Monday, August 29 we drove around the Dingle Peninsula on Slea Head Dr. Spectacular scenery and ancient sites are plentiful. The roads are narrow, sometimes down to one lane for two way traffic and at times very nerve wracking, but we survived it. We even were stopped by the Garda (police) as we approached them as we were driving. After we greeted each other they waved us on. Apparently they weren’t looking for us. Phew! Our first stop was at Fairy Fort and a petting area. Fairy Forts are also known as Rath or Lois and are circular fortified settlements that were mostly built during the Bronze Age up to about the year 1000 A.D. Those who believed in fairies did not alter them and the legend was that those who entered between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. would not leave alive. There were sheep, goats, donkeys and horses there for us to feed. We were warned to stay away from the pigs because they’re too mean.

Our next stop was was the Beehive Huts. Ringforts are the most numerous and widespread field monuments in Ireland. These forts are built from stone and would have been inhabited from ancient times to 1200 A.D.

The Blasket Islands sit off the coast at the tip of the peninsula and are the westernmost point in Europe. We went to the Blasket Centre where we learned about the small group of rugged people who inhabited Great Blasket Island. Their way of life has been well documented with books, many of which were written by island residents. The island was abandoned in 1954 when living there became unsustainable.

Here are a few other photos taken during the drive.

We ended the day with a nice dinner. Tomorrow we move on to Galway for 4 nights.

Sunday, August 28 after have a good breakfast at our B&B we set off exploring more of the lovely town of Dingle. I heard back from Pat the local historian and even though he’s very busy he would like me to call him to see if we can arrange a meeting time. Stephen advised that I should wait until after 12:30 to call. We walked through town and found a church with gardens that were open for us to walk through,

We continued our walk through town and along the harbor.

I called Pat Neligan and he asked if we could come at 2:00 this afternoon. You bet we can! We arrived at the Duinin House B&B at the appointed time and spent about 45 minutes with the delightful Pat. He was full of information about the Rice’s, primarily but not all about Count James Rice. James came to prominence in the late 1700’s much after my direct ancestors arrived in Colonial Virginia in 1650. James made many important friends throughout Europe and in his later years divided his time between Spa, Belgium and Bath, England. Coincidentally we spent almost a week in Spa in March of this year with our “Rice” cousins who live in Germany and we will be spending several days in Bath next month. My direct ancestors were wine merchants. Pat wrote a book about James Louis Rice, which I purchased from him. It’s called The Knave of Trumps, The Life & Times of Count James Louis Rice of Dingle 1730-1801. Apparently he wanted a different title but this is the title his editor suggested. Unfortunately the book was published in 2016 and after Trump’s election sales decreased. He also shared the family tree he made while doing research for his book. He related what information he had and told me about the cemetery on Main St. behind the church that contained a couple of graves. We warned that the graveyard was quite grown over and I would probably have difficulty locating the stones. Today marks the one month anniversary of the death of my uncle, Jack Rice Cohn, and I know how much he would have loved learning this information because he spent a lot of time researching the Rice family.

We met up with Marie & Jim and headed to the cemetery. Overgrown is an understatement and our search revealed nothing but at least we tried.

We had dinner outside at a hotel across the street from the church, then went to The Dingle Pub next door to the church to sit outside and listen to the music.

On Saturday, August 27 we left Kinsale and drove on small and winding roads all the way to Dingle. The distance is just over 100 miles and it took quite awhile. We did stop in Killarney to break up the driving.

Killarney is a cute large sized town that is fairly touristy thanks to the proximity to Killarney National Park.

We continued on to Dingle. I’ve been wanting to return since we were here for a short visit in 2009. We got to the B&B before check in and the owner allowed us to put our bags in the room, even though it wasn’t quite ready yet.

The B&B is walkable to everywhere in town, so that’s what we did. We walked up the street and I was looking for my ancestral home. Bingo, there it was! It’s a different color and a different business, but it’s definitely the same house.

The house is now the Dingle Further Education and Training Centre. It’s also known as the Rice House, which is the family name. My 8th & 9th great grandfathers were born in Dingle and immigrated to Colonial Virginia in 1650. I was able to trace my line of the Rice family back 4 more generations in Dingle. There is a connection with a different branch of the family that had a connection to Marie Antoinette.

We continued to walk around town and popped into a couple of shops. we also scoped out places with outdoor seating for our dinners for the next 3 nights and a pub that would have live music tonight that wouldn’t start too late. I guess we are officially old geezers now.

It was late enough, so we walked back to the B&B, put our things away and walked back down to the waterfront to choose where we would eat. Dinner was okay, nothing special. We won’t go back there. Choices with outdoor dining are limited but I’m sure we can do better. We headed for The Dingle Pub, chosen mostly for their clever name. Ha! While I went inside for a bit the others were outside and apparently were accosted by some very drunk women. When I came out one of them became very chatty with me, not knowing I was with the others and insisting I should become friends with Jim, Marie and JD because we are all from America. She was trying to get me to hug her and I told her to get away from me. Wow!

