Moments in Time: Dingle, Ireland

As many of us celebrated St. Patrick’s Day this week, we are on the Dingle Peninsula in southwest Ireland.  

Dingle is the largest town on the peninsula in County Kerry. 

The magnificent road that winds around the peninsula is called Slea Head Drive. A little side note: The westernmost part of the peninsula not only brings a spectacularly beautiful view of the rough surf of the Atlantic, but the islands off to the west are the closest part of mainland Ireland that you can get to the United States.  

A statue of the Cross is nestled in the rock just off the road. The scene from the crucifixion sits facing the United States off into the horizon, almost like sending continuous prayers to millions of family members who had immigrated from Ireland to the States.

My grandparents’ family is one of them. Three out of four of my grandparents’ families immigrated to the United States from Ireland: my father’s mother from County Cork, my grandmother from my mother’s side from County Clare, and my grandfather from my mother’s side, from County Kerry, specifically from the Dingle Penninsula.

Moving along Slea Head Drive to the peninsula’s northern side, my family and I stopped to look at the Three Sisters off the horizon. The three sisters are three mountain peaks at the northwestern end of the Dingle Peninsula.

As we exited the car, my two boys made a beeline down the trail to the cliff’s edge. As my wife stayed back, I made my way down after them. Quite quickly, you might imagine, not knowing how close they could get to the cliffs.

Reaching them and now standing alongside my two boys, I couldn’t help but be taken in by the natural beauty before us.

The sound of the waves crashing against the rocks below, the intense green that glowed from the sun shining on the rolling hills that peppered the landscape, was a serene moment.

That said, something else was going on. There was a calmness, a peacefulness that only comes when you feel like you are “home.” It was like walking into your house after being away for a long day or an extended vacation, the feeling of sitting in your favorite chair, or finally laying down in your bed after a long day. There is something indescribable about that feeling we have certainly felt before.

After living all over the U.S. and spending almost five years in Switzerland, I felt at home standing on the edge of that cliff.

These moments are powerful because they answer questions we might ask about ourselves throughout our lives.  

Throughout the different stages of my life, one of the most fundamentally essential questions I continue to ask myself is, “Who Am I?” It is so simple yet so profound.

So often, we attempt to answer this question with things that fade away. Things like our professions, titles, looks, appearances, possessions, houses, cars, etc., or we may attempt to answer this crucial question with our achievements or, worse, our failures. How destructive can the times be when we define ourselves by our mistakes, failures, or sins?

That said, certain moments truthfully answer that fundamental probing question. We feel it and know it instinctively—they respond with things that never pass away.

My grandfather from Dingle would have been 102 this week, March 16th, a day before St. Patrick’s Day. To say it has been a week-long celebration is an understatement. (Of course, I am still working on my kilt with County Kerry tartan.)

This week was and is, somehow, a celebration of Who I am and a remembrance of this moment two years ago, standing on the cliffs in Ireland.

Even though my grandfather had physically passed away years ago, he was present on that afternoon. Present in me, in his great-grandchildren running through the grass-filled hills of his home, and in his beloved Dingle. 

With a wee bit of Irish Whisky, Slainte, I wish you continued blessings on this beautiful life journey, leaving you with an Irish Blessing.

May the road rise up to meet you.

May the wind be always at your back.

May the sun shine warm upon your face;

the rains fall soft upon your fields, and until we meet again,

may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

About the Series:

This series of writing will focus on a particular moment and place in time.  For example, it will take us from a bench in Switzerland to a baseball field in Montana or a street corner in France.  Each place invites us into the moment’s emotions, lessons learned, and another journey for the soul.