Allihies Copper Mines

Sunday dawned a beautiful day and after breakfast we headed straight down to the beach at Allihies and took an amazing walk along the coast. The sun was shining, the wind had dropped, and it felt positively balmy compared to yesterday. Despite there just being a gentle breeze there was still quite a swell on the sea and the air was filled with the sound of breakers smashing against the rocks below. See the blip here.

From the coast we headed up towards the old Copper mines to get a full sense of the history of this place. This shot shows North Engine House, which was built in 1823 to hold a steam engine to pump water out from the mine workings to combat the problems of flooding. The tunnels were excavated to depths of more than 400m, well below sea level. The conditions the miners worked in do not bear thinking about. Out here at the remote westerly end of the Beara, these men must have been as hard as the rock they mined. It was really quite sobering.

The weather closed in during the day, the blue of the sky gradually being replaced by a deepening grey. We were going to head across to Dursey Island on the cable car but I messed up the reading of the times for the Sunday service. Instead, we did the Garnish loop, which offered more quite magnificent coastal scenery and allowed us another chance to visit Garnish Strand and join up a few of the dots we visited yesterday. We returned to the car just as it got really dark and as the drizzle turned to more serious rain.

Before heading home we decided to catch a local music session at O'Neill's bar. It was a bit like having a gig played out in your own living room! No microphones or amps, just the pure sound straight from the instruments and - despite this being an hour and a half's drive from home - TJ knew or had connections with just about everybody listening, either old friends or new friends that we had made in the last 24 hours! It's just that kind of place ... and she's that kind of person. It was quite wonderful.