We decided Saturday nights were best left to the drunks. We will attempt hearing music again Sunday, when the weekend party people have gone home.

Stephen, our B&B host, told me about his old history teacher who had a lot of information about the Rice family and even wrote a book about one of them. He runs a B&B and Stephen suggested I contact him for further information. I emailed him and hope to hear back.

On Friday, August 26 we drove to the Drombeg Stone Circle. There are 17 freestanding stones from the later Bronze Age. Stone Circles were places of ritual and ceremony and were usually associated with human burial. Excavations in 1957 revealed a compact gravel surface within the circle and a central pit which contained an inverted pottery vessel covering the cremated remains of a youth. Carbon dating has placed the burial in the period c. 1100-800 B.C.

We drove back to Kinsale to check out the forts. First up was James Fort. We were told it was a ruin and we were surprised that it was more intact than we thought. The forts were built for defense and are located across the harbor from each other.

We stopped for a refreshment on our walk back to the car. This tiny coffee truck had black iced tea, a miracle!

We drove to Charles Fort, where there was a building with explanations of the history of the fort.

We finished the day with the most delicious dinner at Fishy Fishy. I’m so happy we came to Kinsale and I’m sorry we don’t have more time here. Tomorrow we are off to Dingle, one of my favorite places

First full day in the charming town of Kinsale and we had a good time. I slept until 7:00 in the most comfortable bed and pillow, which may be a record for me. I’m generally an early riser. I know many people think that 7:00 is early but my family knows that if I’m not up well before then they should see if I’m still breathing. We had breakfast and Marie was doing laundry. Finally at about 10:00 Jim and I left to walk around town until it was time for the 11:15 walking tour to start. Marie & JD caught up with us before the Don & Barry’s Historic Stroll. Our tour guide was Dave and he related the very important history of Kinsale in an interesting and humorous way. The history here was pivotal to the history of Ireland. Afterwards we checked out some other places in town before starting the long walk to Charles Fort. We walked, and walked, and stopped to take a lot of pictures. We could see the fort from certain vantage points but it still seemed so far away. We had stopped somewhere for more pictures and a man was sitting in a parked car. He asked where we were from and mentioned his daughter lives in Sacramento. He also informed us that there was a road along the water that we could have taken. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Tour guide Dave explained that Kinsale looked like most other towns until they decided to compete for the title of Tidy Town. According to him, and I don’t know how true this is because he was pretty funny, the woman who owns the paint shop suggested painting the buildings in bright colors. If so it was a genius business move. Either way, they won the title.

After the tour we checked out more of Kinsale, including going higher for a better vantage point.

We wanted to go to Charles Fort and had to decide whether to walk or drive. Why not walk, it should only take about 45 minutes. We looked at the map and all we had to do was follow the water. Easy enough. So we walked, and walked, uphill of course. We stopped a lot to take pictures and got some good ones.

We got back down to town and rewarded our long walk to nowhere with a stop to rest our feet at Sam’s Bar.

We eventually went to the grocery store and bought food to cook dinner tonight. I had leftover fish & chips from the night before and the others had pasta, salad and garlic bread. It started raining just after we returned to the apa

Here are some additional photos from today…

On Wednesday, August 24 we checked out of our hotel and took a taxi to the airport to pick up our rental car. Everything went smoothly and off we went. I haven’t had too much experience driving on the “other” side and the most recent time was in 2014. I watched some YouTube videos to refresh my memory and I wasn’t too nervous. Well, maybe just a little. JD sat in front and was my navigator and Jim and Marie sat quietly in the back. We were on the highway, which gave me the opportunity to drive on something other than small country roads and I was able to avoid city driving. So far so good. As we approached the beginning of a toll road I had to figure out which lane to choose. It was a bit confusing and I went to the right hand side because there was a sign that indicated that you could use cash. Great! Oh, not so great. You had to use coins, and I didn’t have enough. I had to back up and thankfully traffic was light. I had to cross about 5 lanes to the left to find the proper one. If I had come up to the lane as I should have it would have been fine, but I had to actually turn into it. Uh oh, was that my tire that hit the curb? Why yes, yes it was. After I paid the toll we pulled into a no parking area and confirmed that not only was the tire flat, but there was no spare tire. There was a fix-a-flat canister but that wouldn’t work because there was a hole in the sidewall of the tire. I called the rental car company and spoke to someone in roadside assistance. Eventually a tow truck came for the car and a taxi came for the 4 of us. We were taken to the repair shop and waited awhile until the new tire was put on. Then we were back on the road and had to go back through the toll booth. Practice and just driving forward, plus knowing where to go made it easy.

