To be sure, to be sure

Ireland

Day 1 – Saturday

We flew to Ireland on Saturday March 14th from Heathrow Airport, into Dublin with my Brother Jamie and four friends. At the airport we left our four friends, and met up with another Kiwi friend Olly, for a road trip! Olly lives in North Wales, and gets a car through work, so he drove over on the car ferry from Wales (an awesome Audi, with leather seats, and built in SatNav – which was definitely the saviour of our trip). At boarder control it was funny hearing one of the officers ask one of the last people off the plane, "Are there anymore kiwis left in New Zealand!", must have been plenty of kiwis over too for St Pats.
Olly picked us up in Dublin and as soon as we were all in the car, we headed straight for Belfast, wasting no time in Dublin, as we knew we would be back to Dublin on for St Patrick’s day and then to fly out on our last day. The only major stop we did on our way up to Belfast was in a small town called Banbridge, where we found a bakery for some lunch. The lady who served us at the bakery had the most delightful thick Irish accent, that we just wanted to keep ordering more stuff from her in the hope that she would talk to us some more :o). It was quite funny during the trip up that we wondered why everyone was driving way after than us and we were sticking to the speed limit of 60, and then realised that we were no longer in the republic of Ireland, but in Northern Ireland where it’s miles per hour instead of kilometres per hour!

We had pre-booked our first nights accommodation in Belfast, so we headed straight for our hostel, and parked up the car for the day. The hostel was extremely cheap at £6 each (granted we were in a dorm of 18, and for some reason the brick walls stank??). We then booked a Black Cab Tour around Belfast which was really good, and very eye-opening! The murals were really cool, and it was interesting to learn the history behind the IRA etc.

One of the many murals in Belfast

If there is one thing I have learnt whilst travelling around the UK that I find interesting, is that all throughout time, the English always seemed to get themselves tied up in conflicts, all around the world……….!
After the Black Cab Tour, we then went for a walk around Belfast, which is quite cool, they have an impressive City Hall etc. The city really is a sad reminder of all of the violence that has happened there – such as the pubs have metal cages around their entrances, and the cop cars are all landrovers, with bullet and smash-proof everything!!

Police car - Pimp my ride styles

It was a little scary arriving there 2 days after the most recent IRA attack on the city court house, and a couple of IRA related murders, however the only evidence we saw of this was the blackened court house. It was really interesting that so much of Belfast reminded me of Berlin – there seemed to be a lot of parallels between the two cities.

Day 2 – Sunday

After a slow start, we decided to have a look around greater Belfast. It was quite interesting being in the city where the Titanic was built, and left for its maiden voyage. It seems wrong in a way that they brag about how they built the Titanic considering it sunk, however they quite rightly say that when it left Belfast there was nothing wrong with it – however I guess the point of contention would arise around the number of lifeboats onboard…………! We decided to check out Belfast Castle – which ended up being more of a mansion than fort, but had beautiful gardens and was situated on a hill above Belfast, so there was a good view of the port so it was quite cool to see everything from this elevated perspective. We then decided to head up the hill behind Belfast Castle (Castle Cave Hill) for a better view and a bit of a look at Fort, and a cave in the hill.

Olly investigating the Castle Cave Hill Castle

We then hit the road, and headed straight for Giant’s Causeway, having spent far more time climbing Castle Cave Hill than originally intended. Giants Causeway was really cool, a series of octagonal shaped stones, formed from the lava of a volcanic eruption many years ago, on the edge of a beach – which made for some spectacular photography. The name Giant’s Causeway comes from a myth about a fight between a Scottish Giant, and an Irish man, Finn MacCool which ends in the formation of a causeway of stones between Ireland and Scotland, which was then destroyed by the retreating Giant, as he cowered back to Scotland. I am guessing this story came about as there are some similar stones to those at Giant’s Causeway in Scotland.

Giant's Causeway

We left here late afternoon, and headed to a small town called Kilcar, via London Derry – a walled city. There seemed to be a lot of drunkards in London Derry (well heaps of the little Irish towns now that I think about it) but we found out that there had just been a soccer match on that they had all been watching at the pub which explained the excessive drinking. After a quick stop at the supermarket and a €1 shop and cheap clothing store for some green clothing in preparation of St Paddys day, we headed on to Kilcar. Not before jokingly being call 2nd hand Australians by some pissed locals….it was a good call, we’ll give then that!

