The Paddywagon Tour

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It had been snowing in Dublin when we arrived about midday on Sunday. The Paddywagon shuttlebus took us directly to our hostel and we quickly stowed the bags and went for a wander around the city centre. It was very busy with a lot of christmas shoppers, but it was good to have a look around before we headed off on tour. The bis driver told us that Dublin had not seen snow like that for over 10 years and on the way to the city were mounds and mounds of snow. Apparently they had also ran out of salt until the next week so there was a little traffic chaos around.
The next morning we were herded onto the bus, along with 20 other people, who were mostly Aussies and Kiwis. Our tour guide, a cheerful Irish lad who goes by the name of Joe, greeted us and we set off for our first stop - a town called Derry, which was the place where the more recent troubles in Ireland originated. The owner of the hostel, an absolute champion called Steve got us all sorted out and checked in, and then took us on a tour of Derry. We learnt about the division within the town and that the Catholic and Protestant communities are located on two banks of the river Foyle. There is a 300 strong community of Protestants living on the Catholic side, but are seperated by a large wall. Steve told us that on Friday and Saturday nights, its quite common to find young thugs around the walls throwing bottles over the wall at the houses. Pretty scary. He also told us that there had been a car bombing two weeks ago, just around the corner from our hostel at the police station. We had a look at the damage, and while no one was hurt, 8 shops had been destroyed. Steve seemed very calm and collected about this little fact, however we all changed our daks when we got back to the hostel.
After the tour, Steve fed us 1 euro beers for about an hour in his outdoor beer area known as the Shebeen. Unfortunately though, happy hour had to end, and when it did, the price skyrocketed to 1.50. You. little. Beauty. After drinking all the beers at the hostel (with the staff and Steve), Steve took us down to the local pub for some live Irish music and general jocularity. Highlights of the night included a young bloke by the name of Jake doing some hilarious dancing, and me having a sculling competition with the local Derry undefeated champion. In what I am sure will make my mother very proud, I defeated this champion (who told me he had not been defeated in 13 years ("Tirteen years I've never been beat!"), and his mate told me he was going to name his first son Jordan), and Steve even filmed the whole thing and told us he was going to put it on the Paddywagon website. So much fun. Also got a few free beers out of it.
The next day we headed to Belfast and on the way stopped to look at the Giants Causeway and we learnt about a smart lad by the name of Finn who tricked a giant from Scotland and scared him off. When we arrived in Belfast we took a Black Taxi tour - taxis because they were used as public transport for people during "The Troubles." At that time buses were getting targeted by the IRA as shields for bombing therefore buses couldnt go through the city. After reaching an agreement that the taxis were not to be targeted by the IRA the main mode of public transport through the city was by the taxis- no more buses. It was very interesting to talk to the drivers and learn about what happened in Belfast... and what is still happening today. There is a very large wall that seperates the Protestant and Catholic communities within the city, and it was bizarre to see an armoured police car driving around the streets. We had a pretty quiet night in Belfast, although we had dinner at a nice local restaurant and had a few beers down at the Queens bar, known as the Crown. There were booths there that were enclosed and were apparently used for when women came to the pub - they were only allowed to sit in those areas and weren't allowed to mix with men.
The next day we headed across the island to Galway, and our tour guide Joe taught us the Galway Girl song and we all again did what people do when they go to Ireland. We partied, met a heap of locals an had a hell of a lot of craic. The next day we headed to the small town of Annascullin, but not before stopping off at the Cliffs of Moher for some great views. You may recall these cliffs from a movie called The Princess Bride in which they are known as the Cliffs of Insanity. Very nice views, but it was bloody cold and the wind was blowing strong. While at the Cliffs, there was a shop that could look up the history of your family - both Laura and I got the Longmore and Boylan history... cant wait to get over to Scotland to check out some of the information we got hold of. If I get a chance, I'll transcribe the info onto a blog, in case you're interested.
We moved on from the cliffs to a small town called Camp where we had a guiness in a little pub in the old railway station and sang a few songs with Joe. I met a local Irishmen in the bar who told me all about this dog that used to live at the pub that would sing - he was telling me about the time a radio station from Dublin rang the pub to do an interview - this bloke was pissing himself laughing and even told me that a group of local musicians had made a CD with the dog in Gaelic. As we were leaving, the bloke got me a copy of the CD. Its pretty good too - my first Irish tunes.
We moved onto Annascullin for a relatively early night, following some karaoke in the Randy Leprachaun bar at the hostel.
The next day we went down to the Dingle peninsula and learnt about the dolphin Funghi who lives in the bay and our guide thinks he's actually now a mechanical dolphin due to the fact that he should have died years ago. Joe said that the dolphin generates 35million euros worth of tourism annually for the town of Dingle though. We saw some amazing islandss of the west coast, including one that looks like a sleeping giant. We had lunch in Dingle and continued onto Kilarney. When we arrived in Kilarney, we got sorted at the hostel and then went to the pub for dinner. Met an English-raised Irishmen at the pub who I had a good chat to and showed me through the pub, and showed me the three extensions which had been put on the original building. We moved onto anothe pub to have some more Craic, and on the way I again met some local people at the bar, and ended up yakking to them for about an hour. Really nice people. A lot of Craic was had that evening and even Joe had a few beers with us. Needless to say the next day was extremely dusty start, but a full Irish breakfast sorted us out. Overnight it had been snowing pretty heavily so the roads were a mess but the views are amazing.
On the last day of our tour, we headed straigh for Blarney Castle to kiss the famed Blarney Stone (which Hamish and Andy had done only 12 months previously!!). Having just snowed, the walk from the bus to the castle gave us some amazing views. We got some unreal photos and then started the climb to the top of the castle. It was our first experience in an actual castle and we were not disappointed. The inside of the castle was a little bit eery, and the views from the top were indescribable. The man at the top held us both as we layed down, turned upside down and kissed the Blarney Stone. Legend has it that once you kiss it, you will have the gift of eloquence for the next seven years. Hot tip - it doesnt work. But we had a look around the castle grounds, and found a poison garden, where they were still growing mandrake root, nightshade and some other poisons. Big signs saying do not touch the plants were all around and it was quite bizarre.
We moved on and left Blarney headed straight for Dublin to make it to the Guiness Factory before it closed. Tour guide Joe was racing against the clock, but he got us there before the 5pm deadline and we able to wander the museum and learn about the histroy of guiness, which was topped off with a complimentary pint at the end. The tour then came to a close, but most of us went out for dinner that night with plans to have a few beers with each other, but we were stuffed and ended up hitting the sack early.
The next day a few of the tour crew had their flights cancelled, and a couple of girls were staying till Monday, so Douggie (the NZer), Lauren and Cat (two very cool Canberrans), Laura and I all got together and cooked up an awesome feast consisting of german beers, cheesy garlic bread and homemade spaghetti bol (everyone else in the hostel was jealous!!). At about 10pm, we decided to head out for a few beers and have a quiet night down at the Temple Bar. This "quiet night" descended into madness as we decided to kick on to a nightclub called Copper Face Jacks, which played some great tunes, including christmas carols which was so much fun!! We rocked in back to the hostel at 5:30am, but it was well worth it, as it was one of the best nights on Eurotrip 2010.
The last couple of days were spent organising stuff to post home and then we set out for the airport, but slightly worried due to the large snowstorm that had just hit Dublin. Fingers crossed we make it to London!!

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Photos

Cliffs of Moher
Cliffs of Insanity in the Princess Bride