Ireland, Day 2, April 7: Doolin Point, The Ferry, Tralee, Dingle

After a restful sleep on good-smelling sheets at the Sea View House following a busy Day 1, we enjoyed a nice breakfast served by Darra, our hostess. I had scrambled eggs with tomatoes before we hit the road with an eye toward the south. Before leaving town, however, we decided to take a quick trip down to Doolin Point at Darra’s suggestion. Doolin Point is where the ferry that goes out and around the Cliffs of Mohr departs and arrives. We took in the beautiful scenery for a few minutes before hopping back in the beleaguered Focus.


I was still shaking the cobwebs of jet lag, but negotiating a highly treacherous, insanely narrow road up through the mountains certainly woke me up toot-sweet. I was able to zip in behind a van, which served to effectively deflect oncoming traffic on the path, which was not large enough for two vehicles side-by-side in most stretches. We eventually established a good pace in navigating through Lahinch, Spanish Point, Quilty, Doonbeg, Kilkee and Kilrush, finally making our way to Killimer. Here, we took the ferry across to Tarbert, a 20-minute ride that brought us from County Clare to County Kerry. The ferry took us directly across the Shannon Estuary, saving us an additional 85 miles of driving. It was chilly on the ferry crossing, but we were still thankful to see the blue skies and more amazing scenery.


Upon leaving the ferry in Tarbert, we found our groove, zipping through Listowel and all the way to Tralee, a bustling little village that marked our halfway point to Dingle, the ultimate destination for Day 2. The stretch from Tralee to the Dingle Bay and points south was marked by very few towns, but offered some great viewing that demanded a couple of stops along the side of the road for a quick bite to eat and some pictures.


Cruising into town, Dingle turned out to be a little more hectic than we had anticipated, but I eventually procured a small parking spot in the middle of downtown. I thought parallel parking with the steering wheel on the opposite side of the car would present a minor challenge, but alas, no worries. With a couple of hours to kill before checking in at our B&B, we decided to wander the streets of Dingle a little bit. The town’s curvy little roads, alleys and side streets were jam-packed with colorful, vibrant and old shops and pubs. At one point, we found ourselves in Dingle Crystal, a crystal shop started by Sean Daly, once a master craftsman at Waterford Crystal, a decade ago. One of the store’s shopkeepers struck up a conversation with us, taking a few potshots at W and expressing his desire to see Barack Obama win the election (preaching to the choir, mate). I couldn’t help but notice a football signed by Tom Brady of the New England Patriots on one of the shelves, and I was told that the quarterback had been in the store a couple of months back. Upon telling the clerk that I was a Miami Dolphins fan and that the Patsies were cheaters, he proceeded to tell me that everyone comes in the store saying they don’t like New England. Good times.

We made our way down to the harbor at that point, wanting to check out what constitutes Doolin’s major industry: fishing. The line of colorful boats certainly jumped right out at us.


Picking our way through the town’s super-aggressive drivers—I nearly saw a trio of schoolkids get cleaned out by a van barreling through the middle of town—we took a short stroll along an old pier. We noticed a very low tide and a prodigious amount of dog grumpies, but it offered a tremendous perspective of the harbor and surrounding mountains.


A quick check of the time revealed that it was time to check in at Emlagh Lodge, our beautiful B&B located right on the Doolin Bay. Our hostess, Maggie, tickled us with her very funny, opinionated manner. She was quite the firecracker … almost literally. It turns out that her garage/sidehouse had burned down the week before, so she had workers there at all hours of the day working to reconstruct it. Apparently, she had just converted the building to solar energy by installing panels, but the fire had destroyed everything involved in the transition. Despite that setback, we found the home itself to be beautiful, with quaint slanted ceilings upstairs (I walked directly into one after a nap) and a series of stunning views of the bay and harbor.


With so much driving ahead of us in the coming days in order to eventually find our way to Dublin closer to the end of the week, we decided to look into altering the itinerary. We had planned on spending the following evening in Limerick, but consulted the map to find out whether we could avoid such a big city and perhaps gain some more territory toward the eastern coast of the country. After considering Nenagh and Adare, we chose to push on through to Kildare the following day. This would exactly double our driving distance the next day, from 126 kilometers to Limerick to 252 kilometers (157 miles) to Kildare. We had made great time driving that day, but we didn’t want to keep ending up in cities in the middle of the day, tired from driving, take a nap, hit a pub and go back to sleep, so we decided to sacrifice a huge driving day tomorrow for less-stressful stays the rest of the way. Since we had not made reservations in Limerick (smart move), it wasn’t a big deal to alter the schedule somewhat.


Having pored over maps and checked city-distance tools online for a while, we grabbed a quick nap before dinner. Maggie recommended a couple of places downtown, and we decided to try the early-bird dinner at Half Door Restaurant prior to heading over to Small Bridge Pub for some more trad music. Maggie also told us of a “secret” path that started next to her home and went along the harbor-side, across the pier and straight into downtown, so we set out for the gate in her sideyard under a bright moon. Giggling, we had to step over a few rocks in the water along the route of the path, but we eventually tracked our way to Half Door, where I started off with a Carlsberg and the best seafood chowder I had ever had, chock full of mussels and salmon. Slightly jarred by the arrival of a Dan Queerdorf lookalike in the restaurant, I had ordered salmon, but got broiled plaice (apparently, a “large European flatfish”) instead. In no mood to argue, I enjoyed a fish I had never tried before, accompanied by a Guinness, then topped off the meal with a true Irish Coffee, which was tremendous.

Stuffed, we made our way just up the block to the Small Bridge, where we grabbed a couple more Guinness and watched some Stoke City vs. Crystal Palace football (soccer) while we waited for the trad musicians to show up. Despite a flurry of second-half shots on goal by Stoke City, Crystal Palace won in an upset, which seemed to piss off some of the regulars (who knows?). Eventually, a guy playing a guitar and a girl who played the fiddle, the flute and an accordion (at separate times) appeared as the talent for the trad music session. Even though it appeared that they had not played much together, it was still phenomenal. And lo and behold, after a while, who did we see? The "French Lesbians" from Gus O'Connor's in Doolin! We saw them sitting near the fireplace, and though they weren’t so good with the English, we were able to determine that they had taken a tour bus from Doolin that day. With the interior of the pub seeming to grow colder and colder and catching some looks from some older regulars (we think maybe we were sitting in their customary seats for the trad music?), we were ready to make our way back to the B&B.


So we strolled along the dark, deserted streets of Dingle and picked our away along the moon-lit path beside the harbor, gazed out at the beautiful bay one last time, then slipped through the sidegate in the fence and made our way back inside. Dingle is just 113 kilometers from where we started out that morning, Doolin, but it felt much longer due to the terrain, tiny roads and mountains, so exhaustion had eventually caught up with us -- yet even the looming rigors of tomorrow’s lengthy drive couldn’t dampen our enthusiasm or spirits …


The next installment of the Irish adventure, Day 3, will be forthcoming in a coupla days. P.S. You can click on the pix for bigger versions if you like. All photos taken by the Scoot. Giddyup.