A required 3 month exit from my home in Italy (and the Schengen zone) opened up a possibility to spend the first month in Ireland tracking down stone structures and family roots. For three weeks we housesat cats on the sleepy island of Valentia which seems to barely hang on to Ireland, and for that matter Europe, before floating off into the Atlantic. I obsessively sketched the myriad ways of assembling dry stone walls on the Iveraugh peninsula, County Kerry, and we hunted down the corbelled stone structures on the Dingle Peninsula similar to the trulli in Puglia.  In the words of Dominic, an Irish stone waller “…there are so many local variations on dry stone walling in Ireland I could fill five emails describing the styles in County Kerry alone!”

He also advised in seeing music in Dingle where the “standard is high and the craic is mighty!” Instead we caught our traditional music experience at Peppers Bar in Feakle, County Clare, an area that lays claim to some recent origins of this type of music.  The pubs were always cozy and the Guinness always the right temperature after a drizzly hike through the evergreen soggy fields.  We also had the chance to pop over to the UK and celebrate an important 50th birthday in a yurt in the Peak District.

from the sketchbook – 

The Lighthouse on Valentia Island

The slate quarry, opened in 1816, has provided slate for the Paris Opera House and London’s House of Parliment

Iveraugh peninsula sets to the Atlantic

Iveraugh peninsula

County Kerry dry stone wall

County Kerry dry stone wall

County Kerry dry stone wall

Stone wall of County Kerry

Stone wall at Geokaun Mountain, Valentia Island

The Skellig islands, off the coast of Valentia Island

The Skelligs in the distance

From the top of Geokaun Mountain, Valentia Island

Cahergall stone ringfort built in 600 a.d.

Gallarus Oratory, a corblled oblong nave structure, Dingle Peninsula

Gallarus Oratory

Bee-hive huts on the Dingle peninsula

An example of a “clochán”, or bee-hive hut, similar in construction to the trulli in Puglia, Dingle peninsula

Valentia Island lighthouse on a clear day (the only sunny day!)

Loop head peninsula

Truscleave

Tracking family roots in Truscleave, Loop Head Peninsula, County Clare

Caleb’s great grandfather’s house in Truscleave

Window

Hiking in the Peak District, UK

Hiking in the Peak District, UK

Possible inspiration for the Bronte novel Wuthering Heights, Peak District, UK

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