Dingle (An Daingean)

I woke up this morning to the dramatic sounds of wind and rain. I just stayed in my B&B bed for a while listening. At breakfast downstairs, I discovered that I am the sole occupant of Mary O'Neill's B&B at the moment; I also have Room 1, which was my room number in the Doolin B&B as well. (Is this a pattern I see?) So Mary's son Stephen did the honors of serving breakfast to the only guest. (The first two weeks of September are slow for Dingle; so I've come at a very good time.) By late morning the rain hadn't let up, so I decided to explore the peninsula anyway and take my chances. [Interruption: the sun just broke through, it's early evening.] So I walked to my awaiting little car and discover that the right front tire is nearly flat; also the power steering light is back on. No panic, no problem. I knew the wherabouts of Dingle's petrol station, took myself directly there, and put air in the tire. While doing so, I noticed that in addition to the tire's hubcap being gone, the rim is dented. Oh, no. Avis will ruin my life for sure. "I can't go on, I go on." I went on. I knew there was a good chance the "PS" light would turn off, which it did. So at least one of the wrong things was partially right. Am I visiting Ireland or am I having a relationship with a car?

(Regarding the matter of driving in Ireland, I've quickly discovered that it's an issue for locals as well. Eamonn, my hero at the petrol station in Doolin, told me he'd lost three cars on Ireland's roads! I braved the peninsula's back roads last night to go to a nearby tiny village for an AA meeting, which consisted of four men and myself. The men assured me that having the entire left side of your car scratched and mutiliated from hedges and such is quite routine.)

As I was saying, despite the rain, despite the car, I went on and drove a thirty-mile loop around the very end of Dingle Peninsula, which is the most westerly point in Europe. This is a place of the most extraordinary beauty, rolling hills and valleys, a mountainous spine running down the center, offshore islands, a view across Dingle Bay to the Ring of Kerry, a four-mile long beach, ocean and bay surrounding the peninsula on three sides; a powerful coming together of wild and tame, sparkling and misty, soft and ragged, the ancient lands and the forever newborn green. I'm told there are 500,000 sheep here; 2,000 prehistoric stone monuments, ruins, and remnants of monastic settlements; and 10,000 people. (Before the famine, the human population was 40,000.) I could live here. Two bookstores in Dingle. The locals' faces look calm. Out on the western end of the peninsula today, I saw a woman walking with her child and dog and she was wearing the warmest of smiles.