The Mariquita in Dingle

I received a message from Maria about two days ago asking if I’d like to go to an aquarium today. “Of course!” I replied via ecstatic text message, “Where is the aquarium?” Dingle, apparently.

So we set off on a rain-soaked bus at about 9.30 this morning for a lovely day on the peninsula. It in fact cleared up significantly, with patches of blue finally becoming patches of cloud as the bus pulled over at Inch Strand, a stretch of beach along the Dingle Peninsula. By this time the rain had receded, leaving only a strangely benevolent sun for us to abandon our shoes and socks to and play in the water. It was a cold Atlantic, but it could have been much worse, and the beach itself a wide and gentle slope. Maria did cartwheels and spins and butterfly kicks and Melnia took pictures and I marveled at the look of my toes in the surf and we ran and laughed and I found myself in the sun for the first time in days.


Melina (left) and Maria (right) enjoying the sun.

From there we wound up the coast, green and blue all the way, passing sights I in turn came to recognize having already been to Dingle with Barbara and David. So I wasn’t much surprised by the route of our tour around Sleg Head, including a trip past the Beehive Forts and the Blasket Centre, where we stopped to spend time sunbathing on the stone of their back face and making daisy chain wreaths and giving ourselves names like “Rainbow” and “Mariquita” (my favorite Spanish word- ladybug.)

It was a beautiful trip, even as we stopped at Dunbeg Fort where I finally got pictures and once again fed wildflowers to the donkey. The day was warm and comfortable and everything was so vibrant, the islands seems to glow and even the elusive Skellig Michael was visible.


The entranceway to the inner circle of Dunbeg Fort.

Our final stop took us in the Dingle Town where we finally toured their tiny but vibrant aquarium, with a multitude of tropical and native species, small sharks, sea turtles, goldfish the size of my head and even a petting tank with a ray that appeared to do spinning tricks in the water. We ran around like kids in wonder, taking pictures with the decorations and marveling at the way light moves through water.


A vibrant little seahorse.

It was the first time I’ve been on a trip with Maria and Melina and I enjoyed the leisure of it. There was no need to do much of anything except enjoy the sun. Perhaps it was the fact that I done it before, or perhaps it’s some kind of Spanish mentality, but there is a refreshing wholeness to being able to travel Ireland without having to learn something, or do something, simply to sit in the sun, in the green, and hear the sheep and remember this is where I am right now.

It’s been little over a month without travel and it was a much needed break from Cork, a reminder that the trip’s not quite over yet. I’m still here, I’m still here.

Of Seascapes and Stationary Stones

Three months living an ocean away from anyone you knew is a long time when it comes down to it, and seeing family again after so long is both a relief and a shock. So it was with the last two weeks, starting with a wonderful visit from my Aunt Barbara and Uncle David who took the long flight overseas and met me as I hopped off the bus in the little town of Doolin on the edge of Galway Bay in Co. Clare. The town was like most Irish towns, in that it wasn’t much more than a few B&Bs and a couple pubs on a little string of road between rocky pastures and surf.

We stayed at a lovely little B&B called Cullinan’s while we toured the sights of the Burren. I had never visited the Burren before, and my only real sight of it was from the other side of Galway Bay, it appearing as nothing but a series of grey, rock hills on the edge of the water; terraced and barren. But upon closer inspection the crags of rock hide a million little flowers and green leaves sprouting in the cold and wet that plagued much of the Burren during our time there. Along the drive we took time to examine a number of ancient stone forts including Cather Conell and the Poulnabrone Dolmen, a prehistoric portal tomb whose rocky makeup blends it into the background of the Burren seamlessly, as if it has been there forever.

Poulnabrone Dolmen in the rain of the Burren.

Evenings in Doolin consisted of dinner at a pub called O’Connel’s, where live music was in the plenty and I was persuaded to try a Smithwick’s, an Irish ale, and the first Irish beer I have had that wasn’t a stout (I am apparently not a stout-drinking gal). It was like most pubs in the way it catered to nooks and crannies, booths and side-tables, with paraphernalia on the walls and an atmosphere of talk and community. Actually, rather different from the scene I encounter in Cork pubs, but not at all bad.

Two nights in Doolin found us once again on the road around Co. Clare and across the Shannon to the town of Dingle in Co.Kerry. To the south of Doolin, whence we traveled, sit the famous Cliffs of Moher, a series of sheer and rocky precipices that jut out to the Atlantic at staggering heights. Our visit saw a foggy and grey day as we approached the walk along the tops, where sometimes the mist would lift for a bit and you could make out the shadow of rock before it disappeared again into wet and wind. It was as if the ever-changing clouds of Ireland had descended to make the already impressive sight even more intriguing, substantially more dynamic.

After awhile cliff-walking in the mist we headed back onto the road, stopping once again a bit down the road to see St. Bridget’s Well, St. Bridget being one of the three patron saints of Ireland (the other two are St. Columba and, of course, St. Patrick). It was little more than a ceramic statue and a small, underground passage to the cool, running well. The passage was littered with what appeared to be years of offerings and prayers, papers, pictures, plastic flowers and stuffed animals, ribbons, and rosaries all made the more foreboding by the light peaking into the passage from either end.

Offerings at St.Bridget's Well.

It was here that, after watching a small girl follow her father’s instructions when visiting the well, that Aunt Barbara and I decided to also follow these instructions in genuflecting. Unfortunately my camera was not very securely pocketed and it managed to wriggle it’s way out and leap for the water, where it plummeted to the bottom and stayed as I tried to wriggle out of my coat and retrieve it.

So the camera is gone, but the pictures, stored safely on my card, remain intact, and with the purchase of a new camera all things seem to be amended. But I’m still a little baffled that St. Bridget didn’t think to bless me with a still functioning camera.

Eventually we made it to Dingle, where we stayed at another lovely little B&B that overlooked Dingle Bay, a sight of muted light in the fog and water and cow-pastured earth. it was as if a painting had come to life, to think the light never really looks like that. But it does. It does.

In Dingle we took time to tour the Dingle Peninsula thanks to some help from a Rick Steve’s travel guide found in the B&B. Our first major stop was Dunbeg Fort, a semi-circular Iron-age promontory fort latched onto the side of a cliff. Open completely to the public, we walked down between two sheep pastures, alongside a classic bubbling brook, and through the stone entrance, into the center when people lived before time was measured in years.

It was an intriguing site, matched only by the Beehive Forts we next saw. Just as they sound, the Beehive Forts were a jumble of fallen stone domes, resembling to all other things, a beehive. In and out, some stones were excavated, some were still visibly buried. Some gave cool shadows in the warm sun, and inside the beehive domes it was almost cold.

The tour took us winding along the coast, around Mt. Eagle and Mt. Brandon, to the very tip of Ireland, from which the Great Blasket Islands and the little lump of rock called Skelling Michael are visible. We would have surely visited one of these islands, most probably Skelling Michael, where the ruins of beehive huts that once housed a community of monks now sit deserted on the edge of the sea. But it was still before Easter and most boats don’t start running until after the holiday. Out of luck this time.

We ended the drive at the Gallarus Oratory, a piled stone building that looks like something out of an Andy Goldsworthy installation. Smooth rounded sides coming to a pointed roof, the stones perfectly fit, flat and cool. Dating from the 8th century, it’s one of the oldest churches in Ireland. A small, now quiet and chill building with a dirt floor and marks in the wall where a cover would have been a door, it was a beautifully intriguing thing.

Dinner was had back in Dingle, at a seafood place called “Out of the Blue” where the whole menu (written on a chalkboard at the start of the evening) is composed of whatever is brought into the harbor that day. Fresh as can be. It was a spectacularly delicious meal the likes of which I have not had in a long time, and which left me quite full for a long time as well.

The next morning I departed on the 10.15 bus back to Cork to prepare for the arrival not only of Aunt Barbara and Uncle David in Cork, but also my parents!

Mist at the Cliffs of Moher.