Doolin, Dingle & Drinkin'

Hi all,

These past few days have been finding us doing quite a bit of driving down the coast and seeing some beautiful scenery. Of course this was after we had to push start our car (for the second time). We decided that we'd rather trade it in instead of always making sure we parked with a long stretch of driveway to get going again. Luckily we were still outside Galway so we popped over to the airport to swap. Unfortunately they were limited with what they had and we now have an even smaller car that has a rather unfortunate odor...but! we don't have to spend part of our mornings running up and down a driveway in order to get going.
We spent a couple of hours wandering Galway's medieval streets and then heading south through The Burren. While I had originally thought that The Burren was a single structure it's actually a huge expanse of hillsides that used to be a sea floor. Limestone rocks snake across the landscape dotted with pockets of vegetation. We visited a portal dolmen that is the entrance to a neolithic burial site.
We eventually made it to the little town of Doolin in the hopes of hearing some traditional Irish music...unfortunately we weren't the only ones. It appears as though where there is Irish music there are just tourists. Doolin gave us our first downpour of the trip.
The next morning found us driving along the Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs were fantastic and even though it was windy like no other, the day was sunny and bright. We spent the rest of the day driving along the western side into Dingle town. Dingle is currently in dispute with the government over it's name. The Irish government subsidizes certain areas to maintain Irish/Gaelic customs, language and traditions. This means that children grow up speaking Gaelic as their first language, signs are in Gaelic (as well as English) and areas get to stay somewhat traditional. Dingle cultivated a reputation with the tourists prior to getting subsidized and doesn't want to change it's name to its rather unpronouncable Gaelic one. Currently most road signs are in Gaelic but hand painted signs and the locals still call in Dingle. Here again we found Irish music but more tourists than locals in the pubs. While the music is fun the atmosphere is quite different than in Trim.
Today we spent driving the Dingle peninsula. We spent 7 hours driving 40km. Fortunately, most of our time was spent looking at sights and driving slowly to enjoy the view and not having to sit behind long lines of cars. We neared the western most tip of Ireland (though there were the Great Blasket Islands beyond so we still aren't sure how it's the western most tip) but we did have a pint of Guinness at the western most pub in Europe. The peninsula was beautiful though the horizon was hazy and we could barely make out the Skelligs in the distance. Apparently, for those interested, both Ryan's Daughter and Far & Away were both filmed in the area.
We're off now to try and find some dinner and craic (or Irish atmosphere)!
Unfortunately, the wireless service that I'm on is too slow to upload any pictures...hopefully I'll get some up soon!!