The Wolfe Tones have been together for 59 years! There used to be four of them, but one left to go on his own quite awhile back. They are the ultimate Irish Rebel Band. IRA Forever! Ireland Free from the Crown of England! Read about them here.

Back story: In 1985-ish, I was playing Sunday morning basketball with Bobby Messina and Billy Murphy. In the beer session at Amrhein’s in South Boston after playing, we ran into a clerk of court from Quincy. He persuaded us all to take tickets for a concert to be held that night at the Boston Teacher’s Union (on Galvan Blvd, I think). We all agreed to go. Billy and Mianne showed up as scheduled. So did Elaine and I. Bobby was a no show. The concert was by the Wolfe Tones (named after Irish patriot Theobald Wolfe Tone) on an American tour surreptitiously raising money for the IRA. We all had a good time.

So now it is 59 years since the band’s founding and 38 odd years since we saw them. They are doing their 60 Year Farewell Tour that ends next October in Dublin and Belfast. And tonight there were playing at INEC Arena in Killarney, just a 90-minute drive from Dingle. So back in September when the date was announced we decided to get tickets. Good thing we got them then. The concert was totally sold out. And we decided to stay overnight in Killarney at the Gleneagles Hotel which is part of the INEC campus. (INEC Arena is, by the way, the largest concert venue in Ireland outside of Dublin.)

We drove over early and checked into our very comfortable (if chilly) suite. And we had a nice late lunch / early dinner at one of the hotel restaurants. Fried brie bites followed by a quite good fish pie special.

Our room:

The hotel and our lunch:

Then at 7:30 it was off to the concert scheduled to start at 8:00 PM. Irish time, that is. The opening group (okay) started about 8:40. The Wolfe Tones came on well after 9:00 PM. The first floor of the arena was set up as standing room only. Then there is a lower balcony and an upper balcony plus two side balconies. We were midway up in the upper balcony. Very good seats but not great for picture taking or sound recording. The pictures are the best that I could do. Yes, that’s a selfie of the two of us. Directly in front of us sat a three generational family – grandfather, father, and son. The grandfather was a blast and could easily have been in the IRA back in the day. He was totally involved! There were bars about and they were very busy! Beer was flowing freely through the whole affair. We pretty much abstained until after the concert. (Yeah, weird for us, I know.) 

The Wolfe Tones played until close to 11:30 PM. They did all their classics and many, many of my favorites. I’ll link to two U-Tube presentations by the Wolfe Tones of two of my most favorite songs:

Sean South

Grace

The story of Grace Gifford and Joseph Plunkett is a heart breaking story. Read the story here.

Of course, they ended with the classics: Celtic Symphony, On the One Road, and A Nation Once Again. The crowd went wild. Here is the best video that I got:

After the concert we went back to the hotel for a quiet beer in a very busy bar and chatted with a nice family from Cork. Then it was off to bed well after midnight. We had an early breakfast (delicious!) the next morning at the hotel and headed back to Dingle. We stopped briefly at Inch Beach just to snap a picture of angry Dingle Bay. Dinner Thursday night at the Chart House, our favorite Dingle venue. More tomorrow!

Weather - very Irish – wet and windy.

Wren’s Day in the pubs and on the streets. You read about Wren’s Day in yesterday’s post. Now it’s all told in pictures. Mardi Gras meets Christmas. All in the name of fun and raising some monies for the Wren Societies charities.

Early On in the Dingle Pub

Then the bowling pins arrived.

And it got progressively wilder as the night wore on.

I went outside for a bit.

Still wild inside the Dingle Pub. Can you spot Elaine in the background?

Then it was time to move down the street to O’Flaherty’s

Ah, some videos:

A final picture. A man and his son enjoy Wren’s Day.

Tomorrow, Wednesday, we go to Killarney where we will spend the night and attend the Wolfe Tones Farewell Tour concert. We won’t get back to our Dingle house until mid-day on Thursday, so the post about the concert trip may be late.

