Unholy Pilgrims on the Kerry Camino

After the sin and debauchery that is Key West, we booked ourselves a healthy get-right-with-the-Lord type of holiday. A week of hiking in Ireland. Bracing winds. Driving rain. Lots of sheep. Just "clean livin'" as my wife would optimistically say.

The hike we chose was the Dingle Way (or "Kerry Camino" an Irish attempt to capitalize on the famous El Camino de Santiago in Spain). The Dingle Way is 176 km circuit around the storied Dingle Peninsula, which juts out into the Atlantic halfway to Iceland.

Joining us were friends Mark & Mary who had done a similar thing with us in Spain two years before. It was self-guided hike, but our tour company (Ireland Hike Bike & Walk) did the lodging and transportation arrangements on our behalf. The day unfolds as you rise in your cozy inn, tuck into a Full Irish, set your luggage in the lobby for transfer to the next inn, taxi to the trailhead, hike until mid-afternoon, grab a quick kip, and then hit the local pub for self-congratulatory pints and supper.

Due to our age (advanced) and our fitness level (suspect) the tour company recommended we do the "Comfort Hike" instead of the regular circuit. This cut the 176 kilometers down to about 10 clicks. Well, not 10, but to a more manageable number.

I felt okay about doing the comfort hike until all of the taxi drivers kept driving past the regular hiking start points to what they called the "easy hike," which was a bit emasculating if I'm honest. On the other hand, this new schedule allowed for substantially more downtime in the afternoons to sample the pubs and explore my inner village idiot (clean livin' now forgotten).

In Dublin's Fair City

Having flown into Dublin prior to the hike, we had a day there to do the jet lag shuffle and see the sights. We always try to do a walking tour in any city we visit. Our guide was terrific mixing his historical facts with a dry Irish wit.

Some historical facts:

• Dublin is old. The pubs are older than the Pyramids.

• You should probably not swim in the River Liffey

• The Vikings really took a shine to Ireland. They didn't just do their usual rape & pillage routine before heading back to a more agreeable climate, like Portugal. They stayed on, made towns and started the first McDonald's franchise. This presumably explains why about every 5th Irishman you see is impressively tall. This recessive Viking/Irish gene probably explains my own 6'3" son, since our milkman was only 5'8" on a good day.

• St. Patrick was Welsh, not Irish. He was kidnapped by Vikings as a wee boy and taken to Ireland. Despite this probably upsetting first impression of the place, he warmed to the island and eventually baptized all the snakes.

Splitting the G

The Mother Ship

No visit to Dublin can be considered complete without a visit the world-famous Guinness Brewery and Storehouse in St. James Gate. Having taken the tour, I can tell you everything you want to know about Guinness now. Like Ireland itself, it's old (the brand, not the beer). You have to wait twice as long for your pint at the bar as for a regular pour (something to do with the bubbles), and, most importantly, you get a "free" pint (with your 34 Euro admission fee) up in the Gravity Bar on the 7th floor of the museum after the self-guided tour. That's about all I can remember, and probably all you need to know. Though for more family history and salacious details, check out the Netflix series House of Guinness.

We drank a lot of Guinness on the Dingle Way comfort hike. That's because while Guinness is ostensibly just beer, it's really so much more. Beer is a beverage. Guinness is a meal. You have to chew it a bit before you swallow. And, according to what must be the longest running ad campaign in beer history, Guinness Gives You Strength, which was occasionally, if not vitally, needed for the comfort hike.

It also gives you diarrhea, according to at least one member of our little band. But this may have had to do with the amount of Guinness we were drinking after a hard day out on the comfort trail.

So that was the routine each day: breakfast at the inn, diarrhea, taxi, hike, hike some more, repair to the pub for Guinness. Rinse and repeat. One of the charming things about the tiny Dingle Peninsula is that all the innkeepers and taxi drivers knew each other or just were each other. Your inn keeper for tomorrow night might also be your taxi driver for today. Or last night's innkeeper might ring up tonight's innkeeper and say watch out for clogged toilets with this group. So, it's very chummy and lovely that way.

The first day on the trail, setting out from the town of Tralee, really set the tone for an Irish vacation. We had to hike along the side of a mountain for 6-miles through marshy bogs, while a fat rain carried on 25 mph winds knocked us sideways. It felt right and good.

When we finally arrived at the inn's front door after the hike, the innkeeper promptly shooed us right back outside to disrobe in his shed. He sang out in his Irish brogue "everything off—shoes, socks, pants, knickers. Ladies too. I've seen it all before." Cheeky he was.

The number one rule in his tidy little inn was NO BOOTS IN THE ROOMS. Once you get mud on the carpet in Ireland, it takes about 200 years to dry. So the first thing Lori did, was take her boots into the room! She was found out immediately and soundly excoriated. She earned a further scolding by inquiring as to when our wet socks and knickers, now in the dryer, would be ready, to which he replied: "when they are bloody good and dry you infuriating woman!"

He was actually a little nicer than that and with his adorable Irish accent one (meaning me) could only be so mortified; but I was still keen to make a hasty exit to Fitzgerald's Pub right across the road. Once there, feeling a bit safer, I approached the bar in the still mostly empty pub. The barmaid looked at me quizzically and asked: "Are you all right?"

