Lyn and Peggy came to visit. We gave them a day to acclimate, then brought them to Dingle. We had a late start on Friday because someone has to work, but we made it there in time for a delicious dinner at one of our favourites, the Goat Street Bistro. The next morning we hopped on a boat for an adventure to the Blasket Islands. We started off on the Great Blasket Island where we went for a hike around half of the Island.

There was a small fishing village on the island until 1953, but now most of the small houses are falling apart.  There were plenty of campers setting up tents in the ruins and a small hostel was also in operation.

Here is a few pictures from our hike.

After our hike we jumped back on the boat and took a tour of the outer islands.

We saw lots of wildlife including grey seals

and Puffins

and porpoise (this was the best view we were able to get)

and Red Deer on Inishvickillane island

For a small island it sure has a lot of impressive bucks.

The deer were introduced to Innishvickillane by Charles Haughey.  He was an Irish Taoiseach, which is the Irish Prime Minister, from 1979 to 1992 with a couple of short hiatus.  He seems like he must have been a sketchy character and there were many inquiries into how he could afford a private island and an extensive wine cellar on a public servants salary.

The boat ride was very nice, here are some pictures.

 

Back in Dingle we had another great dinner at An Canteen.  After dinner we dodged the hen (bachelorette), and stag (bachelor) parties doing pub crawls in costumes.  It was worth it because when we made it to the marina we saw this great sunset.

The next day we took the slow ride back to Cork through Killarney National Park and Bantry Bay.

We finished the weekend with dinner in Clonakilty.  It was a great way to start off our two week tour of Ireland and Scotland.