An Irish road trip
That afternoon, we took Mickey and headed south to Rosslare, a beach town in the south east corner of Ireland. Having found our little B&B, we dropped off our things before heading out to paddle in the sea! Luckily, there were more options for dinner – a whole variety of pubs to choose from. Standard dinner options in Ireland do revolve around pubs which tend to be more social places than just drinking establishments.
The next morning and we were on the road again, heading along the green south, through the city of Cork and stopping at Blarney Castle. Here we had the obligatory photo op kissing the Blarney Stone, giving us the gift of the gab, but also explored the whole castle and the grounds. Our day finished in Killarney, staying at the lovely Peacock Farm Hotel, set up a hill away from the main town with a lovely view down to Killarney Lake and with peacocks on site.
Day 4 was always going to be one of the most scenic. From Killarney, we drove around the Dingle Peninsula, taking in the views and stopping to admire the craggy cliffs, sandy beaches, green fields and blue seas. There are many ruins to stop and explore when not admiring the views including the Gallarus Oratory, an early Christian church. We could have spent so long there, the sun was shining and there are numerous viewpoints to stop at on the coastal road. However, we had other places to be, so once we’d done the loop, we headed north crossing the Shannon River on the Kilrush ferry and headed up the coast to the Burren to visit the Cliffs of Moher. These cliffs are usually shrouded in fog, but for us we had clear blue skies and perfect views. That evening, we spent the night in Doolin, a small town a few miles north of the cliffs.
Doolin was to be the only place where we spent more than one night, as the next day we took a ferry over to the nearby Aran Islands. Although there are three islands, we were headed for the main islands, Inishmore. Once again we were greeted with immaculately green fields, blue skies, ruins and beautiful coastline. As we left Mickey on the mainland, we hired bicycles and cycled round the island. It was a beautiful day and not too many hills to deal with! With all that fresh air and exercise we were inevitably tired and Jeanie managed to leave her camera on the island in the toilets by the ferry terminal. After a long chat with the ferry company and many phone calls back and forth to Inishmore the camera was located and was set to be returned on the first ferry back the next morning.
The next morning, we headed back to the docks in Doolin in order to pick up the camera, before moving on towards Northern Ireland. We made a brief stop en route at Knock, where there is a church popular with Roman Catholic pilgrims as it is claimed there was an apparition of the Virgin Mary back in the 1870’s. We carried on towards Northern Ireland, crossing the border at Londonderry/Derry. Neither Jeanie nor I were sure what to expect at the border but we practically missed it and the only reason we knew we were in the Northern part of the country was because the speed limits switched from kph to mph. With Mickey’s speedo in kph it made for some guesswork of speeds. We arrived in Portstewart on the Antrim coast that evening, with time to sit on the beach and watch the sunset.
Day 7 was spent driving the spectacular Antrim Coast from Portstewart round to Belfast. Our main stopping point for the day was at the Giants Causeway. Legend says that Irish giant Fionn was arguing with Scottish giant Benandonner. The Scot crossed the causeway to see Fionn, but Fionn had disguised himself as a baby. Benandonner saw the size of the “baby” and was so terrified by its size he didn’t want to meet the father and fled back to Scotland ripping up the causeway as he went. This leads to the different height columns of rock seen today. We also stopped at the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, 20 m long and at a height of 30m above the rocks below. Although the rope bridge is perfectly safe, on a windy day it can feel a little precarious and so National Trust sell certificates stating that you crossed the bridge! We carried on along the Coast Road before arriving in Belfast in the early afternoon.
Our final day in Ireland, we spent the morning in Belfast on a hop on hop off bus. The bus took us to all the major sites such as Stormont, the Titanic Quarter and the murals of both Shanklin Road and Crumlin Roads. We then took Mickey, headed back South across the border to the land of kph speed limits and back down to Dublin airport to leave the car and fly on to Edinburgh where we were spending a few days before heading home.
Although it sounds like we spent a lot of time driving, it’s worth remembering that due to the size of Ireland, the journeys didn’t last that long so we were usually on the road for no more than a few hours leaving plenty of time to explore upon arrival. Dinner could be found a lot of the time in pubs, where the standard of food was pretty good and sometimes accompanied by live music or entertainment. With one week, we had enough time to complete a loop around the coast. With longer we could have explored inland as well, but any less time and we would have been very rushed. All in all a weeks’ road trip around Ireland is an amazing trip with stunning scenery and really friendly people.