Thursday, October 8, 2009

Ireland: Thursday Oct 8, 2009 – Dingle Peninsula, Tralee (County Kerry) and Kinsale (County Cork)






The trip from Clifden to Tralee reminded me a lot of driving slow suburban roads home in the US, so there aren't any pictures worth posting. We drove through Galway and had lunch in Limerick on the way. After staying at an older hotel in Tralee we started out early Thursday to drive the Dingle Peninsula.
The Dingle Peninsula is the western most part of Europe and the drive around the tip is about 60 miles of narrow and very scenic roads. Dingle is also deep in Catholic history with many ruins of old stone houses, churches and forts. We stopped at an intact ancient church called the Gallarus Oratory, a rock walled (and roof) church still intact from St Patrick's era. Also, local tradition says that sometime in early 500's AD, a local cleric, St Brendan (The Navigator) sailed on a 6 year sea voyage that took him to North America nearly 1,000 years before Columbus. Supposedly there might be evidence of his visit somewhere near Groton, Connecticut.
The town of Dingle in the middle of the peninsula had a few pubs where we had lunch and there was about an hour to visit the local shops. Later on Thursday we drove through rush hour traffic in Cork and got a room in Kinsale for touring on Friday.

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