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Published: April 11th 2010
You've probably already heard it all before - Ireland is beautiful. Well, that's because it is true. We spent four short nights there on the first leg of our driving tour of the UK and it was gorgeous. We arrived in Belfast late in the afternoon and followed the hire car company's instructions on how to get a bus to the McCausland car park where the car would be found. Why Belfast? I hear you ask. Well, that is because we had to try to work out how to get over there on the day we wanted, at the time we wanted and at the price we wanted, and in the end the best way was to fly over to Belfast and drive from there. That all went very well, having been picked up by the McCausland bus and taken straight to their depot. The guys at Mc Causlands were very helpful though when I asked to check on some local traffic rules, no one could give me the right answer, but other than that they were great. Everything was 'wee' which was funny - "the wee tunnel", "the wee piece of paper"..... all adds to the charm of the Irish.
We were delighted that 'Enterprise' who be hired the car from were able to come up with an automatic car, which at first they had said would probably not be possible. They seem to hire out far more manual cars than automatic, so that was a real bonus. After some directions of sorts from our wee friends at McCauslands, we were tentatively off and running. At first things seemed to go well, until we took the first of our wrong turns, following signs which we thought were right, but we were soon to find out that the signs in Ireland and Northern Ireland can be a bit misleading. We should have bypassed the built up area we found ourselves in and then had to negotiate the signs to get back on track. We arrived at a roundabout and what happened next can best be described as a scene from a National Lampoon's holiday movie. We entered via one road, then took each of the next three roads leading out of the roundabout till we finally worked out which was the right one. That was pretty funny really. Reminded my of my dear mum and her wise advice that you don't
need to worry if you take a wrong turn, just take a U-ey and that we did - three times!
We had intended to drive down to Galway that evening, but since our flight was delayed, due to long queues at the airport and various other reasons, we changed our plans and picked somewhere a little closer, which turned out to be Sligo. Sligo was actually quite a find. This was the first time we showed up anywhere with no accommodation booked which we weren't entirely comfortable about, but we were soon to learn the rules about booking in to B&B's - just show up at the door, ask if there is a room, the rate and can you see the room. No names or addresses are taken, they take you on face value, literally. If they don't like the look of you, they don't have a room available. Simple. We did this for the next three nights and had no problems at all. All the B&B we stayed in were different, but all charming, with lovely hosts and great breakfasts provided.
On our first night we asked the host if she could recommend a nice Irish Pub to eat
Irish breakfast
Mother would approve!and she came up with a beauty called 'Fiddler's Creek'. We had a beautiful dinner, in a really nice atmosphere with the soccer playing on the big screen tv, much to Ron's delight. We headed back to the room where we relaxed and watched telly till bedtime. Next morning it was full Irish breakfast time in the beautifully set out breakfast room with all the trimmings. Once full as googs, we headed off for day two, which would take us firstly to Galway where we had a bit of a walk around town till we headed off to the Cliffs of Mohar on the Atlantic Ocean. We made a couple of short stops along the way to break up the day and take some photos and eventually arrived at our final destination for the day. We took a walk up the road to the cliffs, which is part of a national park, all very well organised with great facilities, visitor's centre and gift shops etc. Another beautiful B&B was found for the night and another great recommendation for dinner, another Pub and another day was done. The next morning after a filling breakfast we decided to head back to the
Milltown
Water running through town Cliffs to see them in the sunshine. Ireland has come out of a long and bitter winter to give us some brilliant weather for our whole stay so we just had to see the cliffs in this light. The evening before we were able to see what we thought were a colony of penguins, but what were in fact puffins sitting on the cliff face. They were extremely cute even from a distance but I have no idea how they would have got up so high because I thought they were flightless birds as well. Anyhow they weren't there in the morning of course, so we walked along the ridge of the cliffs - along the paths of course and looked out on to the Atlantic Ocean. Another tick for Ron. The scenery was stunning as would be expected and the visitor's centre was a credit to them. It is set in a hill with only the front glass doors visible from the outside. We had a look through the shop, spent some more money on souveniers we said we'd never buy and we were off again.
