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Published: October 14th 2010
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Artists House
House in Donegal After spending the weekend in Northern Ireland we took off for the Northwest. If you ever visit Ireland this is the most beautiful part of the country. So, so rugged and so, so isolated. We drove to my aunts which is in Dungloe in County Donegal. This part of the country is called the Gaeltacht area where the street signs and many other signs on shops and houses are no longer in English but are in Irish. There are other Gaeltacht areas of the country and the idea of it is to preserve the Irish language. I can read a little bit of it but mum and dad are much better! My aunt and her family live in a thatched cottage (just like the ones in pictures!) but has recently added an extension. The view out the window of the extension is this incredible uninterrupted view of countryside out to a lake where swans have taken up residence. After spending the night there we drove around County Donegal on the Tuesday. We Donegal town, the Glenties which is another really lovely town and then found this road where you felt like the last person on earth. There were no other cars
Interesting bathroom
This was part of an artists exhibit about handbags that was in the female bathroom of this artists house on the road and you were surrounded by mountains with the odd sheep. This is why I love Ireland. You can stop the car in the middle of the road (which we did) and there's just nothing. We ended the day by going to the house of a local artist which was actually really interesting. He is not well known but had painted many well known people including the Kennedy's and members of the Royal Family. Dad threw the guide a bit by pointing out that in one of the paintings you could see a face in the sky. The guide had never noticed it before. We took awhile coming back and my aunt was a bit worried by the time we got home!
After spending two days up in the northwest we headed south to Achill Island via the Ceadh Fields and Westport. The Ceadh Fields are again in some of the most isolated land in Ireland where dad kept swearing that only crazy people drove out there and only crazy people would choose to! The Ceadh Fields are an area where early settlers lived many 1000's of years ago and the stone formations of their houses and
Donegal
The isolated road other buildings were preserved in bog. It was actually really interesting and looked out towards the Atlantic so very beautiful as well. Westport is a really nice town in the west of Ireland. All pretty houses and small streets. Achill Island is one of Irelands favourite holidays spots. It's off the coast and somewhere we had gone before moving to Australia. I was navigating on this day and accidentally took Dad down a "wee white road" that mum had vetoed due to the fact that on the map...it didn't really look like a good road nor somewhere that was entirely safe to drive down due to it's isolation...but it was quicker! After finding a lovely B'n'B we headed to the Achill Cliffs Hotel for a gourmet dinner...that was one of the nicest meals I've ever had. The sheep run Achill Island and are everywhere! The next morning dad and I were out looking at the sheep when we heard rain and could see it over on the paddock but weren't getting wet yet...dad's points it out and 3 seconds later we were slightly drowned and running back to the hotel. Never seen that before. Dad had spent summers on Achill
Donegal
Mum, dad and the car on the isolated road Island and took us down to Keam Bay. It is this isolated beach surrounded by mountains and again, only locals and really knowledgeable tourists know where it is and venture down there. There was a small mountain on the side of the beach that dad and I climbed. It was hard work, almost straight up with many, many midgies. But the view at the top was so worth it! Straight down to the Atlantic. It was so windy that when looking over the edge dad had to hold onto me in case I was carried off to America. At one stage we were looking down the side of the mountain and what do you know...there's sheep down there! Would love to know how they got there. Coming down was easier and mum was happy at the bottom with the paper. The weather began to turn bad so we headed to Clifden which is in County Galway.
In Clifden we stayed at the cutest B'n'B with Ireland most closeted gay man, Des. He was so lovely and I got my own room...yay!! It was a microscopic and you couldn't swing a cat but it was nice. Dinner was again huge
Donegal
The lake near my aunts house but lovely and we discovered a pub with live music. After a pancake breakfast (believe it or not you do get sick of Irish breakfasts after a while) we headed to Galway. I love Galway city, it's always warm and always busy. The shops are great and most of the town is pedestrianised. Then we started the long drive to Dublin. At one stage dad needed petrol so we took an exit for Tullamore off the motorway. Every sign we passed kept saying that Tullamore was 4km away...we never found the town! And then there were weird statues on the side of the road that were huge, slightly religious and sort of towering over the road. Got into Dublin and used a little bit of zen navigation to get to our hotel.
We stayed in a place called Deer Park in Howth which is a little like Dublin's St Kilda. By the beach, small shops and very nice. Spent saturday in Dublin looking around and shopping before heading out for dinner with the extended family. Dad took me to a few of the more dodgy parts of Dublin where we came across a Sinn Fein shop where you had
Donegal
More of the countryside around my aunts house to hit a bell in order to be let in. My uncle had organised this before we left Melbourne and it was a great idea...got everyone is one place for one night. My cousins are all bloody tall and I bet Eoin that he couldn't eat a lemon slice...lost a Euro on that one! Sunday dad had to return the car to the airport so mum and I headed to Kilmainham Goal which is famous primarily for being the place where the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising were shot. It was really interesting as I have never studied Irish history and didn't know anything beyond the basics about this. Our guide was a history writer and very passionate which made the tour even better. We met dad in the city and I took them to the Guinness storehouse as dad hadn't been there since a tour as a school child when it was still a working factory and mum had never been there. Early to bed as mum and dad had to get up at roughly 4am to get to Spain. I had the more civilised wake up time of 6am to get Prague.
Europe here we come...
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