Christmas Day was a quiet one at home after our morning drenching. We had beautful crackers and cheese (from the local Little Cheese Shop) for appetizers. Then it was grilled strip steaks with locally grown carrots (with honey) and au gratin potatoes. Wine, of course. And delicious chocolate candies for dessert,

With Kennedy’s Butcher Shop now sadly closed for good, we got our steaks from Garvey’s SuperValu. Luckily, we know John who used to work at Kennedy’s and now works at SuperValu. He cut me two nice thick Kerry beef strip steaks that were perfect.

Wren’s Day Morning

Wren Day, also known as Wren’s Day, Day of the Wren, or Hunt the Wren Day, is an Irish celebration held on 26 December, St. Stephen’s Day in a number of countries across Europe. The tradition consists of “hunting” a wren and putting it on top of a decorated pole. (Wikipedia)

It’s a dying tradition in many places. Not in Dingle! The Wikipedia link in the last paragraph explains the day in full. This article explains it the local Day version well.

It all starts in the afternoon. But this morning we took a nice (overcast but mercifully dry) morning. We stopped for a takeout coffee for Elaine and a hot chocolate for me. It was pretty quiet in town. We stopped in St Mary’s to light candles. I took lots of pictures as we walked. And we met Jacky, a local resident who is a tour guide by trade. Enjoy the pictures. I think they are mostly stuff you have not seen already.

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Joe and Jacky

More to come on the Wren and his day in tomorrow’s post. Alas, there is a yellow flag warning for rain late in the day.

Christmas Eve (Sunday)

I was back to 95% of myself, so we went into town on Sunday. We stopped in for an early lunch at James Long Gastro Pub (again). It was very busy. Elaine had a Pizza Margherita – not bad, but not like pizza at home. She took half home for Christmas breakfast. I had a cottage pie – also, not bad but too much potato and not enough meat.

Then we stopped in for Christmas cheer at Curran’s pub. Christmas drinks on the house for Christmas! – Guinness for me, Smithwicks for Elaine. Then on to the Dingle Pub where we had a nice long chat with world Irish dancing champion David Geaney, just back from a two month dance tour of Japan. Guinness for me, Hophouse 13 (made by Guinness) for Elaine. On the house for Christmas! Cheap day out.

Then it was home to relax for Christmas eve and await Santa. He came early. I got three books about Dingle and County Kerry. That will keep me busy until the plane ride home in two weeks. Elaine got a mulled wine kit (which we’ll use NY Eve), a lovely bottle of local chutney, and a turf candle. Nice cards too. We sat around the fire and enjoyed cheese and crackers and wine for dinner. You saw the fireplace picture in yesterday’s post. Here it is again – two versions – and the tree in the solarium as well reflections of the tree in the window.

Christmas Morning (Monday)

It wasn’t raining so we decided on a Christmas morning walk in a very quiet Dingle. As we left the house, there was a white rabbit there to wish us a Happy Christmas.

Everything in Dingle is closed on Christmas, even the pubs. It’s almost surreal. (Well, Moran’s Texaco Station is open until 1 PM, and they have a very nice market and lunch counter – we didn’t stop in.) We did stop in the church (which is also open) to light candles. Took a potpourri of pictures along the way. Find our reflection in the store window. Find the reflection of St Mary’s Church in Dick Mack’s Pub window. See the very deserted Main Street- Christmas is the only day you can get that shot with no one in sight.

After the picture of Main Street, we headed up the hill through fields and houses until we get back down to our street (Ard Na Mara). Naturally halfway up the skies unloaded and we got drenched with lashing rain. We were drenched through and through when we got home. Pneumonia, here I come!

Hot showers and a change of clothes. Jeans into the dryer. Shoes stuffed with newspaper to help dry them out. The rain stopped exactly when we got home. Then it was a quiet Christmas at home. Good dinner coming up. More on that later (or tomorrow).

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

I felt better as Saturday wore on. My food for the whole day was one piece of toast and a cookie. No Guinness. No Cocktail, Egad. We did briefly go to SuperValu to buy our Christmas Day dinner – two nice thick strip steaks. And to get some more wine. Otherwise we stayed home.

Tonight was the “12 Pubs of Christmas” experience. The young in Dingle travel to their choice of 12 different pubs with at least one drink in each. Think major drunkenness. We usually do our own special “2 Pubs” version, but given my bad tummy, we skipped it altogether.

