Photos on cdr

Hi Cullen, I'd love to have those photos.The more the merrier. Fran Barr,853 Vermont St. #102,Oakland,Ca. 94610

Slide show planned

Now that I'm back home and have recovered from my jet-lag, I'm planning on showing a few slides from my trip this week. Those of you who will be at the lake this summer can see more pics & hear more stories if you like.

The first slide show will be held at the community center this Friday night, at the lake.
I put pics onto powerpoint, and can burn them onto CD for anyone who might like a copy. There's about 200 pics in all that I chose out of the couple 1000 I took. Anyway, hope you can get to see it.

Cullen

Bidding Farewell to the O’Sheas & to Ireland.

Heading out to Bally Ferriter tonight, to Cain’s pub for some food and drink. Aine’ is bringing her Mom Eileen out for a “drop” and Padraig will try to join us as well. Prior to the evening gathering, we got to meet the kids. All 10 grand children. I can’t remember all their names, but we got it on tape so when I get home I can put names to faces for the blog.

Tomorrow we pack up and drive away from Dingle as we work our way back towards the airport Shannon. The plane leaves in the AM, so this will be the last post I’ll be making to the blog. I hope to update it later after I get home. With 6 gigs of pictures and video, I have enough photos to last a lifetime.

So this will be the last post (on this side of the Atlantic) for this blog. Thanks to all who have followed our trip. We appreciate the e-mails and comments, and look forward to sharing our pictures and stories in person.

Slan Go Foill,

Cullen, Phil, & Bob

The Blasket Island Heritage Center

What I formerly called the “blight” upon the Dun Quin landscape, has actually turned out to be a really nice tribute to the Blasket Island people. It is built to have a low profile, so as not to detract from the view of the landscape, but is still very visible from the Slea Head side of things.

Anyway, 3 Euro let us in to see (another) movie, but this one was well done I think. We then got to take a self guided tour through the facility. There are lots of references to Thomas O’Criomtnin? and others who came afterwards in Irish Literature infamy. We were all very impressed with the exhibits. Well worth looking at if you are ever in Dun Quin.

Ryan’s Daughter School House

This is all that is left of the 1960’s school house movie set built on location. The roof is half torn off but the structure still stands.

We missed the sunset, but there was a nice after-glow.

Gallarus Rip-off! (Oratory)

The “new” Ireland, as we like to call it, loves to charge $ for its sights. This was not always the case. 10+ years ago, one could simply walk up to ruins, cut through a farmer’s field and see stuff for free. At the very worst, you may get a farmer who would ask for a $1 Quid tress pass free but…

Enter the Irish Tourist board. In the new Ireland, everybody pays. Any possible lump of old rocks that can pack a tour bus in a tiny parking lot is money! Sometimes the price is fair for what you see, and sometimes not. Today was one of those “not” days.

We drove over to the Gallarus Oratory, which is about 1000 years old, and still water tight. (see picture) We see a giant parking lot and a visitor center where they wanted $3 Euro (roughly $5 US) to pass through the gate. They then shuttled us to a short 5 minute video on the ruin & the surrounding area. After the video was over they told us we could now walk up the hill to see the site.

After arriving and snapping pics, I started to walk away and noticed a long path that led off to some parked cars. I asked the girl what was up, and she told me, “Oh, that’s the public access way for the public parking.” I smiled politely, thanked her and walked away.

Moral of the story: We paid 3 Euro not to see the ruin, but for the film. The park is set up so that unsuspecting tourists who enter are made to think that THIS is the only vantage point to access the ruins. The video was actually pretty lame & almost put us to sleep, so that is how they justified making us pay a fee. Regardless, it’s a pretty shady setup and the locals in the pubs all tended to agree with us.

For some lucky lass back home...

We found what they call "Kerry Diamonds" near the sea cliffs off Slea Head. It's basically quartz crystal, but could be
made into a pendant or jewlry of some kind.