Driving on the Sheep's Head peninsula, I rode high above Bantry Bay to the north...where this picture was taken...and Dunmanus Bay to the south. Sweeping vistas, fresh, bracing air. And traces of the past everywhere.

Strolled a short segment of the Sheeps Head Way, a 90 plus mile long hiking route that traverses the length of the peninsula. A couple of the locals sauntered over to get petted when I walked by.

I'm staying in the small town of Baltimore, in extreme southwest Ireland. Very quiet this week after a major trad festival last weekend, which I unfortunately missed. This coastline reminds me of Maine...the same rocky meeting of land and sea; quaint towns; and nine months of tranquility outside the summer touron season.

A beach near Mizen head on a gray, pensive day.
Like my old stomping grounds in Oregon and Washington, Ireland has a lot of such days.

I'm on the Old Head of Kinsale here. This is a monument to the 1198 people who died when the Lusitania was torpedoed 11 miles offshore on May 7, 1915. A German U-boat did the deed. Britain considered it a heinous crime, but it appears the Lusitania wasn't playing by the rules...it posed as an innocent passenger liner, sailing from New York to England, but was carrying munitions as well as civilian passengers. Apparently the Germans knew this. Some of the local fishermen took to sea and rescued survivors. The sinking, which killed 128 Americans, played a large part in turning US sympathies against the Germans, though it was another two years before the US entered World War I.