Ceide Fields and Dunbriste

A totally duded-up Cooper S right there on the coast road; nobody home

6,000 year old stone wall at Ceide Fields

Downpatrick Head and the sea stack, from Ceide Fields

The blow hole on Downpatrick Head, 100 meters or so from the cliff edge, enormous...

The sea stack, Dunbriste; it separated from the Head in 1393; two families were isolated, later rescued

After lunch, we drove on to Ballycastle, just beyond it, to the Ceide Fields. In the last couple decades, archaeologists have discovered, surveyed, and partly excavated a neolithic system of fields encompassing many hundreds of acres—all bounded by stone fences, structures—that date back to the 4th millennium BC, 6,000 years. It is the largest neolithic site yet discovered, anywhere. Relatively little has been excavated, but there is a good modern museum and brief guided tours. The Ceide Fields lie beneath an enormous blanket peat bog, 1-2 meters deep generally, and thus their preservation. (No decomposition in bogs, where there is little oxygen.) Ireland was heavily forested in neolithic times, pine, hazel and elm. Clearing the forests made herding and grain-growing possible, but it eventually led to super-saturated ground that becomes the bog.

The Ceide Fields run right down to the cliffs and the sea, and not far from them is one of County Mayo's most famous sights, Downpatrick Head, and the sea stack there, Dunbriste. Finding and walking out to Dunbriste, past the enormous blowhole in the middle of the cliffs, was another incredible treat and a fine way to end the day. We camped, under gathering rain clouds, at Ballina.

Don't Pass Up the Mayo

Our negotiations with shippers, brokers, agents, bankers, customs officials, and others seemingly at an end (thank you, Rebecca), we took the day to explore the Hamburg centrum, mostly on foot. (See Vicki's blog for descriptions of the interesting circumstances regarding the shipping of the Grey Wanderer). It is a very old city, capital of the Hanseatic League before there was a Germany; but little of the really old remains. It is nonetheless an attractive city, with much to see and explore. Good beer, Bitburger, is 49 cents a half-liter bottle. FWIW. A bottle of Riesling was a buck, I mean, Euro. Somehow I resisted visiting the U-boat museum. Our explorations included the railway station ("Ich gehe zum Bahnhof"--some of my two years of German is coming back, slowly, in iotas..."the awful German language"), where we purchased tickets for tomorrow's ride to the port of Bremerhaven. Hopefully, we'll pick up the Grey Wanderer there on Friday. If not, we'll be at a hostel in Bremerhaven until we do....

The Turlough Round Tower Fitzgerald Manor House, now part of the National Folk Museum A Lyrachord, only one ever made, part piano, part harpsichord Hide boat at National Folk Museum Exhibit, National Folk Museum 

Ascent of the Reek

Croach Parick, about 2,500 feet; this is the mountain on which the saint did Lent, 441AD, also from which he expelled the serpents and other unsavory things, etc.

I did not follow these rules exactly; nor did I see anyone else doing anything but praise the view and curse the steep scree and talus trail...

The pilgrims' trail, from the pass

Pilgrims must not trash the mountain!

The summit chapel

Clew Bay from the summit

Fields of peat on the other side

Aran Islands

Our encampment on Galway Bay

The Promenade, near Salthill, Galway Bay

Dun Anghus, another iron-age, pre-Christian fortress, on Inismor, Aran Islands

The view from Dun Anghus' west side...they didn't build a wall here

Me peering, cautiously, over the edge, an overhang with the sea 300 feet below

The "Seven Churches" area, Inismor

Aran Islands ferries

Building a new harbor on Inismor

County Mayo scene

Burren

A dolmen on the Burren

The Burren

Includes mountains as well as valleys, goes on for miles

Burren flowers, early spring

Silversmith makes pendant as Vicki looks on

Cliffs of Moher

Crossing the Shannon was a breeze, on the "Shannon Breeze"

Home for sale, prior to de-cluttering and staging (evidently they didn't watch "Design to Sell")

Cliffs of Moher

More Cliffs of Moher

Reminder not to walk to close to the edge

West Coast Ireland

Evening of May 12th: there's been way too much to account for the past several days. I'll have to let the pictures in subsequent posts provide most of the description.

