Since leaving Killarney we have spent time exploring the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry and The Burren in County Clare - two beautiful but distinctly different regions on the west coast of Ireland.

The Dingle Peninsula has many ruins of 12th century, romanesque style churches and walled houses, but also in more recent history, the ruins of cottages where many Irish scratched out a very meagre existence in the 1850s and millions died from starvation or emigrated from Ireland during the Potatoe Famine. Certainly a very tragic time for the Irish.

We also took a short boat trip out to the Blasket Island where a community of farming people lived for many years until they were moved to the mainland in the 1950s. A fascinating history.

The Burren in County Clare is famous for it's limestone formations throughout the National Park. However, we have experienced another dose of history with even more ruins dating back as far as 8000 BC, including the Portal Tomb which was a burial / ceremonial site and a ring fort and earth fort where communities used to live. These were surpisingly complex structures. Hard to believe!

But best of all, there is traditional Irish music played in most pubs every night! It doesn't get warmed up until after 9.30 pm so there have been some very late nights. Last night we joined Set dancing at Kilfenora with a traditional Ceili band. Rod and I could only muster a straggly shuffle around the floor for one old-time dance. The rest of the night it was just fun to watch - way too hard and too fast to join in! But great fun. Oh, and the Guinness was pretty good too!