40 Shades of Green

24 June 2007

We heard somewhere that it rains 266 days per annum in Ireland – not all torrential downpours but more often soft, gentle, misty rain – but it's still rain. Everything turns grey and I can't imagine living with all this rain all the time, especially when it is cold.

We head off for a day trip down the Dingle Peninsula, glimpses of blue sky tantalise us but evaporate before lunchtime. The Dingle Peninsula is a finger of mountainous land jutting into the Atlantic sea – nothing between it and the east coast of the USA. The sea views from the tiny winding road nearly make me crash the car - so I pull over every few kilometres. At one such stop there is a grotto with Jesus on the cross again and a giant seagull the size of a turkey is there trying to cadge a living from the passing trade. A couple of German walkers are as interested as me and I get the great idea to entice it closer with a crumb off the floor of the car (after the chook in the car at Salisbury) and the German guy says to me that he read a sign down the road saying not to feed the birds!!

The Dingle Peninsula is littered with archaeological monuments – some dating back as far as 6000 years that have managed to survive the ravages of time with the less intense farming on this unforgiving landscape. Along the road we pull up to the beehive huts (Clocháns in Gaelic) - amazing stone buildings - corbelled again surrounded by stone fences in what they call forts. Amazing to think that these tiny rock buildings - not cemented together - have been sitting there for so long. Further down the road we find the Gallarus Oratory - a Church in a field thought to date from somewhere around the 6th century, absolutely complete. It's made from stones from the ground up to the top of the roof in the classic house shape and is watertight. Ric loved it and has an idea milling around in his head that he wants to build something from stone.

Finding Dingle has not been that easy - all the road signs are in Gaelic (An Daingean) and the word 'Dingle' has been obscured from most except some hand painted 'Dingle' signs. As we pull into the little township we notice other signs posted saying 'Dingle - a town denied democracy'. Intriguing? Wandering around we see a little shop with newspaper clippings in the window explaining. Apparently some politician made the arbitrary decision that 'Dingle' would no longer be used and henceforth would be obliterated from all road signs. The townsfolk were upset, as tourists were getting lost and tourism is part of their lifeblood. A vote was held - overwhelmingly in favour of reinstating Dingle but it was overruled. Hence the ‘no democracy’ claim. We had the best seafood chowder we have ever eaten in our lives in Dingle. We've had about 5 different versions. This one was fragrant with dill, coriander leaves and seeds, leeks and 4 types of fish. Scrumptious!

Later back in Killarney we drove through the national park again and noticed some weed work happening. Rhododendrons are found in Ireland's fossil record but died out over the last ice age cause it got too cold. Someone had the bright idea of reintroducing them as a garden plant and they've gone berserk - in fact you see them through Ireland, Scotland and England and Wales. Infestations get huge and it's difficult and time consuming to control. You can go and stay for free in a hostel at Killarney and help kill the stuff if you want. Also everywhere we have been there are fuchsias in the hedgerows - I think they are a tropical plant so am unsure if they are weeds too. I suspect they are there is just too many of them. I bought a tea towel with Irish wildflowers on it and the fuchsia is included - confusing!

Killarney NP boasts the only wild herd of Red Deer - around 700 individuals. We didn't see any though. The Red Deer is Ireland's native deer, and has been around for nearly 10,500 years. In Muckross House there was the intact skull and antlers of an ancient species of deer, long extinct, that roamed when the dinosaurs were around. The skull survived virtually intact in the bog. It was huge - dwarfing the Red Deer - this deer was 3m long; would be very scary meeting up with one in the rutting season.

From Killarney we head to Ennis then meet up with Tri and Ginni in Quin at an old ruin of an Abbey for a picnic at 9:30pm - the sun is high. It's amazing how many hours of light they get here in the summer. The sun sets so slowly, at 10:30 or later and bounces up again at about 4 in the morning. The TV weather tells you what the evening weather is like separately to the day - so you can plan your evening! (eg. Bright day, sunny and rain patches then a bright evening with long periods of sun and showers) Tri and Ginni were going to a music festival and we opt to explore Ennis and surrounds instead. So we head first to the Cliffs of Moyer on the edge of County Clare. The place is amazing - huge cliffs 120m high home to heaps of seabirds including Puffins! It is one of the most important sites for cliff nesting seabirds in Ireland. I was really keen to see a Puffin up close but sadly to no avail. We saw them from a distance but they were only specks.

Recently the managing authority has completed works at the cliffs to make them safer -- the sad thing is you can't get near the edge. Apparently a French tourist got blown off so they had to fix it up. The visitor centre had great interps - we really enjoyed it - despite it not being popular with people who have been there before all the work got done. The have cleverly excavated near the edge so you look out from behind these huge slabs of slate – with fossils - off the edge. There's a tower - like part of castle built there years ago apparently to impress female tourists - but why you'd need to impress anyone with such impressive natural features is inexplicable. Next we drove off to The Burren which is a unique Karst landscape right near the Cliffs of Moher. The rolling hills of Burren are uniquely made up of limestone pavements with crisscrossing cracks known as "grikes", leaving isolated rocks called "clints". There is an unusual collection of arctic, mediterranean and alpine plants that grow side-by-side, between the cracks. I read a quote by a guy during a war in the 17th century said of the place...”It is a country where there is not enough water to drown a man, wood enough to hang one, nor earth enough to bury him...... and yet their cattle are very fat; for the grass growing in turfs of earth, of two or three foot square, that lie between the rocks, which are of limestone, is very sweet and nourishing”. You can't see the plants really from a distance you have stop and get out. It's weird walking on the rocks they're loose and some tip as you step on them. We walked up the side of hill across the rocks to check out the amazing view down to what looked like a mesa. The rivers all run underground - and there's amazing caves to see in the area. The next day we met up again in Gort with Tri and Ginni and make the trip back across to Dublin for a night at Ginni's before leaving Dublin the next day. Ireland is an amazing country - the beauty is in its natural places and ancient sites rather than the modern man made cities. The people are open and friendly and we are sad to bid our friends and the 40 shades of green farewell. Cathy & Ric