We were off to the Rock of Cashel, also known as St. Patrick’s Rock. It was the traditional seat of the kings of Munster for several hundred years prior to the Norman invasion. In 1101 the king of Munster donated his fortress on the Rock to the Church.

The drive to Kinsale from Cashel took us on both the highway and small and very windy roads. We survived the drive and made it to our apartment in one piece.

After settling into the apartment we went in search of a grocery store for a few provisions. We returned to the apartment to put things away and then found a place for dinner that was very good. It was a long day and we knew we would have plenty of time tomorrow to see more of the town. It was time to call it a night.

Tuesday, August 23 Day 3 in Dublin. We used the Hop On Hop Off Big Bus to take us to areas that were too far to walk. We took the entire loop to start the day, then started back around to get off at Merrion Square. The live commentary was interesting and humorous.Across the street was the National Gallery of Ireland and after a visit there we worked our way to Grafton St. and the surrounding area.

We didn’t want to go to the distilleries or the Guinness Storehouse, but we did go to Nancy Hands Pub for free glasses of Guinness, courtesy of the HOHO bus tickets. I’m not a beer drinker, but when in Ireland…

While we were walking back from dinner and walking up O’Connell street I noticed a sign on a store and I couldn’t believe it! Tower Records? Could it be true? JD and I went in and verified it was an honest to goodness Tower records.

We had our nightcap at the hotel bar and called it a night. We say goodbye to Dublin in the morning.

On Monday, August 22 we took our time getting going in the morning. We had breakfast at the hotel and then walked in different areas north of River Liffey.

At 2:00 p.m. we met our walking tour in front of the historic Post Office on O’Connell St. The tour was on the south side of the river and we learned about Irish history and how things are currently.

After the 3 hour tour we went back to the Temple Bar area for an early dinner. We were beat and still suffering from jet lag. I certainly was anyway. I walked over 20,000 steps. When we got back to the hotel we had what was quickly becoming a part of the routine, a drink at the hotel bar.

Tomorrow we plan to see more and walk less.

Saturday, August 20, 2022 was a day we’ve long been waiting for, a return to Ireland. We had one week here in 2009 and it wasn’t enough. Our day began early, with a 5:00 a.m. ride to the Sacramento International Airport. Too bad the International aspect doesn’t go to the places we want to go. We quickly checked in and checked our carryon sized bags. We didn’t want to have to drag them around during our 9 hour layover in San Francisco. When we arrived at security we noticed that our boarding passes didn’t show that we have TSA precheck. It didn’t take long to get through the regular line, but we had to remove our shoes and other inconveniences that we usually avoid. Our short flight to SFO was uneventful and we were picked up by my cousins who live nearby. Why hang out at the airport when we can have a fun day with them? We went out for a delicious breakfast and then discussed what we should do next.

The decision was to go get a close up look at our great Grandmother’s house. Who knows how many times I’ve passed it without knowing, but on a visit with Peri & James a few months ago we were looking through our great aunt’s journal from a trip she made through the Panama Canal in the 1930’s. In the journal she had letters she had mailed to her mother, who we called Gaga. Gaga died when I was about 4 years old. Jim checked out the address on Google Earth. A little later we left their house in Sunnyvale and headed north to see a friend in Marin County, requiring a drive across the Golden Gate Bridge. Hwy 101 becomes a city street as you drive through SF, and as we we stopped at a red light Jim happened to glance to the right and saw Gaga’s house. Wow! It’s at the corner of California & Funston. In the short time since then we’ve happened to drive by several more times.

The building manager came out and after Peri and I explained our connection to the building he invited us in. The lobby was beautiful and there was a nice little garden in the back.

Next up, Baker Beach! The view from there of the Golden Gate Bridge is usually stunning, but this is San Francisco in August. That means fog is common. Even so, a couple of hours on the beach is always nice.

It was time to return to the airport. Security wasn’t bad and we had plenty of time to kill while we waited for our Aer Lingus flight. The trip wasn’t bad and for the first time I actually got some sleep on the plane.

We arrived in Dublin around noon on August 21, quickly got through passport control, picked up our luggage which interestingly came out from the conveyor belt together, got a taxi and arrived at our hotel in just over an hour. Our wonderful friends, Marie & Jim (aka JD), had already arrived because we weren’t traveling together. We were allowed to check in early so we settled into the room and then set off to see some of Dublin. We ended up walking to the Temple Bar area, where we found a restaurant with outside seating. After an early dinner we walked back to the hotel, had a nightcap at the hotel bar and called it a night. We were all exhausted. I fell to sleep quickly. Sadly it didn’t last more than 4 hours and now I’m awake. Oh well.

I’m not sure why my photos aren’t posting. I’ll try to figure that out.