Western Ireland

I opted for a pony cart for the seven miles through the rugged Gap of Dunloe, carved by ancient glaciers. Fields, waterfalls, stony glacial moraine --I heard my echo from the cliffs.

There are true stories, and then there are Irish stories.

Under ragged shreds of clouds and swirling mist we knock the van down a skinny rock and dirt road and park at the beginning of the Meanean Pass in the round-shouldered Maumturk Mountains. At a signpost made of recycled tires, we equip ourselves with backpacks and wind up a stony pilgrim's path.

Guglielmo Marconi made the first transmission connecting Europe with North America here in 1907 with a 10,000 word memo. And the first non-stop transatlantic flight, a modified World War I Vickers Vimy bomber, crash-landed in a bog here in 1919. Now gulls hang in the air like kites.

Up the stunning R478 coastal road, full of scoops and cuts, pleats and tucks, bights and coves, where the cold Atlantic is engaged in its never-ending battle with the rocky shore: By mid-afternoon, we pull into "The Cliffs of Insanity," as so aptly termed in The Princess Bride.

We pass a string of shuttered pubs. "A good puzzle would be to cross Ireland without passing a pub," James Joyce quipped. But with the fall from Celtic Tiger to Celtic Kitten in the past years, and with new indoor anti-cigarette laws, and stricter laws on drunk driving, folks are staying closer to home.