The mile-long beach at Béal Bán at Smerwick Harbour. A cloud-wreathed Mount Brandon in the background.
While our actual daily schedules will be determined by us on a day-to-day basis according to the weather, availability of local participants, and the inclinations of the group, the following examples will serve to illustrate the kind of programming I arrange throughout the trip...
Sample Day #1
After breakfast we’ll motor to a very early monastic site, thought by many locals to be pre-Patrician. Here I will comment on the lifestyle and history of the monastic movement as well as its significance to western civilization. There are architectural remnants extant here that are worth close inspection, such as a very early font, some cross-inscribed stones, and the remnants of the monks' burial ground. (The cross stones may be hard to find, as they are hidden by grass and weeds.) Then on to a later site, excavated and partially reconstructed, in order to get some idea of what monastic life here in the West came to be in the Golden Age. After a stop for lunch-time refreshments, we motor on to a site from a later period. This spot was the site of a bloody massacre during the dreadful Elizabethan wars. My comments at this site will attempt to elucidate the history of that period and how it has helped to form the way many Irish feel about the English. From here we motor on to a lovely, long beach where the story of the massacre continues and guests have the opportunity to gather some of the unusual and lovely stones that wash ashore here. If time allows, we might stop at an early Norman church, partially reconstructed, and spend some time in its graveyard, still used today. Perhaps even a story or two about some of the residents. At dinner we are joined by a traditional musician (also an author and musicologist, by the way) who will talk to us about the history of Irish traditional music and demonstrate some of its main themes and concerns.
Sample Day #2
After breakfast we will motor to a remote spot. Its Irish name means “the black glen of the river of the shadow.” Here we will enjoy wild, western Ireland at its best. The bold and hardy will hike up the track into the glen, past rushing waterfalls and steep mountain precipices. I will guide the group to a special spot known to me where may be gathered some very fine examples of what may in fact have been the original “shamrock” of St. Patrick. There is tradition and a bit of ritual in the gathering of these lovely plants, and it will be carefully observed. The upper glen area is replete with photo-ops, and we may spend two or three hours on this jaunt. On the way up we will pass a site famous for use for masses during Penal days. After returning to our vehicles we motor on to a lunch break stop at a pub owned by the family of a famous explorer. The pub is full of memorabilia of his career— and the food is also good! After our refreshment break, we may stop for a bit at a local pottery and look at the very distinctive work produced there. Then it’s on to a brief stop at a lovely beach, one of the filming sites of David Lean’s Ryan’s Daughter. (By the way, we will be staying in the village in the environs of which the film was actually shot and we’ll be visiting some of those other sites during the trip.) After the beach we will motor by a back road to a ruined castle sitting over a spectacular beach. This is an important site and I will have a bit of commentary about it. There’s also a famous holy well here. By now it’s probably around 4 PM and time to consider returning to our starting point so individuals can work or rest according to their lights. After dinner, weather permitting, toward dusk we may visit a very special site: the finest example of monastic corbelled architecture in the world, and a truly inspiring place as the sun sets over the sea below us. I try to time this visit so that we will be the only visitors.
Sample Day #3
After breakfast you will have the opportunity to go down to the little harbor of the village for an optional ferry trip over to Great Blasket Island to visit the abandoned village there. This is always a favorite jaunt for photographers, with the ruined houses, resident donkeys, lovely beach on which may often be found seals, wild “moorlands,” and a spectacular view of the mainland. On the way back we may visit the monument to the ships of the Spanish Armada that were wrecked here in 1588. I will have some words to say about the historical background. After the strenuous trip to the island, folks will probably be tired and since it is now about 3 PM or even later they may wish to return to their rooms a little early, or set out on individual safaris. Before dinner, we may tour the nearby medieval cemetery and hear stories about some of the folk buried there. After the cemetery visit we may walk up into the glen to a very special, probably Druidic, site. In the evening, after dinner, we may be regaled with some stories and tales by a local historian and folklore expert.
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These three “sample days” should give some idea of what happens on one of my Dingle Peninsula trips. Some of the other activities would be... a most-of-the-day trip into a wild glen, thought to be haunted, that will provide much grist for the photographers; a nature ramble with the area’s leading natural history expert followed by dinner with him; a hike up onto the Mount of Eagles to see the fabulous panoramic view available from the top; visits to some of the area’s famous “beehive huts” and ancient ringforts; a journey across the wild “moors” to an abandoned famine-era village clinging to the mountain high over the sea; a visit to a stone-age megalithic alignment; a visit to the village’s two-room schoolhouse where the children are taught in Irish, and where English is a second language; an all-day trip across the Shannon to the Cliffs of Moher and the area of the Burren (bring LOTS of film for this); an all-day trip to the Cork area (stopping along the way at the shrine of Ballyvourney and the site of the ambush at which Michael Collins was killed in 1922) to visit Blarney Castle and take in the shopping pleasures of Blarney Woolen Mills, one of Ireland’s largest stores with some of the best prices in Ireland, too; a visit to the spot where St. Brendan is said to have begun his voyage to America 900 years before that Italian fellow made it. And other spots, too— almost too many to mention. Our schedule throughout the trip will be liberally sprinkled with stops in Dingle Town (the local “big city”) for banking, shopping, laundry, etc.
I never do two trips the same way, but as can be seen there is plenty of material for an almost infinite variety of itineraries.
