Ireland – Slea Head Drive (North)

Extending our overnight break from our tour of the Dingle Peninsula, we're spending the morning in Dingle Town (pop 1,671 in 2022), then completing the Slea Head Drive (R559) loop this afternoon.

The town is tiny but intriguing, and full of color in every sense of that word. From our bayside accommodations, we walk north along The Mall, a slim road lined with painted cottages. There's an authenticity to the small shops and streetscape, especially as compared with the 'amped up' character of the waterfront, and catering to the locals as much as the tourists.

We turn left (west) on Main Street, which is wider and busier, and just as colorful. Proceeding up the hill, the buildings grow in scale and personality. While shopping, a local recommends we restart our loop at Beál Bán, a beach on the north coast.

Beál Bán is a quiet pocket of sand on Ard na Caithne (Smerwick Harbour). The almost-silent hum of white noise from the benign waves is hypnotic. We find a soft spot in the sand just below the dunes and create a level plot. The margin is glassy and wide, and covered with beached jellyfish, creating a streaky composition of chevrons.

The beach is bracketed by colorful shoals that separate the curving shoreline into a series of shallow coves. We stay much longer than we planned, with just the gulls and sanderlings for company, plus an occasional hiker or two passing by, but never lingering.

Dingle's north coast is dotted with important, Early Christian sites which seem to surround Beál Bán, much like the sites to the west of Ventry. Our first stop is just five minutes away.

From the road, Láthair Mhainistreach an Riaisc (Reask Monastic Site, 6th century) blends with the patchwork landscape of grazing fields. Like the unsecured Roman sites in Portugal, the site is exposed and unattended. We enter by a small gate in the dry-stone wall and find the illustrated signage from the OPW with a visual reconstruction and information.

The ruined outlines are beautifully preserved, along with several standing stones with etched designs. The 'Reask Stone' is the tallest slab in the burial ground, with spiraling floral imagery and the letters 'dNe' (Domine) written at the left edge.

The rectangular contours of the oratory are unique from the bases of the circular clocháns (domestic beehive huts) and are further distinguished by the tablet with the cross at its west-facing entrance.

Séipéilín Ghallarais (Gallarus Oratory, 7th-8th century–?) is just a few minutes to the north, a grander edition of Reask's oratory and burial ground. The OPW runs a visitors' center staffed by a docent, with a gift and bookshop, toilets, and a theater showing an introductory video. The Oratory is a few yards up the hill from the visitors' center, but the path offers incredible views back to Beál Bán and Gallarus Castle (15th century).

The Oratory is remarkably large and set within an irregular walled enclosure. As at Reask, the church and cemetery are further separated from the 'earthly world' by a dividing wall, with the Oratory facing west and the burial area, marked with a standing stone, to the north.

Shockingly, after nearly a millennium and a half, the Oratory's corbeled structure stands with its ridge caps completely intact – the church is still weathertight. The quoining by the entrance is clean-cut and even, and supports the thick lintel slab. On the inside, a pair of stone 'hoops' imply a missing wooden door or textile curtain.

The small window opening at the east is built from keyed stonework splayed inward like a Romanesque arch and may be from a later date. The central portions of the corbeled gable show signs of efflorescence, salts leaching from the masonry.

The last stops on our Slea Head tour are a short distance to the northeast. Saint Brendan's House is an ancient ruin at the back of a field, but the site is not accessible to the public. However, the House looks much too young to truly be associated with the Saint, who, legend tells, sailed to North America in the early sixth century, beating Columbus by nearly a millennium. The site is also said to contain a 'holy well', which might help reinforce the 'holy' connection.

Next door, to the south of the House, the medieval ruin of Cill Maoilchéadair (Kilmalkedar Church, 12th century) sits evocatively in a dense group of crosses and headstones, topped by a trio of distinctive finials. The archivolts at the entrance retain their beaded and zigzag designs, as well as the carved face at the keystone.

The interior is defined by its embedded six-bay arcade, with slender arched windows in the fourth bay. The nearby plaque reads:

A monastery was founded here by St. Maolcethair who died in 636. The present church was built in the 12th century, but the chancel was extended to its present size around 1200. The blind arcading on the inside walls and the decorated tympanum or semi-circular lintel of the doorway are unusual features probably imitated from Cormac's Chapel at Cashel. Other items of note are the stone with inscribed alphabet beside the chancel arch and the finials on the gables. In the graveyard surrounding the church are a stone cross. a sun-dial and an Ogham stone with the inscription ANM MAILE-INBIR MACI BROCANN (The name of Mael Inbir son of Brocán).

A stele with inscribed crosses is to the left (Evangelist side) of the chancel archway, which repeats the beaded and zigzag motifs. The chancel is a small room with a low door to the south, a stone tomb north, and a widow to the east.

The rough masonry work at the arches of the east window and the back side of the chancel arch constrast with the wonderful carvings of the underside of the arch, with its lovely diamond and floral pattern. We can only guess that these openings had been dressed with wood or plaster and carved or painted decoration.

Teampaillin Breanainn (St Brendan's Oratory, 10th century) is in an adjoining field near Kilmalkedar, with access from the road (R559), down a long path between the grazing sheep. A waist-high wall encloses a rectangular yard, with the Oratory in the middle, again facing west. Nearly complete, the upper courses and capstones are missing. The interior walls form a narrow and steeply corbeled triangular prism with a low, dry-stone retable just below the east window.

Its dark, pebbly geometry lies in stark contrast to the smooth, verdant hills to the north and west. And yet it seems perfectly at home within a maze of rocky barriers. The House and Kilmalkedar rise above the receding stripes of bright green and dull grey, with white puffs of sheep; the structures are set off by the deeper canopy of the trees just beyond. To the west, a weary sun hangs over the Harbour.

The drive back to Dingle is short, and we find some amazing fish and chips at the food trucks by Dingle Harbour. Here, we can eat our dinner and watch the sunlight dissolve behind the masts of the sailboats and into the water's surface.

Turbett's Spin City Funfair opens again, and the air fills with carny music and the cheery squeals of the local children.