She seemed genuinely concerned. Well, I think so...? I smoothed my hair (the humidity can make a circus out of what little salad I have up there) and checked my person for the usual embarrassments like food stains, nosebleeds, etc. Maybe she found my complexion to be alarmingly pale and was worried I had taken ill? But I mean come on, we're in Ireland. It's one of the few places on the planet where I feel like I have a healthy glow.

Not knowing what else to do, I feebly replied that I was fine, thank you for asking, and may I please have a couple of pints of the brown stuff? It was about 19 pubs later, maybe up in Galway, that it finally donned on me that "Are you all right?" is the Irish pub equivalent to "What can I getcha?" in my country. Aye...

It doesn't rain every day in Ireland, only Sundays through Saturdays. And on those days, taking refuge in a cozy pub snug is even more delightfully earned. And NOTHING says warm and cozy like a roaring peat fire in said pub. I'm kidding of course. You see Ireland has no trees (the English cut them all down a few centuries ago as another punishment for being Irish and another inducement for them to leave the island for good since the Irish apparently didn't mind the rain that much). And with no trees, you need something else to burn. Hence peat, which is essentially grass (but mostly mud) cut from the hillside, dried, and voila - fire. Again, I'm kidding.

Peat is a non-flammable substance. Because it's basically dried mud, that isn't completely dry, with some grass mixed in. The Irish like to put it in their pubs as one of their many practical jokes they play on blow-ins. This, however, did not deter my friend Mark (aka Feigs, pron: Figes) from giving it his absolute all.

Give it a rest Feigs

After a few days of rain, the sun did break through, and then went away for some more rain, as we triumphantly strode into Dingle town.

Dingle is a highlight of any trip to its namesake Peninsula, with a high street full of pubs, terrific live music, and until recently a resident dolphin. Fungi was a male dolphin who lived in Dingle Bay by himself and loved people. A lot. (Though it is said he thought Pete Hegseth was a dick). All you had to do to hang out with Fungi was wade out into the bay, bang a couple of rocks together and Fungi would come a swimmin' like a Yellow Lab who thinks you have a tennis ball. I'm not making this up. We first met Fungi on our honeymoon back in 1990 on just such a swim (I would include a picture here of it, but Lori didn't take one as she was waiting for the perfect shot). He only passed away in 2020. It is not known whether he enjoyed Guinness, but we have to assume so.

RIP Fungi

Moving on around the coastline from Dingle you reach the westernmost point in Europe, and shockingly, another pub. There, after passing ancient Irish Monk "beehive" enclosures, you see the Blasket Islands which was once home to dozens of families who lived for generations off the land and sea with no electricity or running water. Despite this deprivation, they reported being very happy. How they could be so without either TikTok or Desperate Housewives of Dingle? We will never know. But there is an expansive interpretive center out there which has excellent bathrooms and where, I presume, you can find out.

Honestly, I fell asleep during the film, as it was a fairly strenuous comfort hike that day.

Great Blasket Island in the distance

The Blasket Islands are also a big draw for Star Wars nerds (sorry, I mean fans) because in Star Wars Episode XVII (or maybe it was Episode XXIV?) "The Last Jedi Cash Grab" we are reunited with Luke Skywalker. Remember him? His best quote from Episode VIII (or maybe Episode XXIIV?) was: "It's just like shooting womp rats on Tatooine." Seriously? This is the hayseed that you are entrusting with your one and only shot to shoot down the entire Death Star??? Well, I guess womp rats are harder to hit than I would have thought, because Luke does makes the shot. And yet, despite this heroic deed, young Luke's acting career did not follow the same trajectory as the inarguably cooler Han—I'll be shagging the Princess, thank you very much—Solo. But then Luke had daddy issues.

Fast forward a few thousand space years, and Luke is now older (and wiser?), but still a little pissed that he couldn't get his half-sister in bed and that Han is still way cooler than him. So he retires to Skellig Michael Island (in Ireland) to drink Guinness and wait out the millennia. That old chestnut.

Back in our own time, sheep watching was a favored activity because the baby lambs had just been born. And it was a great way to rest without admitting that the comfort hike was kicking your ass a bit.

Actual Irish Sheep

Rounding the bend and heading east, we crossed over the Brandon Mountains to Castlegregory on the northern side of the peninsula, which we found to be quiet and charming compared to the tourist bustle of Dingle and the wild western coastline. It feels, and I honestly hesitate to even say it, a bit untouched by the Instagram Industrial Complex. It's exceedingly lovely but appears to have mainly Irish visitors still. Not that I have a problem with foreigners (well, okay, my family has had nothing but trouble from foreigners since we came to this country), but it's just nice to see a place that still feels like it is mostly what it is and not a prop for posts. Luckily, the readership of this blog has both enormous cultural integrity and is an exceedingly small group. So Castlegregory is probably safe for another month or two before the influencers declare it the most unspoiled part of Ireland or some shite.

Castlegregory (need to know basis)

We completed our comfort hike with a taxi back to Tralee, and said our goodbyes. Though not to Ireland. Lori and I still had a week to go. But this time we would be doing a comfort drive. Well, comfortable for me because I'm driving. Terrifying for my wife because I'm driving—down the left side of a narrow Irish road that is only wide enough for a car and a donkey to pass in opposite directions, with the driver's seat on the right of the car and the stick shift in my left hand. Easy peasy.

More diarrhea, but now of the nervous, we are probably going to die, variety. For next time.

Iss faw-dah on boh-har noch(k) me-on caw-sah ann