Anyone who says Chicago is the windy city has never been to the Wild Atlantic Way in Ireland. WINDY is an understatement. Just about every stop on the Beara Peninsula today was plant your feet or get blown over windy.

We started out in Skibbereen with the intent of heading straight to the Beara Peninsula, one of the poor step children of Irish peninsulas after Kerry and Dingle. However, after a wrong turn we ended up in the small town of Caheragh, which just happened to be on Cindy’s Regan heritage list. So, we looked up the old Caheragh Old Burial Ground outside of town and found a Regan family tomb that Cindy will have to research further.

Randy’s years spent working at Olio Township Cemetary in Eureka came in handy in finding the Regan tomb that contained 4 family members.

We then got back on the correct route to Beara. We stopped at a variety of different places. A scenic overlook to Whiddy Island. Then up to Healy Pass. A bit later we stopped at Dunroy Castle (ruins) which was destroyed in 1602 during one of the Irish rebellions against England. Next was a Neolithic stone circle called Derreenataggart. After that was Dursey Island, the furthest point on the Baera Peninsula. We loved the views at Dooneen Bay and wonder how the other spots will stack up. Our final stop was at Kilcatherine Church, a 12th century ruin that contains a cross in the church cemetary thought to be 1000 years old.

We ended our day in Kenmare where we will spend the night. In Kenmare we had the opportunity to visit with Aileen Crean O’Brien, the granddaughter of Tom Crean, one of the sailors on the Ernst Shackleton expeditions to the Antarctic in the early 1900’s. If you don’t know the story Randy highly recommends Googling it or reading one of the books written about it.

Tomorrow is the Kerry Ring drive and we are sure it will be another windy day. Thankfully it’s only windy and not rainy…at least not so far.