What's in Dave's Head

The shepherding demonstration we watched on a farm on Slea Head in County Kerry, just outside Dingle, was conducted by Gabriel Kavanagh, whose ancestors have lived in Kerry for centuries. The dirt-floored, “famine cottage” Gabriel’s forebears occupied in the 1800s still stands on Kavanagh’s farm.  In addition to raising sheep, Gabriel and his brother Gordon are historians. They authored “Famine in Ireland and  West Kerry,” a history of the famines in Ireland. It’s a sobering look at what led to Ireland becoming susceptible to food shortages, and how the most infamous famine, the Great Famine, caused by the failure of the country’s potato crop in 1845, forever changed Ireland and much of the world. Other sources tell of Ireland’s earlier history, which is filled with centuries of political and religious subjugation, war, poverty, and policies that contributed to the conditions leading to the Great Famine. Centuries of English occupation England occupied and controlled

Fully refreshed after a good sleep, Donna and I and Rich and Barb came down from our rooms to a hearty, excellent breakfast, although not exactly a “full Irish,” which typically includes beans, blood pudding, fried eggs, bangers and bacon). Our plan for the morning was to visit the bridge from which John Wayne’s character in The Quiet Man first spots his love interest, played by Maureen O’Hara. Rich has seen John Ford’s 1952 movie scores of times, and finding the bridge, which we knew was in the vicinity of Galway, was on his bucket list. We told the proprietor, Marie, of our intention and asked if she had suggestions on where to find it. She gave us explicit (for Ireland) directions, assured us it was easily visible from the road and was well “sign-posted.” Excellent! Except it wasn’t. We drove along the N59 as directed, never seeing the bridge nor a sign for it. We drove well past where we were told it would be until we came to a giftshop and pub. Rich went in and

Donna and I flew from Newark with Donna’s siblings, Rich and Barb, on a Wednesday night redeye flight that put us at Shannon airport the next morning. We picked up our rental car and, unable to check into the B&B in Galway until late afternoon, headed northwest to the Cliffs of Moher, a one-hour drive that starts on the M18, a U.S.-style highway with two wide lanes in each direction. It’s a good way to become re-acclimated with driving on the left side of the road from the right side of the car.  After several roundabouts (much cheaper to build than intersections with flyovers), we turned onto the N85 and were down to one much narrower lane in each direction. We passed through beautiful Lahinch and saw the Lahinch Golf Course preparing for the following week’s Irish Open golf tournament. Morning clouds burned off and we were presented with a picture-postcard sky as we arrived at the cliffs. The massive, spectacular, 400-foot-tall cliffs abut the Atlantic Ocean and run