After getting a little lost trying to find our hostel, we arrived to a very small hostel in a remote area, that was basically a guy’s house, and he runs it as a hostel. Comically, his name was Shaun. The guy is also the chef at the local school, and he was a really friendly Irish guy. I think the fact that he had two roles in the community immediately made me feel at home – that is exactly what people did in Naike. He made us a cup of tea on arrival, and we sat in his lounge and talked with him for most of the evening. We learnt a bit from Shaun about the ongoing struggles of North and the Republic and how it is ingrained into the current generation; whether you say Londonderry or Derry can determine where you’re from (or possibly get beaten up depending who you’re talking to). We kiwi’s wished everyone could just get along, but it’s possibly something we don’t fully understand.

Day 3 – Monday

The next morning we were going to head for a bit of a walk around the area, but it was drizzling, so we skipped the walk and headed to Muckross Head – which was around the coast from Kilcar.

Mucross Head - Donegal

Kilcar was the highlight of the whole trip for me – it is exactly what you imagine Ireland to be like, rolling green hills, bordered by stone fences, dotted with rocks, small single storied white stone houses set into the hills and then the land abruptly comes to a sharp cliff before dropping to a wild sea. To finish the whole picture, the day was a slightly drizzly, foggy day, so the sea was rough, and it was crashing against the rocks creating quite a spray into the air. I also learnt later that this area of Ireland is basically the only part that doesn’t have good rail links, and I think this is what appealed to me the most – it felt remote, and very country like – I could so live there!
From Kilcar, we basically wound our way around the coast from there South, going through Donegal and then on to Sligo. We stopped in Sligo for lunch, and did some more last minute green clothes shopping! There was a river that went through the centre of Sligo that looked like they bottled Guinness straight from it! From Sligo we drove straight through the middle of Ireland back to Dublin, in anticipation of St Patrick’s Day the following day. That evening we caught up with our friends who had remained in Dublin when we arrived in Ireland, and went out for dinner with them.

Day 4 – Tuesday – St Patricks Day

Preparations for St Patrick’s Day started early, with us all donning green attire and painting ourselves all up in green, orange and white.

Dublin was a sea of green faces and bodies, it become evident that everyone dresses up for St Paddy’s day in Ireland! However, we seemed to be the only ones that had gone all out and painted our faces too :o) We caught the bus into the town centre – which wasn’t the best idea we had ever had, or would have been better if we’d left earlier, as we got stuck in heaps of traffic, so we eventually abandoned ship, and walked the remaining distance in the hope of getting an ok spot for the parade through the main street. Unfortunately we saw mostly the backs of people between us and the parade, and not much parade, but what we did see was pretty impressive – heaps of colourful and cleverly assembled costumes and props.

The backs of peoples heads, and one of the floats in the parade

Another of the floats in the parade

After the parade we headed with the flow of the crowd, through town to the Temple Bar area, which is basically where all the pubs and restaurants are in Dublin.

The stiffy by the Liffey (or more formally referred to as the Dublin Spire)

We met up with our other friends at a pub there and soon made friends with some Americans who had decided to come over for St Paddy’s day too – most or all of which had Irish ancestry. There were definitely a lot of Americans in Ireland for St Patrick’s Day.

Day 5 – Wednesday

We started the day after St Patrick’s Day with a Guinness factory tour. I really enjoyed this "tour" – it can’t really be called a tour, because there wasn’t a tour guide, merely a path that had been labelled up, more museum exhibition like. However, it was really well done, and then it was all finished off by a nice cold Guinness – which was my first. I really enjoyed it, it’s quite strongly flavoured, on the same taste spectrum as coffee and marmite I think, but I don’t think I could drink more than one in a row. After our Beer we headed to the Guinness Shop, and had a good time buying some stuff there. One thing I learned whilst at the Guinness factory was that the Guinness book of records was named that because Guinness sponsored the book – this sounds like an obvious thing to find out, but I had never really even thought about it.

A well earned Guinness after touring around the factory

After the Guinness factory, we headed south out of Dublin. We made a quick stop in a small fishing town called Wicklow, which was really pretty – especially since the weather was really nice.

We had a look around the remains of a fort, and walked along a jetty to a light house.
We then continued south, and made a quick stop at the ruins of a church we found on our way through Avoca.

Avoca - a cool church ruin we came across

We then made our way to our hostel for the evening, which happened to be a castle, called Jenkinstown Castle Hostel. I found this castle really creepy – as we arrived after dark in thick fog, and the area surrounding the castle was covered in fog too. We were also the only guests at the hostel, so that didn’t really help my edginess.

Jenkinstown Castle Hostel

Day 6 – Thursday

Anyway we survived the night, and I was quite pleased to move on the next morning! We firstly headed to Kilkenny, and we had a walk around the town, Kilkenny Castle and a few Cathedrals around town. We then headed to the Rock of Cashel which was probably my favourite sight of the whole trip – it was an ancient cathedral, dramatically perched on a rocky outcrop. We arrived at just the right time to go on a guided tour of the Rock of Cashel, so this made the place all the cooler.

