Ireland's South Pole

A good puzzle would be to cross Ireland without passing a pub. JAMES JOYCE Ulysses

There's so much to see and do in the Killarney National Park that I wish we could have stayed longer. Though we did have a very enjoyable guided tour of the Victorian, mock-Tudor pile, Muckross House. And we did take a leisurely stroll - dodging the sharp rain showers - round the Muckcross Traditional Farms.

These limewashed cottages - with thatched and tin roofs, and bicycles outside the door - look organic, but actually they're not. They were put up comparatively recently as part of a rural, open-air museum. Now, I've nothing against this, though I did find it a shame that few traditional Irish cottages seem to remain in the landscape.They've been replaced by the ubiquitous modern bungalow.

After a peek into the Mucros Weaving Workshop (the woven shawls and scarves and sweaters are just fantastic) we reluctantly left the Lakes of Killarney and inched our way along the southern shore of the Dingle Peninsula to Inch Strand. It was here that David Lean shot the beach scenes for Ryan's Daughter. And it was here too that the weather took an even more ferocious turn for the worse. The Slieve Mish mountains retreated into a Celtic mist ...

... and we retired to the South Pole Inn at Annascaul. This used to be the pub of local boy Tom Crean (1877 - 1938), seaman and Antarctic explorer. He took part in three of the four major expeditions to the Antarctic, including Ernest Shackleton's Endurance and Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition, which ended tragically in Scott's death. The pub walls are covered in shivery memorabilia ...

We stopped the night at an English couple's B&B near Dingle. They said they'd never known rain so heavy in years. We wanted to drive to Slea Head, but the road was flooded and impassable. So we fled once more to a bar, where we heard the fine ladies of Dingle town sing Gaelic airs and ballads so authentically, so musically, so beautifully, that we almost cried into our pints of Guinness ...

Chasing a glimpse of sun we rushed north and crossed the river Shannon by ferry ...

 ... and entered the most green and pleasant county of Clare. I prayed at this Marian shrine for good weather to accompany me on my eagerly awaited pilgrimage up Ireland's sacred mountain, Croagh Patrick ...