Subject: greetings from Dingle, Rep of Ireland
Date: Thursday, 11 September 2008 8:26 PM
Hi all again
It's warm and dry here in the internet cafe and so a good place to be today (can't spend all of my time and money in Murphy's Pub). The weather continues to be appalling. Yesterday we relocated from the Ring of Kerry area to here, the Dingle Peninsula, a little further north, in the midst of a southerly gale with driving rain. I felt very sorry for two fellow guests at our B&B, Hans and Hans, two guys from Germany about our age who had arrived on bikes and had opted to leave (on their bikes) when we did owing to the foul weather. I only hope they didn't get blown over the cliff and managed to at least stay upright.
Dingle was once a fishing village, and a very picturesque one at that. It has now been transformed into a tourist town with a sideline as a semi-permanent base for large fishing vessels from other EU countries, mainly Spain. Its setting remains spectacular, however, and the people retain their Irish friendliness, if not optimism for the future. Mary and I found a good room in a B&B built on to Murphy's (who else) Bar and our bedroom window provides a view, through the driving rain, of the pier and its fishing fleet. Our host, Michael, a keen fisherman who assured me that he'd have taken me fishing in his boat if the weather had been better, has been filling us in on the details of the local economy (a brief discourse) while lamenting his personal lack of education which restricts him to operating a B&B and occasional fishing trips.
Presuming the weather clears later today, M and I intend to visit some of the Iron-Age sites which abound on this peninsula. If it doesn't clear, there's always Murphy's Pub, where the Guinness is only €€3.75, the hot soup the same and the company of other tourists, mainly from US, Canada and Australia, guaranteed.
Some pics:
A windswept Mary on the pier, taken an hour ago. Our B&B is somewhere in the backgound, not on one of the boats, I hasten to add.
Reloading the tuna catch on the pier. Tuna, apparently netted in quantity about 80km offshore, is unloaded in plastic boxes from a Spanish vessel and reloaded by this guy into smaller plastic boxes. The tuna I saw were very badly damaged, presumably from net-abrasion.
An EU-registered semi waits on the pier to receive the tuna from the pic above before transporting it to Spain for processing. The fishing vessel to the right is flying a Spanish flag. The upshot is that there's very little commercial spinoff for Dingle in this activity.
Surfing is popular here and so what better place for Europe's most westerly surf shop. Cool name too.
Roman Catholicism still has a tenuous hold here and now you can get the services on TV. This poster was prominently displayed in the foyer of the local church.
Thanks for reading -- off to Murphy's for a Guinness.
Regards
Kev & Mary Long
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