The Dingle Peninsula

From Killarney we headed west to the Dingle peninsula. Jutting out into the cold Atlantic, the journey along Slea Head and the Wild Atlantic Way leads to the western most point on the mainland with views of the mist shrouded Blasket Islands on the horizon. This is a region of Gaeltacht, a bastion of Irish heritage where the traditional language and culture are embraced and Gaelic is the voice of songs, shop signs, and small talk.

The landscape is wild and remote. The locals love to say that “the next town over is Boston”. When it rains it doesn’t so much fall as blast in horizontally from the storm-gray North Atlantic. But when we were there the sun was shining if not entirely warm, and the mist had receded to the far horizon.

Dingle, as you would expect, is a fishing village with restaurants serving salmon, sole and mussels caught that morning in the cold Atlantic, but it's also become a fabulous foodie town. Celebrated chefs from all over Ireland (and beyond) are attracted here not only for the abundance of seafood but also for the salty march grasses and seaweeds used for broths and wraps, locally grown organic produce, grass fed lamb and beef, and locally made, award winning cheeses. There's also the superb gin from the Dingle Distillery flavored with local botanicals, rowanberries, hawthorne, heather, and fuchsia. Then there are the bakeries! And the butchers! And the cheesemakers! And the ice cream! Not to mention the plethora of pubs with local beers and local musicians playing local music. This is a place that gives real voice to the national Irish greeting, "Ceád Míle Faílte," a hundred thousand welcomes.

As we rounded the wide curve where Castlemaine harbor opens to the ocean there’s a beckoning view of the North Atlantic. Inch beach, despite its name is not the smallest beach in the world, but a wide flat tideland, a long peninsula really, and it’s a haven for the hearty Irish surfing crowd. If it were twenty degrees warmer and we hadn’t become such cold weather wimps since moving to Mexico, we’d have walked its entire length but the draw was still so irresistible that we had to walk, seemingly forever, to the water’s edge 'til the outgoing tide lapped at the tips of our shoes.

This is where David Lean, director of the film "Lawrence of Arabia" built a stone house on the side of a hill for his filming of "Ryan's Daughter". Farther down the Wild Atlantic Way is where Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman starred in "Far and Away", and the remote island of Skellig Michael off the tip of the peninsula was used in the filming of the latest "Star Wars" epic.

As seems to be the case all over this island, epochs collide and the past and present sit tolerantly side by side. Prehistoric stone monuments stand like silent sentinels of the past scattered across the landscape and the farms. The ancient beehive huts or ringforts, stone piled on stone without mortar, used now for sheep pastures or pig shelters still stand in great abundance after more than a thousand years.

A short distance down the road the bones of a Famine Cottage stand defiantly on the side of a hill staring blankly across an open field toward another  prehistoric stone complex perched precariously atop the bluff. The cottage and the surrounding grounds are preserved as they were in the mid-1840’s when the potato crop rotted in the fields, a million people died, and a million more emigrated from Ireland with the hope of a finding better life. 

Stone stacking is an ancient and sometimes religious impulse, but it's a way of life in Ireland, both commonplace and high-art. Stone cairns lead lost hikers to the safety of a trail, stone walls define pastures and farms, and guide sheep from one grazing ground to another, stone monuments bear witness to deeds and graves, and stone chapels lead the faithful to a place beyond the hardships of their daily toils. The thousand year old Gallarus Oratory combines all these things. Its origins and purpose have been lost to the ages but it still holds visitors spellbound standing as it does in stark solitude in defiance of the years and the endless battering of the North Atlantic. 

Like much of Ireland, the Dingle peninsula is remarkable for its stark and rugged beauty. The stone walls and monuments bear silent and reverent witness to the toils of previous generations. It's easy to imagine how the famous Irish hospitality could be born of such natural beauty and remote isolation.