Advertisement
Published: August 16th 2009
Next up we got the ferry to Belfast with the Neesons and stayed with them for a few nights. Joey and I had a great time doing a city tour of Belfast and seeing all the historical sights. We walked the entire length of both the Falls Road (Catholic area) and Shankill Road (Protestant area) to see all the murals. We also went to a photographic exhibition of the last 40 years in Northern Ireland which had some very graphic and moving pictures. While with the Neesons we also spent a night at their holiday house in the picturesque town of Ballycastle. We visited the amazing geological formation that is the Giant's Causeway (38,000 hexagonal basalt columns) and walked the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge - a 25 metre high bridge which connects the island of Carrick-a-Rede to the mainland and was originally used solely by fishermen, but is now also a tourist attraction - couldn't get Joey up there though.
Actually, we did far too many things in Ireland for me to tell you abou them all, so I think I'll just have to summarise the route we followed and tell you my highlights.
- First up, after hiring a
car in Belfast, we drove the coast of Northern Ireland and round to Derry and Letterkenny.
- Then we went all around Inishowen to the northern most part of Ireland.
- Round Donegal, the Rosses and Glenveagh National Park.
- All the way down the west coast, including Connemara, the Aran Islands, the Dingle Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry.
- Then we went down to the south of Ireland, through Killarney to Cork and Cobh.
- After that we headed north again, tracing our family history through Templemore and Roscrea and all the way up to Ballyscullion, with a day at Newgrange in between.
- Then we returned to Belfast for a final night with the Neesons, before getting the bus down to Dublin to end Ireland with a few big nights!!
Highlights include:
- Listening to some great music in pubs around the country, particularly on the west coast. Unfortunately, the place we'd really been looking forward to - Leo's tavern in Donegal, which was highly recommended to us by lots of people as it is the home of some big Irish acts including Enya and Clannad - turned out to be a bit of a
disappointment. Despite 'traditional Irish music' being advertised, we were (un)lucky enough to be treated to Country and Western! We did get a few Irish numbers, but sung in a very C&W fashion.
- Three out of three nights of live entertainment in Dublin:
* Night 1: Riverdance!! Minus the sexiest man alive in leather: Mr. Michael 'Sexy Mick' Flatley. Fortunately his substitute nearly out-Flatleyed Michael in terms of leather attire and sparkles. And he could dance! Fantasic night out.
* Night 2: Traditional music at a pub in Temple Bar. I think the show was stolen by Brendan, a local drunk who was harassing all the ladies and making them dance with him, despite the fact that he could barely stand up, until the bouncers got sick of him and kicked 'the little f**kwit' out.
* Night 3: The greatest show on earth; U2!!! Brilliant! Hope they're as good in Cardiff when I see them again, but it'd be hard to match seeing them in Ireland.
- Seeing all the murals and history of the Troubles in Derry.
- Visiting lots of reloes and family friends in Templemore, Roscrea and Ballyscullion.
- The many spectacular sights that we visited:
*
Forts/castles/ruins: Carrickfergus and Dunluce castles, the Grianan of Aileagh, Kylemore Abbey, the Rock of Cashel and Newgrange.
* Stunning coastal drives - my highlight being the Dingle Peninsula.
* Amazing cliffs: The Bunglas cliffs (even if we did have to drive on the wrong side of the road, ie. the mountain side, to get up to them, due to someones slight fear of heights) and the Cliffs of Moher.
* The Aran islands: three islands off the west coast. We got a ferry out to the largest one, Inish Mor, where we did a tour around the island. We had a fantastic day climbing up to the ancient fort, seeing all the old cottages, thatched houses and stone fences and hearing lots of Gaelic, which all the island's residents speak.
Verdict: Loved it! Think I may have inherited the love of all things Irish from Joey Joey!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.084s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 10; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0599s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Katherine Howell
Chook
Oirish.
There's some smut in these pics, you muff hooker! The muff one made me laugh out loud. And, I have to say, you do do a good Flatley pose. Thought about a career change?