May 9th we began the day with a tour of the 6th-7th century Gallarus Oratory, a small but impressive stone-roofed church structure that was adjacent to our campground. Gallarus is often pictured in the guidebooks. (A larger but newer stone structure, with stone roof, was a restaurant at Slea Hand, the previous day.) From Gallarus we crossed the mountains again, via Connor Pass, drove to Castlegregory and had lunch at the end of the spit near there, a place called, I think, Rough End. And from there we drove on to Tralee and its nice campground. After dinner, we did the town, first taking in the National Folk Theatre of Ireland's Sam Am Fado, “The Long Ago,” a musical and dance celebration of traditional Ireland (rural), structured around the four seasons. All live and in a small but very plush theater, it was a treat. All in Irish too. From there, we did the pub thing, again, at Sean Og's Drinking Consultants in Tralee. It was Saturday night and the place was mobbed but good-natured and fun. More Guiness, too. I've been drinking mostly Murphy's when on my own. Much cheaper at the grocery stores.

From Tralee the next day we drove on through more of County Kerry, then into County Limerick and the ferry across the River Shannon estuary (18 euros for the car and us). Our goals for the day were the Cliffs of Moher and later the Burren area. The cliff were impressive, and crowded, one of those obligatory Irish sites. The Burren was also interesting though not so dramatic. They are a huge limestone over-lay, mountains and valleys covered by limestone, where little grows but the flowers-- some not seen elsewhere in Ireland--that can survive in the crevasses. In the Burren we found a road-side silversmith who made Vicki a pendant with her name in Ogham/Irish. See illustrations. From the Burren we drove on to pretty Galway, settling for the night at a campground in Salthill. Our site was right on Galway Bay, and before dinner we enjoyed a late afternoon promenade on the Promenade.

(I should mention that ever since the Ring of Kerry the weather has been fine, sunny, still a bit cool for us who sleep outside (down to 39 degrees last night), and windy, but few clouds and no rain. We're making the most of it).

May 11th, Monday, we drove the short distance to Rosaveel and caught the 10:30AM ferry to Inishmor, the largest of the Aran Islands ("The Big Island” they call it), out beyond Galway Bay. The Arans are famous isolated communities; famous also for their hand-knitted sweaters. We joined a small tour and did the island, the very impressive pre-Christian cliff-side Dun Anghus stone fort, the seven churches area, the end of the island, and the town. Our guide, a life-long Aran resident and former fisherman, was a talker—come to think of it, we've encountered no Irish who did not want to talk—and we learned much about the history of and contemporary life on the island. Vicki could not withstand the temptation of buying a sweater and gloves. After returning on the 5PM ferry, we drove on, had a look at the Connemara country, the Twelve Bens (mountains), and ended up in a campground near Clifden.

Today, Tuesday, the 12th, we drove past Westport to Murrisk at the foot of Croagh Patrick, popularly known as “The Reek,” the national mountain, which I climbed in the afternoon. That will be a separate post, too. Vicki spent the day relaxing and reading. We are camped in Castlebar.

Gallarus Oratory, a 6th-7th century chapel

Potato fields high up in Dingle, never re-planted after the
Famine

One of many interesting Dingle town storefronts

At the National Folk Theatre of Ireland's Sam Am Fado,
“The Long Ago"

Sean Og's Drinking Consultants, Tralee

Dingle

Just up the road from Skibbereen, another picture-perfect dolmen, no notice nor signage, guarded by a lone sheep

The Skellig Rocks, far off the Iveragh coast, an important Celtic Christian monastic site

A typical Dingle scene, near the pass between Camp and Dingletown

Ogham Stones at the Ventry Manor House, near Dingle town, Celtic Christian era, with earliest known written Irish, a cipher of straight lines...sort of a bar-code pre-cursor

Dunbeg Fort, on the sea cliffs near Slea Hand, Ireland's western-most point; another iron-age fort

View from Dunbeg, Iveragh Peninsula in distance

Amid morning squalls we drove on around the Ring of Kerry. Vicki was impressed with the drive and scenery. I was less so. The Iveragh Peninsula is too much rock for me, too barren, too little green, and also not enough scenery of the sea. Matters much improved for me when we got on to the Dingle Peninsula. Everywhere is green (read: agriculture), right up nearly to the tops of the mountains. And, past Dingle, the road gives ample views of the sea, the islands, the cliffs, the beaches. We drove past Dingle out to Slea Hand, the Land's End of Ireland, then back to our campground at Ballydavid and into Dingle for dinner. For me, dinner was Dingle Bay mussels in a rich cream sauce, with the merest hint of garlic. The mussels were larger than their Bantry Bay cousins, but not nearly so large and flavorful and succulent as the New Zealand green shells. Oh well, one can't have everything, at least not all at the same time. Vicki had a burger.

