Ireland day 1479. Thursday 16 October 2025- Dingle Day 5

Today’s summary	Had a later start than the last three days so left the cottage late morning to visit the Blasket Centre near Dunquin. Excellent. Had lunch there then looked round the exhibition. Drove on to Dunmore Head and found the spot where I’d had my photograph taken in 1979 when on a cycling holiday. Stopped for petrol and shopping in Dingle then an evening in the cottage with fish finger curry courtesy of Val.
Today’s weather	Overcast but bright. Very light easterly breeze. Appx 13c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Dunmore Head

Commentary

After three successive days of early starts, we all felt like having a bit of a lie-in today. We are supposed to be on holiday, after all. So we took our time about getting up and having breakfast and we didn’t leave the cottage until about 11:30. But that didn’t narrow our options too much, as our chosen destination – the Blasket Visitor Centre near Dunquin – was only a relatively shore distance away. Over the Conor Pass and then north along the Slea Head Drive.

The Centre was opened in 1993 (and more recently refurbished) and is simply excellent. e had lunch in the café and easily spent three hours looking round. Blasket was evacuated in 1953, mainly as a result of a declining population as most of the young people left – many emigrated to the USA – and in particular to Springfield, Massachusetts. In the years leading up to the evacuation, several of the residents had stared writing their memoirs and many were published and became international bestsellers. The exhibitions tell the story of the normally hard (but occasionally happy) life on the islands, as recalled by these writers.

Eventually we had seen all that we wanted to see and retreated to the cars for the ten minute drive down to nearby Dunmore Head. This is the westernmost point of mainland Ireland and I had last visited in the summer of 1979 on a cycling holiday with some friends from College. I had kept a photo from that visit, taken from somewhere on the headland, and I wanted to try and find the spot and recreate the image.

Eventually, after triangulating the angles and views in my picture with what we could see in real life, I think we found more or less the exact spot my photo was taken 46 years ago. The grass had grown a bit, but otherwise not much – including the weather – had changed. I posed for a photo, and we eventually left, satisfied to have been able to recreate an image almost half a century after it was originally created.

By the time we had finished faffing around, it was after 6pm and evening was beginning to descend. So we got back to the cars and drove on to the cottage, calling at the petrol station and SuperValu in Dingle on the way, to refuel vehicles and bodies, respectively.

The evening was spent by the log fire, enjoying a glass of wine, and feasting on yet another delicious fish finger curry that Val pulled together for dinner.

What a superb but quite different day!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The Blasket Centre – it’s run by the OPW and like so many of the sites they operate, it’s excellent. Its layout has many Greek-inspired themes, in keeping with the classically poetic nature of the Irish dialect spoken on the island. It’s in the shape of an Ogham rune, when viewed from above	The entrance hall, complete with a very impressive Blasket-themed stained glass window

The main corridor “spine” of the Centre	Impressive strata on the southern side of Dunmore Head. Scenes from one of the “Star Wars” films were shot here

From the summit of Dunmore Head, summer 1979	..and 46 years later. The grass cover has increased a bit, but otherwise nothing else has changed!

The cast iron viewing platform, down on the coast about 500m from the Centre. There are magnificent views over to the whole Blasket Island group from here