An Daingean-DIngle

After a bit of a blogging break, I am back at it. I left Galway Saturday morning, headed for the Shannon Airport to meet up with the rest of the group. I arrived in Shannon at 10am and was greeted by Liz. Liz had flown in the day before and stayed the night in Limerick; we spent our wait time getting to know each other and then talking to Dr. Mack when she arrived close to 11am.

Dr. Mack had the flight information for the girls, so we checked the arrival board and began our wait. Both flights were on-time and once we had collected the sleepy travelers, we headed for our coach. Once we were loaded, we began the long drive to Dingle. On the way to Dingle we stopped at Ardfert Abbey. Unfortunately, a fierce rainstorm had followed us. We got out of the bus and headed for a bathroom and then walked back to the Abbey. Upon our return the rain went from a light drizzle to a full-on downpour. Luckily the site had an interpretive center where we could attempt to ride out the storm. At the Abbey we also had a tour guide and she was kind enough to get us some umbrellas and we were able to see the main section of the old church and some of the other buildings; however, because the rain didn't stop, we had to end our tour early. We got back to the bus more than a little damp and the twelve of us returned to our seats and prepared for the drive.

The scenery was gorgeous! We drove through green fields, filled with sheep, drove up over Mt. Brendan and then down onto the Dingle Peninsula. As we neared Dingle, we could see islands crop up out of the water. In this area of Ireland the population is rather spread out, so we would see clumps of houses and then nothing for more than a mile, but as we entered Dingle, the buildings got closer together. The first thing I noticed as we drove through Dingle to our bayside cottages were the brilliant colors the buildings were painted. Many of the buildings were deep blues, with only a few in white. The village is beautiful and was less than a 5 minute walk from our cottages.

When we got to the cottages we had enough time to set down our luggage and head out for a tour of the village from our guide, for our stay, Sean Pol. On our walk we saw all of the important landmarks, Diseart (the school where our classes would be), the groceries, and places to get food. After our tour we were on our own to get dinner and to explore the village. A few of us were starving and decided to get food, so we headed to the Pub's to get some "Pub Grub" and found that most places were packed because of the Irish Football game (Cork v. Kerry). We walked into The Dingle Pub and managed to find a table for four, talked, ate, and watched the football game. After eating, we decided to go to a pub that specialized in traditional music (An Droighead Beag). We were lucky enough to find a table and listened to the music for hours. It was beautiful and we decided that Dingle was a pretty great place.

The next morning we were set to have our first class. The class's focus was on the oral tradition and the Blasket Island Writers. The man who led the class, TP, was a wonderful storyteller and I was more than willing to listen to TP for hours. He told wonderful stories about Peig Sayers, who we read before we left, and about Dingle itself. After TP finished, we had a lecture from Nuala ni Dhomnaill's (a poet) uncle. His talk didn't just focus on his neice, he also talked about other writers, specifically from the Blaskets. He too was very interesting and fun to listen to. Dingle is not short on storytellers.

On Monday, we again had lecture, but more importantly it was our day to travel to the Blasket Islands. We left Dingle Harbour at 2pm and arrived forty minutes later. The approach to the Great Blasket Island is amazing. From the Blasket Channel, we could see the island coming into focus and it was huge. The closer we got, the more things came into focus, we could see the upper and lower villages, the beach and the curreagh landing (boat). We had to be transferred from the main ferry to a smaller boat and then dropped at the landing. It was a little scary moving from the big boat to the tiny one and then we had to try to stay upright when climbing from the small boat to the seaweed covered rock landing. The island was evacuated in 1953 and has been left much the way it was then. Some of the houses have fallen into ruins, a sheep farmer has his organic sheep there, and there is a weaver who lives on the island during the warmer months. Thus, the landing is the same one the islanders used, so we had to climb the rock stairs and then the narrow grass paths. Sean Pol accompanied us on this trip and guided our group through the paths and down to the beach. On the way back up to the villages, Sean took part of our group up the rock cliff, while the rest of us climbed back the way we'd come down. Sean continued leading the group on the upward climb and a few of us, decided to forego the climb and spent time exploring the ruins. Our time on the Great Blasket went by too fast and soon the boat was back for us and we were heading toward Dingle Harbour wiht the hope of seeing Fungie, Dingle's local Dolphin. As we headed into the harbour, we saw Fungie and he followed us much of the way.

Monday was by far the best day in Dingle! In the morning we learned about traditional music and learned traditional dance and then spent the rest of the day on the Blaskets. Tuesday would be spent tying all of the pieces together, through a lecture on mythology and the literature created on the Blaskets. The final Dingle lecture was fantastic and I felt that I'd learned a lot and had grown to understand the people.