Sunday. Up Kerry! There was a duet playing pleasant instrumental Irish music, but the crowd was much less than on Saturday as the music Tradfest winded down.

Dinner tonight was at James Ashe’s Restaurant – we had booked a table yesterday. I had local Glenbeigh oysters (from County Kerry) to start while Elaine had Glenbeigh mussels. Elaine had her new favorite fish, hake, for her main while I had delicious cod prepared Cajun style. No desserts. The family that still owns Ashe’s is well known in County Kerry, and it has been open since 1849. Gregory Peck, a cousin whose grandmother was an Ashe from Dingle, visited here a number of times, and his family continues to drop in when in Ireland. Several picture of Gregory and his wife Veronique Passani with the Ashes are on the wall.

MONDAY

We walked to and from Greenmount House for breakfast (which was delicious as usual). Then we had a walk about Dingle. We went to St. Mary’s Church where Doc and Lena attended mass back when they visited us here many years ago. It was a normal Sunday mass but also a funeral mass for publican Tom Sheehy. Both Doc and Lena talked about that experience for years and years. We bought some flowers to leave at the church, and Elaine lit candles in her mother’s memory.

It being yet another perfect weather day, we took a ride around beautiful Slea Head revisiting many of our favorite scenic wonders. It is one of the most beautiful drives on earth. We stopped in pretty Ballydavid by the harbor for a lunch outside a pub on picnic tables by the sea. Lovely. The bartender was a transplanted Chicagoan.

Then we stopped at the fish market in Dingle and bought some seafood chowder for tonight’s dinner at home. All-in-all a brilliant day. Come back tomorrow for our last day in Dingle.