Shireland: Day 2 – Driving Dingle

Shireland: Introduction
Shireland: Day 1 – Aer Lingus Business Class, the Burren, and Moher
Shireland: Day 2 – Driving Dingle
Shireland: Day 3 – From West to East
Shireland: Day 4 – Exploring Dublin

If you’ve taken the redeye to Europe before, you know that first day you end up going to bed really (REALLY) early. I slept from 8 PM to 8 AM, which was good because we had a long scenic drive ahead of us on day 2. We spent our second day in Ireland driving the beautiful Dingle peninsula, which is said to be one of the most scenic places in Ireland. It did not disappoint.

Driving in Ireland is a bit of an adventure. On the small country roads, there are two lanes, but they are pretty tight. I was having trouble adjusting to driving on the opposite side of the road, and found myself coming close to scraping my car against the left side every time a car passed on the other side. Luckily, most of these country roads are surrounded by hedges so even when I scraped them it wasn’t too big of a deal.

The one word I’d use to describe the countryside is pastoral. There are sheep everywhere, and it’s incredibly green. Combined with the weather that changes every five minutes (sun to rain to sun showers to rainbows to pouring rain back to sun), the views can be quite dramatic.

Our first stop was about an hour out of Killarney and 2/3 of the way to Dingle, and quite possibly the natural highlight of our entire trip. The kind Johnny O’Quinn at Bricin restaurant had told us we needed to pull off the road at the first beach we saw. I can honestly say we might not have done so had he not advised us to – thank goodness we did. The Inch Strand is a four mile long beach with views so breathtaking we stopped on the way back as well. It was empty except for a family and their three dogs and one or two other people, which led for an enjoyable romantic stroll. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

After the Inch Strand, we drove an extra half hour to the town of Dingle, a cute little harbor town which serves as a starting point for a nice hour long scenic drive on the Dingle peninsula (not including stops). We loaded up on supplies and started our trip. Along the way, we passed a lot of beautiful sights – the westernmost point of Europe, breathtaking views of the coast, and a building that is centuries old. We also saw TONS of sheep, and even got to buy some pottery! On our way back through Dingle, we had some Murphy’s ice cream, which is made from milk from some special Kerry cow. We also bought two slices of cheese for less than one euro – lovely. We finished the night off with some fish and chips at Quinlan’s Seafood in Killarney – it was pretty much the perfect day. We took one final stroll at night through Killarney and then turned in, we had to drive all the way to Dublin the next day! Enjoy the pictures!