After having a group breakfast in the hostel, we loaded up the bus and set off for Co. Kerry, stopping off first at Blarney Castle along the way.
Winter is definitely the season to come here, as the majestic, verdant grounds and stolid fortress castle were virtually empty, save ourselves and a handful of other bedraggled passers-through. The view from the top was precious, and it was interesting to wander among the many tiny rooms and passages inside the castle tower.
Heading on into the wilds of Killarney National Park, passing through the Gaeltacht areas of West Cork and Kerry, we stopped at Torc Waterfall for a bit before heading to Tralee for lunch. I needed a break from the group, so I loned it at a quiet café called The Skillet, where I had a lovely, pensive hour of peace and quiet, while I downed a pot of hot tea and a chicken salsa wrap – signs of the gentrification of the Irish Southwest.
After lunch, we headed northward across the Shannon, into Clare, and the Burren country. We had hoped to catch sunset over the Atlantic by the Cliffs of Moher, but were a little too late. So, after a brief stop at Lahinch, (it was a bit chillier than when I was there several summers ago, and now filled with the aroma of burning peat fires...it was remarkable, though, that such a small town had, along with a fine array of pubs serving mostly seafood fare, its own Chinese and Indian restaurants – something which fewer even sizeable towns in the States can claim), we settled into our hostel in Doolin. This had been opened especially for our tour, despite its normal winter closure, and it was sufficiently cold to prove that point.
Doolin is a truly special place. A tiny village, lying at the closest landfall to the isolated Aran Islands, it is the spiritual and true home of traditional Irish music (“trad”). The village centre, about a mile inland, is comprised of O’Connor’s pub, a tiny deli (closed in the winter months), a small general store and a gift/sweater shop, with one small pub about a half mile farther on. Besides this, two hostels and a bus stop, the village tapers off in all directions to a scattering of houses and boulder-strewn fields enclosed by centuries-old rock walls.
Despite all this, at night “the craic is ninety” in O’Connor’s, and the music is out of this world. After a fantastic feed of Irish stew here, we enjoyed hours of fine trad music and good conversation. Once Aedín and company arrived from their B&B 20 minutes’ walk up the road, we had to call Fred to let him know we had reached his soul home.
Again, the tour group bonded, and we had some good discussions about music, travel, politics, etc. Teneile and I started talking about reiki and aromatherapy and things, and she told me she had thought from the beginning of the tour that I had a very strong aura. It’s incredible what people begin to say after a few pints of porter. She is planning on traveling for another year (after being out and about in the world since last January) and said she would send postcards from her various sojourns through Central and South America, once she gets on the road again after a brief visit back to Oz. There is also a chance we would meet up in Chile, or Mendoza, though she said (like many travelers I’ve recently engaged on the topic) that Buenos Aires held no interest for her.
After O’Connor’s closed, I headed for a walk up the narrow bóiríns heading inland from the village and hostel. One could see a perfectly clear view of the heavens, replete with shooting stars. It was beautiful.
|  | 
|
