Ireland 2 - Dingle

Dingle. Yep, it's a funny name. It's the name of the biggest town on the Dingle Peninsula in County Kerry.

I took a day trip from Cork.

I discovered the most beautiful scenery, the cute town of Dingle, AMAZING ice-cream and stained glass windows that made me cry.

The scenery pics above pretty much speak for themselves.

The ice-cream ones, though, well that's another matter. Here I found something quite extraordinary, and so unexpected. Murphy's is a home grown Dingle gourmet surprise. Their ice-cream is made "with fresh milk from the rare Kerry cow, thick, fresh Kerry cream, and local free range eggs". Mmmmmmmmmmmm. You can find them in the main drag of Dingle and in nearby Killarney, and also in Dublin and Graig. GO AND VISIT THEM.

I ate the most wonderfully daring and out-there Sea Salt ice-cream...it was AMAZING. I bloody loved it...nice and sweet ice-cream with a real punch of salt. They actually evaporate local Dingle seawater and use the salt that's left...really really good stuff. I ate mine with their dark chocolate ice-cream, the perfect combo really.

They also had the bizarre flavour of Brown Bread. Brown Bread is a big deal here in Ireland, it's thick, grainy, and sometimes very dry! Well, Murphy's caramelise it in sugar then mix it into their vanilla ice-cream...of course I had a little taste, and YUMMMMMMM!! Definitely the best way to eat brown bread!

And now to those stained glass windows. Up above Dingle, there's a church, and next to the church is an old convent. I hiked up the hill to check it out, as I'd heard there were quite beautiful stained glass windows there, and I'm a bloody sucker for a stained glass window. So up I went.

In the old convent is a chapel. In the chapel there are the most achingly beautiful stained glass windows I've ever seen. They were made by the Irish artist, Harry Clark. They were made during in early 1920s, so incredibly romantic and dripping in texture and sensuality, something you don't usually see in a religious stained glass window.

It was the most bizarre thing, it has to be said, as soon as I walked into the chapel and looked at the first window I just started crying. I can't explain it. The tears just fell. Either I was one of those nuns in a previous life, or the windows were just that beautiful. Hmmmmmm...I'm going for the windows!