On the Dingle Peninsula, one is deep in Irish Gaelic country. All the road signs are in Irish only, and the English spoken here is very difficult for us to follow. The Ogham Stones pictured above were at a girls' Gaelic-only residential school near Dingle. Seeing and hearing such things is in part why one comes to places like Ireland, where there is a past and where people are valuing and preserving it, often defiantly.

Somehow in contrast are the hundreds upon hundreds of “holiday homes” and subdivisions of them one sees in these parts. Evidently, having a vacation home in Kerry or west Cork was part of the national dream, or at least part of the developers' and bankers' dreams. Many of these dwellings, mostly priced in the 500k euro realm, stand vacant or unfinished or for sale now. All the Irish banks have been nationalized, I understand. In many cases, the holiday homes stand next or near to famine houses or famine villages of the 1840s. The Irish adoption of the potato in the 1780s had its own boom, in population, and bust, in the great famine.

Kerry and Dingle

So there we were, minding our own business, driving along the A591 out toward Mizen Head at the end of the peninsula, stopping to admire the bay, when, off to the left, unheralded on road or map, appears this absolutely perfect-specimen dolmen...the place is littered with them

And then, a few miles on, right out in the bay, at low tide, are these standing stones, perhaps part of a circle (as in Brittany's Morbihan)

Off Mizen Head

Another possible flip; great, great view-shed on Dunmanus Bay

The Staigue stone fort, Kerry Ring, on the Iveragh Peninsula; 4th century AD, pre-Christian; perhaps 40-50 meters in diameter, walls 4 meters high; fortified dwelling-place of a chieftain and his retinue

Staigue interior; note staircases

Staigue exterior and the barren mountains beyond, including Carrauntoohill, Ireland's highest, at 3,414 feet; I think I'll pass; a nearby range is the charmingly named "Macgillacuddy's Reeks"

Today (Thursday) we began our drives along Ireland's fabled western peninsulas, those granite fists jutting into and temporarily defying the Atlantic. From Skibbereen we drove to Mizen Head, skipped the Beara peninsula, then to Bantry and Bantry Bay (from which I have eaten hundreds of mussels), and then across two small mountain ranges to the Kerry Ring, around the Iveragh Peninsula. We got as far as Caherdaniel and are lodged at the Travelers' Rest hostel/B&B. We are the only people here tonight, the whole building to ourselves. For us, it's all about the weather.

This May's weather, in these parts, has been unusually cool, and wet too, with mostly afternoon showers. And very, very windy. We pitched our tent last night in Skibbereen in the rain and wind, but then it cleared and the night was relatively dry. As darkness approached tonight, it was raining again, torrents, with gale winds, and we just couldn't face another night roughing it. So we found the Travelers' Rest. We are in the commons room now, by ourselves, a peat fire (how cool is that?) burning in the fireplace, Vicki reading Edward Rutherford's (author of Sarum) Dublin, me blogging away, sipping Powers' whisky. Life is good, when warm and dry, and spiritual.

Life is not so good when driving these back-country Irish roads. They are two-lane and very narrow, some really one-lane. Our car is as small as anything on the road, and we often crowd the left/passenger margins when approached by tour buses, 18-wheelers, and worst, cement-mixers, all over the line (when there is a line). The Irish seem to hog the road until the last possible moment, moving over to avoid collision. The rental car agency warned that most damage on these narrow roads is on the left/passenger side...I understand why that is the case. Vicki is terrified most of the time, distracting herself by reprogramming the GPS. The GPS, Tom, has shown an unwelcome predilection for these country roads. More reprogramming is in order, especially before we start driving the bigger rig.

Speaking of which: yesterday came the welcome news that the Otello departed Brunswick on May 4, a day early, with the Grey Wanderer aboard. The scheduled arrival in Bremerhaven now is May 18. We so want to be in that camper!