Destination: Blasket Islands, Ireland
When my husband and I traveled along the coast road of beautiful Dingle Peninsula in Ireland, past the beach where Ryan’s Daughter was filmed, we saw this sign, “Next Pub Boston.” On up the road, we saw the pub, with canned soup and toothpaste among the sundries behind the counter for anyone who did not want to drive all the way back to Dingle. The town is called Duncan, or Dunquin in the native language that holds sway here on the Dingle peninsula.
Near the pub we spotted a very modern building with plate glass windows facing out to sea.The piles of rocks called the Blasket Islands out there in the wild waves used to be home to a hard-working community of folks, but the last inhabitants left in the 1950’s. The modern building houses a museum that provides a look at the islanders’ way of life, fishing and cutting peat from the few areas on the rock that supported any kind of soil.