This time we took a very scenic route along some of Ireland's best
dodgy roads, following their very questionable speed signs. Some worthy of mention are - Speed limit 100(km), followed fifty metres later by Speed limit 50 and straight back into 100, with no obvious reason for the quick change. These roads mind you aren't straight and have no shoulders for running off in the very likely event that someone is actually driving at the upper speed limit and cutting across corners onto your side of the road. Another was Speed limit 100km, followed FIVE metres later by a sign saying 'SLOW'. Not sure how you drive a slow 100km, but that's what it said. In a small town, the painted road markings said SLOW, followed by VERY SLOW, soon followed by DEAD SLOW. We got the message mate! Thanks.
Our next destination was Kylemore, a long way from the Cliffs of Mohar. We went there on a recommendation from another guest at our second B&B, and though it was well out of our way, we just couldn't resist. We arrived at Kylemore again in the evening and found a gorgeous Georgian B&B, very stately and with beautiful rooms. We felt very posh even sitting on the loo as all the windows
had a view of the loch and surrounding hills. We had yet another meal in an Irish pub and were served by a fellow who had lived in Australia for two years on a one year's working visa (Irish maths!). He eventually outwore his welcome and was sent home, but he said he had a great time working his way around the country. We had a great night's sleep in our comfy room and feeling like we owned a bit of this stately home for just a few hours. This was our last night in Ireland, but we made the most of our brief visit.
We got up bright and early the next morning, had our yummy brekkie and headed off to the highlight of this part of the trip - to see Kylemore Abbey. The abbey was built in the 1870's by a wealthy husband and wife who lived there with their nine children until her death at an early age. The house was later sold a couple of times before being purchased by the Benedictine Nuns who have owned it since the 1920's. It is now a private boarding school and day school for girls as well as
the home of the nuns. The former home was turned into an abbey and the gothic chapel, which the original owner had built as a memorial to his late wife was consecrated and is now a working church. The whole estate, includinging its' magnificent walled gardens had fallen into a state of disrepair over the years due to various reasons of the previous and current owners, but in the last ten years or so have undergone major restoration works. The abbey has three rooms open to the public, which are all richly decorated as close as possible to the original standards. The church has been restored and is a charming little 'cathedral in miniature' it is described in the brochure. The walled gardens apparently required two year's work of archeologists to uncover the original foundations of the garden beds and glass houses, of which there were 21, as well as very elaborate underground heating systems for the glasshouses which enabled the gardeners to grow exotic fruits and vegetables for the family. They still have a long way to go before the entire garden is restored to it's former glory, but it is stunning to see now. Give it a couple
of weeks and it will be jaw dropping as the rhododendrons come into flower. They grow like weeks there and are absolutely everywhere. They line the roads and are a huge feature of the surrounding gardens of the abbey. The flower beds are just coming into flower as well, so they will be a picture.
We had a long drive ahead of us as we needed to return the car to Belfast and catch a short flight over the Scotland. Like I said earlier, the drive was scenic and it was very tempting to just keep pulling over to take snaps of the views, which we did a couple of times, but time was of the essence so we had to plough on. We finally made it back to Belfast after a five hour journey and no missed turns, returning the car to our wee friends at McCauslands and being driven back to the airport. And that was Ireland.
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janet
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shamrock
I am so glad you included Ireland, your account was fun to read. Did you try the Guiness Ron? Did you go to Trailee? We did and a guy song the song The Rose of Trailee for the benefit of the tourists, comes second to Danny Boy. The Cats did not sing yesterday, Freo did, so did the Demons, Saints, The Dogs,The Swans,The Lions and The Roos/and Bombers. Our Nick is going under the knife today for his Hammie! You were lucky to see The Cliffs of Mohar, for us it was windy, misty, rainy and difficult to see much at all. Looking forward to hearing about your exploits in Scotland, not too much of the Scotch Whiskey Ron. Love Mum and MIL2B