Day Ten – Dingle Town

Stella made a lovely (pronounced loov-lee) breakfast of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon with bacon. We are a bit road weary, but decided to follow Stella’s advice again and take an archeology tour of the peninsula. It’s raining today. Only the third day of the trip out of ten!! The tour guide of Sciuird tours.

Reask Oratory – Dingle Peninsula

The guide was an energetic, brusque, strongly opinionated man of about 40 years old. He seemed to think that hanging on to Irish/Celtic culture as distinct from Anglo culture was a fruitless task. He was definitely a fount of knowledge and the tour of archeology sites was fascinating. This included stones with Ogham (pronounced oh-wam) alphabet markings to mark a chieftains territory, the 6th century Reask monastic settlement and the Gallarus Oratory, the oldest standing dry rock built (chapel) in Ireland. And when something is the oldest in Ireland, it’s OLD !! Again, if you have to be in the rain, archeologic sites are the best place to be. Or in a pub.

One thing I find a bit disturbing is how pagan beliefs were incorporated or even appropriated by Christianity. For instance, there are holy wells all around Ireland that are supposed to have specific healing virtues. They are not used for water, but you must drink from them on a certain day and follow certain rituals to have your eye problems or some other specific problem healed. These sites are now part of the church system and considered Christian (by some, but not by me).

We had the tour bus (15 passenger) drop us in town and stopped for a seafood lunch. I tried steamed mussles for the first time. They are rich tasting like clams, but these did have a bit of seaweed overtones. I think they would be great in something with a sauce.

I spent the afternoon in a vegetative state, but Linda was off shopping around Dingletown.

Early Bird Special

Food in Ireland is expensive. Aaron spotted a menu at the Old Stone Bar and grill that had an early bird menu until 7PM . Two courses for only 15 euro (just under $19). That is amazing.   It is also amazing that we find it amazingly cheap. I started with a ground lamb kebab. We all had Various pasta dishes that were quite good.

No pubs tonight.