Our first day meeting up with the Perry Marshall group for the Influential Writing Retreat. We are a group of 12 people with all from the USA, except Jeremy who is from Japan. Our first day was meeting at the Dublin airport, then heading over to the Wicklow Heather restaurant in Brockagh, Laragh County for a late lunch. We ate in the Irish Writers Room which featured manuscripts from many Irish writers: Yeats, Wilde, Joyce, and even Bram Stoker. I had no idea he was an Irishman! I had their seafood chowder, as I’m definitely on a sampling quest at the moment. Our drive through the countryside was lovely.

The next day we ate breakfast at James Long Pub in Dingle and headed out for a hike on Dunmore Head and Inch Beach. I met a lovely photographer, Ian…., who lives near the beach and spends his time photographing the ocean and composing poems, in Gaelic, to accompany them. Hearing him read his work in Gaelic was a moving experience for me. Lyrical and beautiful. Afterwards we hiked to Dunmore Head in Dunquin.

At the top of Dunmore Head, there was an ancient Ogham stone. Here is what I found on it: “The stone reads ‘ERC MAQI-ERCIAS MU DOVINIA’, ‘Erc’ being the person who is commemorated here. Also the mention of the name Dovinia would lead one to believe that it was possibly a place of ritual worship to the goddess Duibhne (Dovinnias).”:

The earliest people to inhabit the Dingle (Corca Dhuibhne) and Iveragh (Uíbh Ráthach) peninsulas were the Corcu Duibne. The oldest reference to them occurs in a number of ogham inscriptions of 5th century date, in which they are described as Muccoi Dovinia, ‘the followers [or sons] of [the goddess] Dovinia’. Dovinia was the female ancestor divinity or goddess of this people. Later, when Christianity had taken a firmer hold, Dovinia was written out of history and the Corcu Duibne instead made to descend from a male ancestor, the fictional Corc Duibne. A good example of one of these ‘Dovinia’ ogham stones is the one at Ballinrannig, overlooking Smerwick harbour. Others can be found elsewhere on the peninsula as well as in Iveragh.

We ended the night going to an Irish pub, Dingle Pub, to listen to traditional Irish music. A full day for sure!