Olly at the bottom of Rock of Cashel

Rock of Cashel

We by passed Tipperary – although we were in Tipperary County, and I can say it is a long long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go. We then left hoping to arrive at Blarney Castle in time to kiss the Blarney stone, however we just missed the last admission to Blarney Castle which was a bit disappointing. We then tried to see if we could find somewhere local to stay so that we could go the next morning, but unfortunately there weren’t any hostels near Blarney Castle. So we continued on to Kinsale, a popular seaside town, known for its excellent culinary delights. We had ideas of trying these culinary delights, but when we learnt that they were asking anywhere upwards from €15 per main, with most around €20, we decided that cooking something from the supermarked would be a better idea – especially as the pound and the euro were pretty much 1:1! I have never spent $50 NZD on a main before! On our way back to the hostel a guy walking dog stopped in our path and took a dump in front us (the dog not the guy), the guy apologized and then kept walking, which satisfied out curiosity of why there was soo much dog poo on the street.


Day 7 – Friday

We decided to spend some time on Friday morning looking around Kinsale. We spotted a fort on the satnav and went to investigate, and then spotted the other in the distance when we were at the first fort, and decided to investigate again – we discovered there were two quite cool forts built in Kinsale, James’ Fort and Charles Fort.

Charles' Fort

We then headed for the Ring of Kerry (Iveragh Peninsula), stopping off at Bantry to sample some local food for lunch when we spotted some local markets.

Pretty shops in Bantry

The ring of Kerry has been rated as being the best sight in Ireland, and whilst some parts of it were really pretty – with nice secluded beaches, it really was quite similar to home.

Bev had been waiting the whole time for some spectacular views in the Ring of Kerry to take photos of, but was quite disappointed. It didn’t help that it was kind of foggy weather as we drove around. We did see the most interesting thing, and old man (presumably had a few too many from the pub) was walking, with the slowest and shortest of steps, straight down the middle a quiet road we were driving down, wearing a hi-vis vest completely oblivious to the world. We presumed his family did him and other road users a favour by providing him a hi-vis vest before he went to the pub! After driving around the whole of the Ring, we headed to Kilarney, in the hope of a nice Irish Stew. We were happy to find a nice pub (however extremely touristy and still €15 per main) with live Irish music, and serving good ol’ Irish stew opposite our hostel.


Day 8 – Saturday


From Kilarney, we looked around the nearby area, arriving at Ross Castle bright and early before the crowds arrived.

Ross Castle

We then drove through a piece of Kilarney National Park during a foggy morning. We then headed north to Limerick and stopped off the check out a couple of castles. When we left one of the castles in Limerick we got pulled over by a mufti cop, and it took us more than a few seconds to establish who this person was. But of course when the lady in plain clothes just says "Garda" (police) in an Irish accent, it makes you wonder what this person is trying to communicate to you. Apparently we were in a dodgy area and there had been national news of an incident that morning, so she pulled us over because 4 young people in a flash new Audi doesn’t seem the norm in Limerick! She told us to move on (after we told her our drivers licence was stolen from the back of a weetbix box) and so we headed out of town to Galway. We grabbed some lunch and had a picnic on the beach.



We planned the day so that we would arrive somewhere in time to find a pub and watch and absorb the atmosphere of the 6 nations rugby final between Ireland and Wales. It ended up being in Cong, town size of 180. It was really cool being in a small Irish town watching the Irish play the Welsh in a final – we were actually secretly supporting the Welsh and Warren Gatland (our Kiwi connection), but we certainly didn’t verbalise our loyalty in front of our passionate Irish companions whom were so very passionate! However it was pretty cool to witness the atmosphere of an Irish pub in a tense game as it was, and also when the Irish won! Especially since it was the first time they had won the 6 nations in 61 years.



Day 9 – Sunday

Getting up early, we hit the road early, and headed back to Dublin for the last time. Once in Dublin, we went on a tour of the Jameson Whiskey Factory – which unfortunately was a guided tour full of annoying Americans!
We then had a look around the centre of Dublin, much of which we had glimpsed quickly on St Patricks day.
We then headed to the airport to return back to London.


All in all, we were very fortunate to have nice weather for the whole week, as the locals had been telling us that the weeks before it was quite poor, and was forecast to go bad again just after we left! The Irish 1st 2 major sports are Gaelic football and hurling, but Rugby comes 1st when it’s on the international stage. Ireland has some pretty cool castles; almost all are ruins unlike the renovated mansions in England. The ruins which don’t have any money pumped into them are quite cool as they have a better historic feel to them. There are lots of old roofless, unused stone houses, graveyards and churches littering the landscape through the country side.