manchester

holidays

reviews

Ireland: A real Blasket case

CREANS': Southpole Inn

The dwindling population was finally evacuated in 1953 after, in its declining years, spawning a body of poetic accounts of life there unprecedented in literary history. I so wanted to visit centrepiece isle, Great Blasket. I still so want to visit it. But the elements were against us.

As the rain teemed and gale raged outside, my wife and I had to content ourselves with the fantastic Blasket Centre at Dunquin on the mainland, which covers every aspect of human and natural life on the islands. From the outside it is a great, grey shell of a place, not to every local's taste. But, as an interpretative, interactive museum of a lost world, it is exemplary.

Here alongside endless evocative pictures of the fishing/subsistence farming community, are films and quotations from the great triumvirate of Peig Sayers, Tomas O Criomthain and Muiris O Suilleabhain, and other lesser figures, whose chronicles were encouraged by visiting scholars and are still in print. Out of a total population of barely 200 islanders, all this is simply amazing.

Amazing

What had also been amazing were the clear blue skies that greeted us on our arrival on the Dingle peninsula the day before. But it was a Sunday, we had travelled by circuitous mountain roads from the Ring of Kerry and a promising pub crawl and fish supper awaited us in Dingle. The Blaskets, via a special boat trip over arranged by the islands' current owner Susan Callery, could wait till the morrow.

As always, the fickle west of Ireland betrayed us. After an understandably bleary lie-in at our lodging house, Doyles Townhouse (award-winning seafood, cosy, well-equipped rooms shoehorned into a tight space), we knew from one look outside, the island trip was off. It was a day for trawling the shops. Dingle, still booming after 20 years on the back of Fungie the celebrity dolphin out in the harbour, is a good place to shop these days. We visited Susan's terrific modern art gallery, the Greenlane, on the street beguilingly called Holy Ground, ate more terrific fish in a seafront shack called Out Of The Blue, then fled the drizzle to sup stout and sob into our Blasket books in An Droichead Beag, a pub that hosts great music sessions.

Another fascinating hostelry lies a few miles east of Dingle in Anascaul - Tom Crean's South Pole Inn. It was to here that locally-born Tom Crean returned after courageously accompanying Lord Shackelton to the South Pole. It is packed with mementos and again serves a lovely pint.

Gallarys oratory

It seemed to take days for us to dry out. We had come from the east where, like England, Ireland was enjoying a phenomenal heatwave summer but, by the time we reached our first port of call in the West, all was what the locals call `soft' but thankfully not cold.

We were cosseted, though, by a stay at one of the country's finest traditional hotels - The Park, overlooking the river at prosperous Kenmare. The fantastic new spa there, Samas (with an ambient soundtrack by a former Roxy Music sax player) is more cutting edge than the hotel itself, but for sheer quality of service and upmarket homely comfort, Francis Brennan's place can't be faulted. It's a luxury world apart, but once out of the front gate you are straight into buzzing Kenmare. Local seafood featured heavily again in laid-back Packie's (it's short for Patrick!) bistro on the main drag. Highly recommended.

Kenmare, while avoiding all the touristic honeypot excess of Killarney, gives you great access to the national park there, and is a great hopping off point for the 110-mile road-trip that is the Ring Of Kerry and for The Skelligs - islands, with a monastic past, well worth the visit. The view of them from mainland Ballinskelligs is awesome.

Roaming

On The Ring we enjoyed immensely roaming the wetlands, dunes and wide sandy beach below Caherdaniel. Derrynane House was the family home of Daniel O'Connell, the campaigner for Catholic emancipation. It's a stiff little mausoleum of a place but features lush gardens and a barn containing the triumphal chariot he was paraded round Dublin in after his release from prison in 1844.

After Dingle, we headed north for Galway and its arts festival, taking in my beloved Burren, that unique lunar/limestone landscape, whose Alpine and Mediterranean flowers are distilled into beautiful organic scents at the remote Burren Perfumery.

We stopped off en route at five-star Dromoland Castle. In rolling countryside beside the Shannon, it is remarkably relaxed and unsnooty, considering its prestige and prices. This grey stone castle, ancestral home of the Princes O'Brien, descendants of legendary warrior Brian Boru, attracts Americans because of its golf course and proximity to Shannon Airport. I just like being serenaded by a harpist at dinner (the food is terrific, too).

It's a haul, on less than excellent roads up to Galway, but this is still an unmissable place, especially vibrant during its September oyster festival and the arts festival, when we were there.

Each time I visit, it seems to have expanded and sometimes the alleys of the old town seem to have one-too-many street performer or tacky shops, but the pubs are still roaring purveyors of Craic.

The new G hotel, while awkwardly out of town, is perhaps the most relaxed designer hotel I have ever stayed in with fine, eclectic food. This showcase of where the Celtic Tiger economy is taking modern Ireland is a world away from the Gallarus Oratory or the mist-shrouded Blaskets, but any country that can encompass all this is still my favourite holiday destination.

For more information, please select the lniks below.

Related stories

© Copyright 2008 Manchester Evening News. If you wish to use this article for commercial purposes please contact our syndication department.