Day Eight

Famine Soup Church

Irish Country Side Near Our Cottage

Gallarus Oratory

Rahinnane Castle

Dona & Ann At Rahinnane Castle

Ron & Dona At Rahinnane Castle

Today dawned mostly raining, but Ron went out on his own early to do a photo shoot at an old church just down the road from our cottage. This is a Church Of Ireland church that was in use around the potato famine time. They were called famine soup churches, because they would feed the poor farmers soup, but at the cost of committing the recipient to change their religion from Catholic to Church of Ireland. This church is no longer in use, but is for sale (400,000 Euros) and has had tenants other than the church recently.

While Ron was off taking pictures, Dona was busy making homemade Irish Soda Bread. She got her receipt from the library here in Dingle and said it was very similar to the one she uses at home. When I got home all wet and cold, she had warm soda bread and hot tea ready for me. Um, Um Good!

After breakfast, we headed to one of the most famous monastic sites in this area, Gallarus Oratory. A very early Christian church which was constructed of flat rock without the use of any kind of mortar. It has remained standing with almost no repair since the 8th century. While at this site, the clouds suddenly parted and it turned into a glorious sunny morning!

Next we went to the Riaisc Monastic Site which is another important very early Christian site from the same time period. All of these important sites are within 5-10 miles of our cottage.

Next it was on to perhaps the best site we have seen so far! The Rahinnane Castle. This was a 15th century castle built by Norman invaders by the name of Knight. They built and owned several castles in the area. This site is a ruin, that has parts of three sides remaining. The castle was destroyed during the Cromwell invasions by England in the mid 1600's.

After all of this it was time for lunch, so off to Dingle to guess what? Yes, a pub for Guinness and lunch. After lunch, the sky clouded up again and started to rain again, hard. We were on a mission to find one more castle, Minard Castle. This is another castle of the Knight family. We found it on the beach just south and west of Dingle, but did not take any pictures due to the weather.

We came back to Dingle to get food to fix dinner tonight and to update the blog. Now the weather is nice again.

Jean you asked about Irish Whiskey, well while we are not big whiskey drinkers, we have had a chance to sample a few. It appears to be somewhat of a custom here in Dingle that if you are a serious customer in some of the shops, they bring out a bottle of whiskey and small glasses and "share a taste" with you. This has been a very nice custom that we are sure would not be allowed in the States.

Tomorrow brings our last day in Dingle, we will be trying to jam every last thing in that we can. We are going to be doing a quiet evening at the cottage tonight!