Our family was overjoyed for our friend Amy and her huge smile to come out to Ireland from Oklahoma.  We literally danced our best version of an Irish jig to welcome her to the Priory.  It may not have been the best Irish jig in the world but hey, no one fell down.  You won’t believe the instructional videos you can find on this little, secret website called YouTube.

She delighted us with her contagious spirit and far more gifts than we’d imagine her bag could hold. 

As a trained physical therapist, she brought a foam roller that I rolled around on like a beached manatee.  She even unveiled some dexterity putty (read “Silly Putty-like stuff you squeeze and can’t let go of”) to help exercise Lisa’s slowly recovering broken fingers.  If you recall, Lisa had broken them on the first day we departed her parents’ Texas house headed for Europe.  Since we are essentially in the middle of a large move going the “long way ‘round” from NJ to Oregon, we pulled up to a Pak N’ Ship to mail a box full of books.  As she lifted the back tailgate the heaviest box came tumbling out of the stuffed mini van and she put out a hand to catch it.  Unfortunately, several fingers were bent back far enough to cause some trauma. 

I know, I know, why wasn’t I the one unloading the heavy box?  It’s shameful isn’t it?  My only defense is that Lisa dashed out of the car to start getting things moving.  That’s a pretty weak defense I know, I definitely should have thrown my body in front of that box like a Secret Service agent.  She still managed to wrangle the boxes onto a cart as I was yabbering on an incoming phone call and insisted she could do it!  She hasn’t said a word about it but I know when God plays that one on the big movie screen of ‘Your Life’ someday I’m going to be trying to crawl out of the theater.  Thank God there’s grace.

Amy also brought a few awesome things for the peeps from the good ‘ol USA.  Who can resist bath bubble stuff?

Or little balls that grow into water and you can’t stop running them through your fingers?

Lisa fell in love with the essential oils that Amy lovingly explained and hand carried to us.  The Europeans use essential oils quite a bit more than we do in the States.  We’ve found them to uber-helpful for all kinds of reasons and maladies and grown to love them. 

We wanted to explore a bit of Ireland with her so we set off for the Dingle peninsula on the coast further west.  The town of Dingle boasts a scenic harbor location and a location within a Gaeltacht.  A Gaeltacht is an area recognized by the government of Ireland that uses Irish as its vernacular, or language of the home.  These regions are the bastions of Gaelic survival in Ireland and are all in the western part of the country.  The government gives the areas additional tax support and since 2005—controversially—puts up all road signage in Gaelic.  The government is also promoting the use of Gaelic through subsidizing special radio and TV programs to keep the flame of Irish alive despite the onslaught of English. 

The drive from Killarney to Dingle is only about an hour west further out onto one of Ireland’s ‘fingers’ that reach out towards Amerikay across the North Atlantic.  But the beauty of the place frequently reaches in and snatches the steering wheel over into scenic viewpoints.  I had the adults, and even the kids, promise to yell if they ever saw me pull out onto the “right” side of the road.  It’s easiest to lull yourself into old habits when there’s no else around and you think you’ve got the road to yourself. 

Then we happened upon the ancient beehive huts.  Many of the prehistoric sites in Ireland have been dated as older than the Pyramids.  These beehive huts are the kind of dwellings those ancient people fashioned.  Flat stones are carefully piled with a cant so that the rain runs away from the inner walls.  All you hear is the wind.  Sheep lazily graze on the sloping, green grass. 

I found this helpful explanation on an Irish tourism website, “They [the huts] were built in the form of a circle of successive strata of stone, each stratum lying a little closer to the center than the one beneath and so on up to a small aperture at the top that could be closed with a single small flagstone or capstone. No mortar was used in building, which is called corbelling.”

The huts are tough to date since this style of building was used from 3100 BC for the mysterious Newgrange tomb north of Dublin to the 1950s.  Newgrange is the prehistoric burial mound with a long corridor built right through the middle.  The corridor is angled to only allow the rays of dawn into the middle of the tomb during the few days around the winter solstice once a year. 

Arriving in Dingle town, a light rain greeted us as we parked the car and hustled toward the brightly colored buildings of downtown. 

The town library sheltered us for a few minutes from the increasing rain.  We ran up the hill to a cafe recommend by the guidebook.  On our way there, it began to pour.  We ran faster.  The rain seeped through the thighs of my pants.  We reached our objective, and the cafe was closed.  We asked a local hurrying by about another place and she recommended Adams Bar down the street.  We shouted to one another to head that way. We found it and ducked inside a tiny room of dark wooden panelling.  Every table full.  Standing just inside the door, we dripped-dripped a mess onto the floor and the other diners stared at us from an arms-length away.

Then the most remarkable thing happened.  The proprietor came out, greeted us, told us she was sorry for how wet we were and turned the heat lamps on in her unheated, overflow room down her hallway.  

She helped us set out our wet jackets, hats and gloves to dry.  Since the room was not warm enough to eat in, she suggested another bar down the street.  While inviting us to use the restrooms, she offered the kids free hot cocoa!    Some patrons at the bar left and we somehow found a way to fit at one end of the bar and into the window seat.  We saw later she’d moved the wettest jackets onto the radiators for us.  The delicious, hot stew and an Irish coffee warmed me up from the inside and all was right with the world again.

The sky brightened, the sun came out and we went back out on that street amazed at the friendliness of the Dingle people and this pub built in the 1600s.

We were touched by her thoughtfulness and generosity and told her thank you.  She pointed out that we could find them on Trip Advisor.  I often check Trip Advisor when traveling in the States but here it is absolutely ubiquitous.  Restaurants, hotels, all kinds of businesses will frame their TA certificate and put in their window.  Guides will give you a business card with their TA name so you can easily find them online to review them.  Of course, we later found the Adams Bar. 

We picked our way down through town, stopping to take in the town’s church.  Generations of nuns rest in peace under the comforting reaches of a dignified churchyard oak. 

The ladies stop in to check on the stores.  The boys shoot each other with their constant companions—invisible guns. 

Down by the waterfront, we find the famous Murphy’s ice cream shop. 

Yes, some of those flavors do say Caramelized Brown Bread and Toasted Irish Oats.  They craft their ice cream with sea salt they dry from the local salt water, milk from their own indigenous Kerry cows and all the old-fashioned ways.  Great shots of this little Irish company on their website at http://www.murphysicecream.ie/.  I stole this one myself showing Dingle in County Kerry. 

Driving back home to Killarney we take the long, scenic way and are rewarded with views of the sea meeting the crags beneath the last rays of sun wrestling through the clouds. 

Here, it feels like you are driving off the end of the world.  Though I’m driving, I fight the urge to lean into the upslope for fear of falling off into the tumbling sea.  People used to live on these islands just off this coast till finally having to trade in this hard-fought lifestyle.  In the 19th century, some of the few Irish to really escape the potato famine were island people insulated from the vagaries of potatoes by the fruits of the sea.    

Hoping to visit the Gallarus Oratory, we jaunt off away from the coast and peer around hedges before pulling out into one lane roads. We find the ancient place of worship just before being chased off by the darkness.

[the oratory on a sunnier day from an online shot]

The church is built of the corbelling method of flat stones perfectly cut to fit together and resembles an overturned boat’s hull.  It is pitch dark inside and you half expect someone to be waiting in there to whisper “Boo” at just the wrong time.  It dates to around the 12th century but could be far older. 

We defy the threatening clouds, run back to the safety of the car and wind our way back to the blessings of Killarney, our house, our dinner table and the warmth of our beds.