Blogs from Ireland, Europe - page 14

Today greeted us with a blue sky and sunshine! As we’d been in Limerick overnight, we wrote one: Travel buddies, Susan and Bee Flew to Dublin citeee The picked up a car And drove very far Around Ireland – it’s very priteee! We packed up Sherri and headed just south of west to the Dingle Peninsula. This area is one of Susan’s ‘must dos’ and she’d done a lot more pre-trip research than me, so I was looking forward to it. The journey skirted round the bottom of Tralee, a great name place, which always makes me think of singing! We had a brief stop at Inch Beach, a large sandy beach with a surf school and restaurant. The surf school had a group of young people jumping around in the waves, all in wet suits. ... read more

Ireland the North 1. Dublin Thankfully the weather is getting better again and we headed south again with light cloud and 12 degrees increasing to 14. I set off with bare legs, ladies look away, but eventually had to cover them up with leg warmers to maintain some energy in my overworked muscles. The early section through Black Rock was quite interesting with a very flat beach, not unlike Morecambe Bay where a few years ago several foreign cockle picker deaths occurred due to the fast rising tide. Apparently this beach was also a big cockle picking area. Unfortunately we were soon onto a busy road with long straight sections of up to 3km long which can get a bit boring. A left turn in Castlebellingham soon had us on more interesting roads with little traffic ... read more

A relatively quiet day today. Our original plans had been to visit Galway City and the Connemara National Park, but we had a bit of a slow start and didn’t really fancy the 2 hour-ish drive over to the national park, so we had a look at the map and decided to head to the Cliffs of Moher. Susan took the first shift driving and off we went. The most exciting part of the trip was ascending Corkscrew Hill, a series of 4 big hairpin bends. The view at the top was pretty good, but would have been stunning if the weather had been sunny! The Cliffs of Moher were, well…cliffs. It’s fair to say that they are quite high (702 feet) and, as advertised, they’re vertical. They do have a bit of a story behind ... read more

We were delighted to be able to visit Philomena, my Mum’s childhood friend, today. Mum grew up in the village of Carrigallen, a small village in Co. Leitrem on the shores of a small lough. She was cared for by her grandmother, Frances ‘Granny’ Nixon, while her mum, Bella, worked away from home as a maid in Lissadell House (lissadellhouse.com). Bella’s siblings, Harry and Billy, also lived in the cottage with Mum. Bella’s 2 other siblings, Rosaline and Bob were working away from home. Rosaline was a maid; I’m unsure where but possibly with Bella at Lissadell, and Bob was a Merchant Seaman. All had emigrated to England at some point in the 1950s. While I was growing up we visited Carrigallen a few times, staying with Philomena and her family. Mum died in September 1992 ... read more

After leaving our Belfast Airbnb cleaner than when we arrived, we loaded Sherri’s boot / trunk and headed out of the city. We drove north along the Causeway Coastal Route. This hugs the coast up the east side of Northern Ireland from Belfast, and finishes in Derry, shortly before the road enters Eire again. It’s certainly a beautiful drive, meandering along the coast through small towns and villages. After a few days in the cities, we started to appreciate the dramatic natural beauty of the Irish countryside. We stopped in Large for a leg-stretch, coffee and cake. Now it was time for Susan to take the wheel! The first time she’d driven on the left-hand side of the road since New Zealand in 2018. The added stress this time is that Sherri has a manual gear ... read more