We'd planned on leaving at 8am for the Beara peninsula. But we got a late start - big surprise. What's the hurry!? We did set out around 11 in the usual two cars. Down through Waterville and heading east along Ballenskeillig Bay on very winding roads. We got to the town of Sneem around midday. The tourist books said this village had sold out to tourism - but it didn't look too bad.
Quite pretty, actually. A town square with shops all around - most with tourist
stuff (oh look! Little green and white leprechaun dolls!!), but ok.
After our usual milling about, mailing letters, changing money, minimal shopping,
we looked for food. Across a little stone bridge over a lovely little river
I found "The Restler Inn".
This was a pub that had been owned by the family of Steve "Crusher" Casey - world heavyweight wrestling champion in the thirties [there was a larger than life statue of him in the square.]
The pub was empty so we easily got our usual seating for twelve. And had our usual order - 5 pints, 2 glasses, 5 cokes. We wrote our own orders - the owner just handed us a pad of paper to write what we wanted while he pulled the Guinness.
The owner pulled out all the stops - putting a large bottle of Heinz catsup out for our fries. (Most pubs, if they had any catsup at all - usually called 'tomato sauce'- provided just a few of those small, impregnable plastic packages. Which Joe and Johnnie would horde as though gold.)
When we finished lunch and returned to the Sneem town square, we were amazed to see that it had been taken over by huge busses and hordes of tourists. Ah, the guide book comment about 'selling out to tourism' came back to mind. Sneem is on the Ring of Kerry - now part of the standard tourist route. Luckily, we had arrived a bit before the busses and had the village to ourselves for a brief time.
We got back into the cars (after John endured some verbal abuse from tour bus
drivers for parking in spots specially reserved for busses) and retraced our
route towards home. (We had decided that it would take far too long to do the
Bearra Pennisula, given our late start.} We stopped at Staigue
Stone Fort, a circular, walled fortress built around 1200 AD located up
in the hills about 5km off the road.
There was a mild drizzle and much sheep dung to avoid as we trooped around the fort. But very few people - the tour busses could not make it up the narrow road to this site.
Still heading for home, we stopped in Waterville - looking for the elusive almond Magna. None available so we settled again for the Traditional flavor.
We fed the children (and ourselves, of course) in the evening then we went off to Rosie's for a pint - and to re-create the photo of the sisters in front of the shrine to the Sacred Heart to see if the miraculous 'halo' that covered Sheila's face in the photo I took the day before would reappear.
No halo in this version. Whew! Blessed be. (Left to right: Sheila, Theresa, Betty, Patty, Kate.)