The O'Hoefflers visit Ireland

We've spent the last week in sunny Ireland.  Who knew Ireland could be sunny? We were told to expect rain every day while here, but our rain coats stayed tucked away in our suitcase!

Our first night was spent in Kilkenny, a charming little town full of history.  

We stayed at the Kilkenny Castle Manor House. 

Our pub dinner first night in Kilkenny - you don't have to go far for a beer in this pub.  Notice the taps right in the table.

The Kilkenny Castle.

I love the name of this restaurant.

Whisky and Guiness on every corner.

After spending a day in Kilkenny, we were on our way to the west coast of Ireland (and westernmost tip of Europe) and on to the small coastal town of Dingle.  They say the next parish over is Boston.

The roads in Ireland reminded us quite a bit of the roads in New Zealand - only narrower. We didn't think roads could get any narrower than N.Z..  I let Carol do the driving!  

Along the way we were slowed down by cow crossings and hound dog packs crowding the roads.














Dingle was just what we were hoping to find in Ireland - friendly, quaint, quiet, picturesque. After spending the past two months in one big city after another, we all needed a break from the frenetic pace. 

Our apartment in Dingle - just off Main St and above Kennedy's Butchers.

Our first day in Dingle we drove the Dingle Peninsula loop.  The peninsula is dotted with a few small villages but is home to over 500,000 sheep.  The loop is about 40 miles so you can do the math and determine the density of sheep in the area!  Some of them were quite tame and hungry. And soft!

The loop is loaded with dramatic cliffs and ocean scenery.

Scattered throughout the peninsula are stone age ring forts and other stone monuments dating from as far back as the Neolithic Age (4,000 BC) through early Christian times.  The forts below are all from about 500 B.C. - 500 A.D. and still standing today.

The stone stacks are just that. No mortar or other supports.

The road is only one lane wide along the west loop of the peninsula with cliffs down to the sea.  Fortunately they are quite experienced at building stone walls here and have created a bit of a stone guardrail.

There are some beautiful beaches along the way but the water was a bit too cold and wild for swimming.

At one of the beaches, Cameron and Allison did some climbing and Cameron spent time rock stacking.

Dingle is loaded with local pubs and this one caught our eye as we walked past. Foxy John's - both a hardware store and a pub.  After our loop tour, we decided to check it out.

Notice the entertainment at Foxy John's playing in front of the hardware displayed on the shelves.

Beer drinkers enjoying the music while hardware customers stop in for a bag of nuts and bolts.  We loved this place.  Not sure if we would be considered "regulars" here, but we did visit more than once!



On another day we signed up for a boat tour of the harbor and then  out along the coast for views of the shoreline and cliffs.  The real highlight of the trip was seeing Fungie, the adopted mascot of Dingle. He's a dolphin who lives without a pod and hangs out in the harbor every day, year-round.

Our boat.

It didn't take long to find him. Fungie was a great host and swam around our boat, playing in the wake for a good 20 minutes.

Our able captain sharing a lighthouse story while the boat was on autopilot (?).

Back in town - Allison riding a busker's donkey.

And Otis' cousin riding the donkey.

Murphy's Ice Cream.

Another highlight was a shoreline hike out to the Dingle lighthouse.  Along the way we asked for directions from a couple of musicians carrying instruments and walking past.  They noticed Allison's t-shirt and asked where we were from.  Turns out they were from Rollinsville (outside Boulder) and she had taught Allison as a toddler music classes at the Boulder Library.   They were playing at a pub in town that evening.

This tower along the lighthouse hike was built during the potato famine in the mid 1800's.  A land agent named Hussey wanted to help the area economy, so he hired some unemployed locals to build it - a jobs generator for starving farmers.  The tower had no purpose other than to put people to work.  It is now known as Hussey's Folly.

We were sad to leave Dingle, but after three days we were on our way to Dublin - our last stop in Ireland.  

Our airbnb apartment in Dublin - a newer complex about a 15 minute walk from the center of the city.



Along the River Liffey with the Ha'penny bridge in the background.  



Temple Bar is the main restaurant and pub neighborhood downtown.  Lots of tourists and drinking - reminded me of Bourbon Street in New Orleans.



One afternoon we took a train to Howth - a small fishing village about thirty minutes outside of Dublin.













After a short stay in Howth, we had a reservation back in Dublin for a tour of the Jameson Whiskey distillery.  In hindsight, taking the kids to what amounted to a whiskey tasting at 6 pm on a Saturday in Dublin may not have been the best parenting decision of the trip.  In our tour were a group of Romanians who were shut out of an earlier tour and had been passing their time at the Jameson bar for hours before our tour began.   Boisterous and full of whiskey fueled fun, they graciously taught us all how to cheers in Romanian - "Narouk"!! 

I believe it was after my second whiskey and declaring in a loud voice that now I was a "Jameson Man" that Carol began to re think our evening's plans...







Cameron may have been getting a bit impatient with the whisky tasting...







We loved our time in Ireland - especially the small towns and countryside.  Next visit we'll schedule more time to circle the full island and spend all of our time in the small historic and coastal towns.  

Next stop Germany!