Sheep!
I’m just about done with my Ireland posts!
Day after St Patrick’s, Amynah and I piled into the car and made for Dingle (yes, the Irish looked at their maps, saw a long slab of land thrusting into the Atlantic, and named it the Dingle). Shockingly, the weather was perfect – sunny, and nearly twenty degrees. This was not the Ireland that we had expected.
We had no real destination in mind, but on Eilis’ recommendation, we took the Connor Pass to get to the seaside Dingle scenic route. While the narrow, twisty Irish roads were no less terrifying when snaking their way up cliffsides, the hidden lake near the crest was well worth the shattered nerves.
The Dingle peninsula was everything we could have hoped for – dramatic cliffs, sandy beaches, ancient beehive-shaped stone huts, and sheep, sheep, sheep. The weather was a little off-putting though – at the historic site with the stone huts, the man who sold us our tickets was apologetic for the seltering 17 degree temperatures: “I can’t believe this weather. It’s too hot – I don’t know how people in California or Florida can stand it.”
Beehive huts: made entirely of piled stones, they were used for thousands of years, up until roughly the Middle Ages
There were abandoned stone cottages like this all over Ireland. Unfortunately, I never got to take a picture of one in overcast weather, which might have been thematically appropriate.
2 comments:
I love the Dingle Peninsula! Doug and I were there back in 2004 - had fantastic weather as well. I think I might have the exact same photo of the beehive hut :) We took a bus there and the driver was playing all these cheesy Irish tunes like "Danny Boy" and my personal fave, "Whiskey in the Jar"!
I'm pretty sure my parents have the same beehive photo from their trip to Ireland in 1995 as well. It's hard to be original!
There were a few buses on the road as we were driving - those drivers are heroes. I felt squeezed in a compact.
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