Slea Head and Stuffy Head

September 23, 2009

I’ve come down with a cold today. I got to have plenty of fun before the cold really took hold, and hopefully it will be all better tomorrow. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Yesterday we took the Slea Head drive. This takes you to some of the most beautiful coastal views the Dingle peninsula has to offer, and so I took many pictures and ran down the battery on the camcorder. When we got back, I spent a lot of time posting the pictures and video, and that’s why I didn’t get around to posting in this travelogue.

The first place we stopped was at the Stonehouse Restaurant, and right across from it was Dunbeg Fort, but we didn’t spend much time at this stop.

We drove on to our next stop, which was the Beehive Huts. These are stone structures built and used as homes by early Christians. The bunch that we looked at are on the property of a nice old woman who charges 2 euros per person to let you explore. She kindly allowed our group of four in for seven euros. We explored a bunch that had been joined together at their walls by small doorways, but had no remaining roofs. On doorway had a small passage under the stone floor, and Martha crouched down in the hole at one end while I lowered the camera down the hole at he other end to get this shot of Martha (seen left). I tried to set up a shot of all of us standing in front of this structure, but the rain came along, and although I worked as quickly as I could and did snap a picture, rain on the lens spoiled the shot. Oh well. The rain also kept us from exploring the other huts, some of which I think had roofs intact, because the ground was already slick and the rain would make it treacherous.

Our next stop was Dunmore Head, which was a beautiful beach. There’s a picture here of Mom and Dad walking on that beach. There were all sorts of nooks and crannies in the rock face around the beach, and we spent some time exploring them, as you’ll be able to tell on the photos page. One thing we found wedged in the rocks that I did not include a picture of was the rotting carcass of some fish, or maybe a seal. I really couldn’t tell. More fun was looking at all the little forms of life clinging to the rocks, waiting for the tide to come back in. I did include some photos of those on this site.

After that, we went to the Blasket Centre. This was an exhibition of the lives and literature of the people of the Blasket Islands. We were told this was pretty great, and almost like being on the islands, and since being on the islands is tricky to arrange, we went to the centre. Well, it was mostly a 20 minute video about the people who used to live there, which was interesting, but I was kind of bored. I’m still glad we did it, but it really is possible for people to oversell this attraction.

After the Blasket Centre, we went to my favorite beach, Clogher Strand. There’s a picture of the Sleeping Giant Island at the top of the page as seen from this beach. We didn’t actually climb down to the beach itself, but the view looking out over the beach gave us what we wanted. To the left is a picture of Martha and I with scene behind us, including the Sleeping Giant to the far left.

We stopped at Murphy’s Pub on the route after that for some dinner. One of the highlights was that everyone who came into the pub spoke Irish, with an occasional bit of English for cussing. The waitress spoke English to us and the menu was in English, so we were able to get some grub. The name of the bar, written over the door, is in Irish, and apparently translates more accurately to Mrs. Murphy’s.

Our final stop before returning to Milestone House was Gallarus where we saw a perfectly preserved stone oratory. Oratory, in this context, means a small chapel, especially one for an individual to pray.

Well, being sick right now, I probably shouldn’t have typed all of that, and I don’t have the strength to go into detail about today’s activities. I’ll be brief.

The main thing we did was visit St Mary’s Church and see the six stained glass windows created by Harry Clarke (no photography allowed). We also took a trip up Conor Pass Road to a great lookout spot. The rest of the day was spent in shops. I may give more detail in a future post, and post some of the pictures, but for now, good night.

These video clips were taken at the stops along the way on the Slea Head Drive. The battery on the camcorder gave out at the end, so I have no video of the Gallarus Oratory.