The drive around the Beara Peninsula is fraught with peril, at least if you’re in the passenger seat of a Renault and your husband is learning not only how to drive on the left side of the road, BUT TO DO LIKE JAMES BOND. At any rate, there are no shortage of hairpin curves over long, rocky drops into the Atlantic Ocean and all I’m saying is bring a clean pair of boxer briefs. As we came around one such curve, this guy was waiting for us, just kind of staring, watching us go past. It was raining pretty hard by this time, so I leapt out only long enough to snap his photo and then was back in the car like a flash, and we kept driving, seeing most of Beara through the window, through the rain.

We did make a stop when we came across a very old Irish cemetery and ruined church.

In the three or so minutes we walked around the cemetery it began to get unbearably cold and to rain harder than ever, so we raced back to the car, by this time soaked from head to toe and freezing. So, we decided to take Ken and Denise’s advice and stop at McCarthy’s Bar in Castletownbere for some of their delicious seafood chowder, a shot of Paddy and a pint of Murphy’s. It was POURING down rain by this time, and Castletownbere was crowded, so we were completely drenched both going to and coming from the pub. We continued around the Peninsula, stopping only for a few minutes at a time to see something interesting or take a photo. Finally, though, we sorta gave up, drenched to the bone and craving some tea and Jaffa Cakes. So we headed back up the Peninsula to Kenmare, stopping only to take this picture:

Which, according to legend, is where this happened: