03/18/2024
Happy St. Patrick's Day! My travel dreams today are taking me to the Di**le Peninsula — one of my favorite corners of the Emerald Isle.
I once met an elfish man in the little town of Ventry. When I asked if he was born there, he paused, breathed deeply, and said, “No, ’twas about five miles down the road.”
I asked him if he had lived there all his life.
He answered, “Not yet.”
When I told him where I was from, a faraway smile filled his eyes as he looked out to sea and muttered, “Aye, the shores of Americay.”
Di**le Peninsula gives the traveler Ireland in the extreme. It feels so traditionally Irish because it’s part of a Gaeltacht, a region where the government subsidizes the survival of the Irish language and culture. While English is everywhere, the signs, songs, and chitchat are in Gaelic.
This sparse but lush peninsula marks the westernmost point in Ireland. Residents are fond of gazing out at the Atlantic and saying with a sigh, “Ahh, the next parish over is Boston.”
Fishing once dominated Di**le, but tourists and moviemakers are well onto the region now. Several films feature the peninsula, including Ryan’s Daughter and Far and Away. Its offshore islands were the hideout of an aging Luke Skywalker in the most recent Star Wars trilogy. And what had been a trickle of visitors surged into a flood as word of Di**le’s musical, historical, gastronomical, and scenic charms spread.
About 30 miles around, the peninsula is just the right size for a day-long driving or cycling tour. Hopping on a bike on a recent trip, I assessed the gathering storm clouds and zipped up my parka. In Ireland, good and bad weather blow by in a steady meteorological parade. A little rain just adds to the experience. Circling these roads is like a trip through an open-air museum. The landscape is littered with a half-million sheep and dozens of monuments left behind by Bronze Age settlers, Dark Age monks, English landlords, and even Hollywood directors.
In the darkest depths of the Dark Ages, when literate life almost died in Europe, peace-loving, scholarly monks fled the chaos of the Continent and its barbarian raids. Sailing to this drizzly fringe of the known world, they lived out their monastic lives in lonely stone igloos or “beehive huts” that I passed on my ride.
Rounding Slea Head, the point in Europe closest to America, the rugged coastline offered smashing views of deadly black-rock cliffs. The crashing surf raced in like white stallions.
I pondered the highest fields, untouched since the planting of 1845, when the potatoes rotted in the ground. The vertical ridges of those bleak potato beds are still visible — a barren and godforsaken place. That year’s Great Potato Famine eventually, through starvation or emigration, cut Ireland’s population by a quarter.
I stopped to explore the Gallarus Oratory, a stone chapel dating from AD 700 that’s one of Ireland’s best-preserved early Christian monuments. Its shape is reminiscent of an upturned boat. Finding shelter inside as a furious wind hurled rain against its walls, I imagined 13 centuries of travelers and pilgrims standing where I was, also thankful for these watertight dry-stone walls.
When the squall blew over, I continued up the rugged one-lane road from the oratory to the crest of the hill, then coasted back into Di**le town — hungry, thirsty, and ready for a pub crawl.
Di**le’s few streets, lined with ramshackle but gaily painted shops and pubs, run up from a rain-stung harbor. During the day, teenagers — already working on ruddy beer-glow cheeks — roll kegs up the streets and into the pubs in preparation for another tin-whistle music night. “Pub” is short for “public house.” A convivial mix of good craic (that’s the art of conversation, pronounced “crack”) and local beer on tap complements the music. People are there to have a good time, and visitors from far away are considered a plus.
In Di**le, there’s live music most nights in half a dozen pubs. There’s never a cover charge. Just buy a beer and make yourself at home. The Small Bridge Bar and O’Flaherty’s are the most famous for their atmosphere and devotion to traditional Irish music. But I like to wander the town and follow my ears. Traditional music is alive and popular in Ireland. A “session” is when musical friends (and strangers who become friends) gather and jam. There’s generally a fiddle, flute or tin whistle, guitar, bodhrán (goat-skin drum), and maybe an accordion.
I followed the music into a pub and ordered a pint. The music churned intensely, the group joyfully raising each other up one at a time with solos. Sipping from their mugs, they skillfully maintained a faint but steady buzz. The drummer dodged the fiddler’s playful bow. The floor on the musicians’ platform was stomped paint-free, and barmaids scurried through the commotion, gathering towers of empty, cream-crusted glasses. With knees up and heads down, the music went round and round. Making myself right at home, I “played the boot” (tapped my foot) under the table in time with the music. When the chemistry is right, live music in a pub is one of the great Irish experiences.
The Irish like to say that in a pub, you’re a guest on your first night; after that, you’re a regular. That’s certainly true in Di**le...the next parish over from Boston.
