As it was a Saturday night there were many people on drunken Stag and Hen's nights wandering around. It was a cold and windy night less than 15 degrees. (They call it Summer!)5th Start of our 8 day Shamrocker tour. There were 32 of us on the trip and a wide age range thank God. Not full of 18yr olds as we were expecting. Our first stop was t0 buy some food for lunch at a town along the way. It happened to be 10.30am and that as the time the Pub opened so we stopped in for a drink. The Pub was of the old variety that was combined with a grocery store.
The second stop was the Rock of Cashel where we toured the ruins and had an audio visual of the castle and other Irish castles.
It was good to visit our first Irish castle. We then drove on to Blarney Castle where Catriona kissed the Blarney stone and David kissed the castle as he did not get down low enough.
It was a bit of a production line and they were rushing us through, so a bit dissapointing. We drove through beautiful country roads with many green fields and well maintained hedges. Spent the night at Killarney where we went out for dinner a beer and saw some pub theatre.
The guy drank about 5 pints of Guinness and a dram of whiskey during the show. It was very funny and entertaining.
6th Drove along scenic Sleve head road where we saw centuries old beehive huts,
cliffs, rugged coastline,
stone walls and scenic beaches.
We boarded a rubber dingy
to get to the ferry to take us to the largest of the blasket islands.
It was a rough trip and very windy but no one was ill. We had 2 hours, so we hiked up to the top of the island with Christie and Andreas.
The island is uninhabited except for 3 donkeys, sheep and rabbits. The ferry was late back to collect us and an even rougher trip we were very glad to make it back to the mainland. Overnight in dingle, most people ate at the hostel and we had a great night chatting.
7th Drove a couple of hours to Tarbot to cross the Shanon river (longest in the British Isles) on a ferry.
Passed by many small towns with many pubs and small shops. Our tour guide Jac told us many interesting stories and history of the areas we passed. After lunch we visited the Cliffs of Moher which are the Cliffs of Insanity from the Princes Bride.
They are 8km long and200m high. Very windy and cold while we were there but they were very spectacular non the less. Drove on to the Burren which was once a sea and is now a limestone covered area. We visited a tomb which was over 1000 years old and contained the remains of more than 20 people.
Poulnabrone Portal Tomb. We spent the night in Galway and went out to a local pub with some of the group, had a couple of Guinness' while traditional Irish music was being played.
8th Set off early for one of the Aran Islands Inish Moher.
We left our usual bus and caught a passanger ferry over and walked to our hostel which overlooked the harbour. We hired a tandem and cycled around the island visiting a seal colony, 15th century 7 churches "Na Seache d'Teampheall",
Oun Aonghasa a spectacular semi circular celtic stone fort on the edge of a cliff, built in 2000 BC
And lots of other fantastic scenery. .
Ate at the hostel and had a few ciders and XXXX beers.
9th Back to the mainland and headed off to Westport where we walked around the town and visited the Church of Ireland with it's 100ft steeple,
we drove past peat bogs and were told about the 1840's potato famine. We stopped at a monument to the coffin ships where many Irish lost their lives trying to emigrate.
We visited the grave of W.B. Yeats at Drumcliff and took photos of the high cross andround tower, both centuries old. On the bus we had a game of pick the tune from TV shows and movie themes. The bus was divided into 2 and the losing side had to do an Irish jig in the main street of Ardara the next day. Our side lost. We spent the night at a small farm hostel near Kilcar.
A few of the group went out to dinner but David and Cat decided to have a quiet drink free night at the hostel. The scenery from the hostel was magnificent.
10th A short drive from our farm hostel and we visited Slieve League the largest sea side cliffs in Europe, 3 times bigger than the Cliffs of Moher.
We had about 1km walk to view the cliffs and it was very windy at the top. Back on the bus we continued along through Glenveagh national Park and pretty rural roads and tiny towns. We had a group photo at Ardara Waterfall and then went into Ardara to by lunch.
We stopped outside the church and did our jig and had lunch.
We were given a history lesson on "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. After lunch and some more driving we stopped off at Port Noo beach and we threw the little football around. Next stop was Grianan Ailligh,
a stone walled fort built around 3000BC which overlooks Derry/Londonderry. We then headed into Northern Ireland and our overnight stop of Derry. Dropped our bags off at the hostel and headed out for walking tour along the Bloody Sunday trail along the wall then over to the bogside and the Murals
It was quite disturbing to see young kids building a giant bonfire with an Irish Flag on the top waiting to be burnt..
After the tour we went out for dinner and had a few pints & saw some locals playing irish music. Headed off to bed at around 1.30am.
11th Left Derry under cloudy skies and misty rain and headed to Dunluce Castle.
We had a tour around the castle and just as it finished the clouds broke and we had to run back to the bus. We then neaded off to the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge where we were able to use our National trust membership to get in for free.
It was quite windy and the bridge was swaying but we managed to make it across with no problems, even stopping for a photo in the middle. On the little island we had a view over to Scotland and the Mull of Kintyre. Next stop was in a small town to go to the supermarket to buy lunch. We headed off to the Giants Causeway where we saw a short film on the history and stories surrounding the site.
We walked around the area for a while taking many photos. Then it was a long drive to Belfast. After checking into the hostel 8 of us headed off to the pub for some dinner then 5 of us went for a walk around the city stopping in at a National Trust pub complete with gas lighting.
We stopped there for a pint then continued our walk. We found a memorial to the Titanic shich was built in Belfast. We met up with everyone else at another pub and then headed off to see the bonfire.
Many English flags and people singing we will not surrender. We headed off to bed at 1am.
12th Up early to do a 2 hr black cab tour of Belfast. We visited the murals on the Protestant/Unionist side.
and drove along the huge concrete wall separating the two sides.
On the Catholic/Nationalist side we visited a memorial to the many people that had been killed. We also stopped off and took photos of more murals.
After the cab trip we had to be taken to the bus as the driver did not want to drive into the area we were in as he had Dublin number plates. We drove on to Newry to buy some lunch and on to Carlingord where we wandered around looking at the castles
and old church and had lunch by the lake. We drove on to a small cemetary with a tower and some stone crossed dating back to 800AD. We arrived back in Dublin at 4.30, said our goodbyes and headed off the the YHA where we had booked. We did our washing, had a shower and headed back into town to catch up with those from the tour still at the bar.
13th We were in different rooms at the hostel but managed to meet up with each other quite well. We had breakfast in the resteraunt and headed off for our siteseeing around Dublin. We walked down Oconnell St, past the millenium spire, saw the steyne stone which marked where the shore line used to be, went on past Trinity college (1592), took photos of the Oscar Wilde statue in the pretty Merrion Square Gardens(1752),
and then stopped for lunch in St Stephens Green, we headed off to the oldest pub in Dublin, the Brazen Head(1198) where we stopped for a pint and to listen to some Irish music. Then it was off to the Guinness storehouse for a tour and a Pint at the top in the Gravity Bar with its excellent view over Dublin.
14th We checked out and put our bags in storage then went off shopping. We visited many camping shops looking ofr a tent and air mattresses for our upcomming biking tour. We ended up buying some very small air matttresses, some very small travel towels and more locks. When we arrived at the airport to find our flight had been cancelled. We ended up finding a counter where a person was able to help us out and we were booked onto another flight arriving at Heathrow instead of Gatwick where our orriginal flight would have taken us. It was a smooth flight and we were so happy to see Robert and Elisabeth at the airport to greet us. The first familiar faces since arriveing in Canada over 4 months ago.
