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.All Trips / Europe / Ireland
A Visit to Ireland: Part 6) Exploring the Dingle Peninsula
One of the highlights of any visit to Ireland is a chance to explore the Dingle Peninsula. While it’s only half as large as the Ivernaugh peninsula (Ring of Kerry), it’s packed with beautiful views and interesting things to see. This peninsula is a rocky place with steep mountains, rugged cliffs, ancient stone fences, beehive huts and other archaeological treasures, and lovely islands just offshore. Using Dingle Town as your base, you can very leisurely drive around the peninsula in a day. The peninsula features Gaelic signs and you’re like to hear local people using the Irish language.
Because the peninsula’s road is very narrow, you’ll be spared the large tour bus traffic of the Ring …
Tagged archaeology, beehive huts, Blasket Island, Dingle, Gallarus Oratory, Ireland
.All Trips / Europe / Ireland
A Visit to Ireland: Part 5) the town of Dingle (An Daingean)
Dingle (in Irish, An Daingean) is the main town on the Dingle peninsula in County Kerry, with a population of around 1500 people. The Dingle Peninsula sits on Ireland’s west coast just north of the Ivernaugh Peninsula (Ring of Kerry), about 71 km (40 mi) west of Killarney. Dingle is in the Gaeltrecht part of the country, where maintenance of traditional Gaelic language and culture (eg. music, hurling) is encouraged by government subsidies. Historically it was an important trading port but today it’s a great town for tourists to visit.
Colorful storefronts in the small town of Dingle, Ireland
Ireland has many beautiful small towns and Dingle ranks among the finest (and was my favorite of the ones we visited!) Built along a beautiful sheltered harbor and spreading up the slopes of a mountain to the …
.All Trips / Europe / Ireland
A Visit to Ireland: Part 4) the Ring of Kerry; Exploring the Iveragh Peninsula
The Ring of Kerry is a loop drive that circles the Iveragh Peninsula in County Kerry. It’s just 110 miles (176 km) long but is not a fast drive as its narrow and winding. And there’s lots of beautiful scenery and historic stops along the way, so take your time and a full day to enjoy this trip. The Iveragh peninsula has many ancient ring forts dotting the rocky land and this road offers the opportunity to easily explore several of them. Awe-inspiring vistas of a rugged coast, the central mountains (including the tallest mountain in Ireland), and on clear days the Beara Peninsula to the south, the Skellig Islands to the west and the Dingle peninsula on the Northern part of the drive (limited views and visibility on …
Tagged Castle, Fort, Ireland, ruins, UNESCO World Heritage Site
“Pic of the Week”. November 29, 2013. Gallarus Oratory, Dingle Peninsula, Ireland
One of the most remarkable buildings I’ve ever been in was this small ancient church on Ireland’s Dingle Peninsula, said to be the best preserved early Christian church on the Emerald Isle.
The Gallarus Oratory was built between the seventh and eight century A.D and is exclusively made of layered angled stone — no mortar was used. The process is known as dry-stone corbelling and is based on a building technique used in Ireland for thousands of years. The angled stones allow water to run off and to keep the interior dry. The technique results in thick heavy walls and a building shaped like an upside down boat; it’s obviously effective because over 1200 years later …
.All Trips / Europe / Ireland
A Visit to Ireland: Part 3) Kenmare, gateway to the Ring of Kerry
Western Ireland was the most beautiful and scenic part of our journey. It has a lovely, rugged coastline — harshly beautiful! There are hundreds of ancient stone forts, stone circles and stone dwellings (it’s a rocky land!), and its citizens speak more Gaelic than anywhere else we visited. Western Ireland was the region least influenced by the British largely because it was so poor (for example, farmers had to make their own soil in the rocky land by mixing seaweed, sand and animal dung, turning it into something they could grow potatoes in). If a traveler has only a few days in which to visit Ireland (beyond Dublin), I’d recommend they head towards the Dingle peninsula and the Ring of …
Tagged Cathedral, Gaelic, Kenmare, Ring of Kerry
.All Trips / Europe / Ireland
A Visit to Ireland: Part 2) the Rock of Cashel
There are few places in Ireland with a richer history than the Rock of Cashel. Situated at the edge of the town of Cashel, the rock is a huge outcropping on top of which rests a complex of old buildings situated some 60m (200ft) above the rich green farmland of County Tipperary.
A brief history of the Rock of Cashel:
It was from this rocky prominence that the Irish Kings of Munster ruled for more than 700 years (370 to 1101 A.D.). St. Patrick visited the Rock of Cashel and baptized King Aengus around 450 A.D. Legend has it the saint accidentally impaled the King’s foot with the base of his crosier staff. The …
Tagged Cathedral, Celtic Cross, cemetery, chapel, Rock of Cashel, round tower, Tipperary
.All Trips / Europe / Ireland
A Visit to Ireland: Part 1) An overview of the Country and its People
I remember being in Wales several times and looking across the sea to the west, thinking that I needed to get to Ireland. Well, I finally made it, completing this journey with my brother on our annual “getaway trip”! It was a trip we really enjoyed. This is the first in a series of blog posts about the Emerald Isle, focusing on some of its rich history and providing some observations on the country and its charming citizens.
Ireland’s history is a turbulent one and its people have had to endure many hardships for centuries. Victims of a devastating famine in the 19th century (the Great Hunger), occupied for almost a thousand years by foreigners (the Vikings and then the English), …
“Pic of the Week”, Nov 1, 2013: Newgrange, Ireland’s ancient Passage Tomb
Newgrange is the oldest structure I’ve ever visited. It was built over 5,000 years ago (about 3,200 B.C.) during the Neolithic era, before even Stonehenge or the Great Pyramid of Giza. It’s obvious that Newgrange was crafted by an advanced society which lived in Ireland’s Boyne River Valley (now less than an hour’s drive north of Dublin), but little is know about the people who built it except that they were farmers.
Newgrange is a carefully designed passage tomb and probably an ancient Temple. The structure covers an acre and has a dome-shaped roof with 97 curbstones along its base, many of which are highly decorated with neolithic art. White and dark granite frame its front face Newgrange has a single 19 meter long …
Oct 31, 2013
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