It’s Sunday AM now. Christmas Eve. And I feel 98% again. We’ll go out to lunch and stop at a pub or two to wish our local acquaintances a Happy Christmas. Tonight we’ll have hors d’oeuvre and wine around the Christmas tree and open our presents.

No pictures today. Happy Christmas to All!!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we’ve no place to go
Let it rain, let it pour, let it blow

We’ll be lucky to see the sun again this trip. Egad. But we soldier on and make the best of it. 

Too windy and wet to walk. But we did get into town (via le Grand Bleu) to pick up some needed groceries. And we finally saw Gráinne at her shop, the Coach House. She and Marion, her mother, our co-landlords, left us a HUGE fruitcake for Christmas. It must weigh ten pounds. 

Then we stopped for lunch at the James Long Pub. We have eaten there before at the outside tables. That was out of the question, so we sat inside. Elaine sipped on a pint of Smithwick’s while I had a Killarney Golden Ale. (I don’t drink Guinness with food – Guinness is enough food in and of itself.) Elaine had a ham and cheese on toasted sourdough with tomato and onion with fries while I enjoyed a great Irish lamb stew with mashed potato.

Then it was a quiet afternoon at home. Dinner was leftover chorizo and penne. We ate a bit earlier than usual because tonight is one of the three concerts we will be attending while in Ireland. This one is a Christmas Concert by the Dingle New Music Choir & Orchestra in Saint Mary’s Church. Here is the group’s official photo from their web site.

The concert was grand. Bach, Chopin, Saint-Saëns, Mozart, and some traditional Christmas music. Camera were discouraged but I got a shot in before the concert started and one during the curtain call. There is also a brief recording I did during the curtain call.

Dick Mack’s pub across the street from the church looked inviting after the concert, but we demurred. Home to bed.

Rain

Wind. Fierce wind.

No walk except about town after driving in. Today was Christmas shopping day. The trip is our Christmas present, so we don’t give each other big gifts. The rule is one gift and it has to be bought in Dingle. So we split up and did our separate shopping. I cheated – three small gifts but all from the same store, so I counted them as one. To be opened Christmas eve.

One photo op while walking:

After lunch at home I went into town for the daily pint while Elaine chose to stay home and read. The Dingle Pub was closed. ??? So it was back to Curran’s Pub. Nice chats with locals whilst sipping Guinness. The Dingle Pub was open again as I walked past.

The highlight of the day was dinner at the Half Door, one of our favorite restaurants. I had oysters (finally!) followed by John Dory and Crème Brûlée. Elaine had Duke Confit followed by Cod and then Panna Cotta for dessert. The wine was a German Pinot Noir. All yummy good.

Finally a stop at the Dingle Pub for a nightcap and some night scenes of Main Street in a quiet Dingle.

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I promised a picture of le Grand Bleu. Here it is parked in front of 18 Ard Na Mara. There’s also a shot of the street.

We awoke to a cool (cold?) but mostly dry morning. There was even a rainbow.

We decided to do a walk. It rained on us a bit, but we soldiered on and it stopped. Scenes from the walk:

We stopped at St Mary’s to light some candles. See our reflection in the door?

Then we continued our walk by the harbor and back home. See the sun in the picture of the harbor. It was taken at noon and that’s as high as the sun gets at this latitude.

After a lunch at home, we ventured out again for a pint or two at Curran’s Pub. Scenes from the pub:

After the pub we got home to see sort of a sunset (at 4:30 pm). Any sunset is a rare sight in Dingle.

Dinner was at Solas, a tapas restaurant and wine bar that we first tried on our last visit and liked it. It was elevated into a favorite. A lot of our favorite restaurants in Dingle (Ashes, Out of the Blue, and Fenton’s) are closed in the winter. Dinner at Solas was grand, and we had a great chat with the owners. Amongst other selections, we had grilled sourdough with confit tomatoes, chorizo and menchego croquettes, scallops ceviche, fig tempura with goats cheese, and pork belly. The wine was a St Emilion from France.

After dinner, a quick drink at nearby Flaherty’s Pub. No music, but busy with an office party.