Republic of Ireland 08-27 March, 2025

As I write (part of) this we’re leaving Ireland for France on an overnight ferry. Dublin to Cherbourg and then will hop on a quick train to Caen (Normandy) for a few days. I LOVE ferries! Being the offseason, the ferry was mostly empty, except for about 400 French teenagers on a school trip, so we were pretty alone. We’ll slowly make our way to Paris to meet up with Kevin and Leslie, our friends from Memphis, and Emmanuel, Clemence and their son Jules, a family that we hosted a couple of years ago through Warmshowers. If you have a spare bedroom and ever want to  meet some truly wonderful and fascinating people, we can’t recommend Warmshowers enough (www.warmshowers.org). It’s a site that matches touring cyclists with hosts across the world. I think we actually got more out of it than the cyclists…and meeting Emmanuel, Clemence and Jules was one of our favorite benefits from hosting. But back to Ireland…

Pic above - Cliffs of Moher, full moon. Pic Below - Birthday Dinner at Homestead Cottage, Doolin, one of my top meals...ever.

Spending time in Ireland, both North and Republic, has always been a travel bucket list item for me (husband). I suspect that somewhere down/up the line I had some Irish lineage on mom’s side, but can’t document anything. Probably failed my one big Irish test, though, by not liking whisky. Fortunately, for wife, that allowed me to drive to a few distilleries so she could “taste”. Like Scotland, the distilleries are fantastic but have been brought under the wings of major spirits companies, like Diageo and Pernod. With that unlimited funding, the tours and shops are top notch, if not a little too polished. Fun fact, Jamison is SO big with SO many warehouses, that they LOSE the equivalent of 28,000 bottles a day to the Angels from evaporation (editor's note - that amount might be misremembered). For the 18 year old casks, roughly 30% evaporates before it’s time to bottle, which is why they are so much more expensive.

After we left Derry, in Northern Ireland (see previous post on NI) we traveled southeast to Donegal Town for a couple of nights. The town didn’t have many sights but was a great place to stop and watch Ireland play France in the 6-Nations Rugby tournament. Rugby is the favored sport in Ireland so we were hoping to sit with some locals able to explain the rules to us. Unfortunately, Ireland got smashed and all I learned is that rugby refs are just like soccer refs and, apparently, always wrong. Aside - I would have been the fastest player alive had I played rugby. And the loudest/highest pitched screamer on the pitch. A bunch of 250-300 lb monsters on that pitch chasing me and I would have been screaming all the way to the goal line. My little ass would have gotten crushed in that game!

Donegal Town led us to one of our favorite hikes so far, up Sliebh Liag/Slieveleag/ Mt. Liag. Every map spells it differently. The hike was not real technical, until the scary part that takes you along a 3-6 ft. wide path along the top of a really windy (50 MPH gusts) mountain that drops you right into the sea about 2000 ft below. We’re not at the “boop…oops…husband gone” stage of old age yet, so we stopped at that point and turned back. The pics are great but still don’t fully portray the beauty the landscape holds. Looking down sheer cliffs to the crashing waves below, on a sunny day, (after rain hiking every day in Scotland) was exactly what we were hoping for from this trip.

I briefly mentioned in the last post (Northern Ireland) about the joy of meeting new people when traveling. We very randomly saw the same couple three times in NI, in three different areas. As we were coming down from the mountain we ran into them again! This is over the course of a couple hundred km's and countless tourist sites to choose from - what odds? But later, it gets better. Erik and Evy, from Seattle, walked back with us the last mile or two, so we had a lot of time to chat. Found out they were in a similar path, had recently retired and were spending a month in Ireland, like us. Apparently we were reading from the same Rick Steves playbook, but also doing the tour backward. (Rick goes clockwise and we were going counter-clockwise) After some quizzing, we found out that they were planning to be in two other cities around the same time as us. This time, we exchanged numbers and promised to hook up later. Small world.

We next travelled to Achill Island, one of the Westernmost points in Ireland. Achill was beautiful, but the highlight was a herd of sheep trying to walk around us. Cute AF! Also, it's sheep baby season, so there are tons of little clumsy lambs all over the place. Some are wobbly and some are to the hopping stage, which is beyond cute. But, they're loud and noisy and poop all over the place, so I'm sure I'll never be Team Sheep/Lamb over Team Housecat. Also, not sure I can eat lambchops again.

Made our way to Galway, a university town, so LOTS of late night activity and some nice ancient streets for wandering. Galway is a great town to homebase for some of the wonderful nearby sights. It's big enough to have lots of amenities but small enough to see everything in a day or so. Some good restaurants and LOTS of pubs! But we were there during the middle of the US Spring break, so we heard more American English than Irish English.

Western Ireland is stunning in every sense. The coastlines are stark with fantastic but frigid beaches all over. We lucked into about 20+ days of really great weather and only two or three rainy days. Kylemore Abbey, leased by the American Notre Dame University, was a thoroughly huge mansion/castle/nunnery from the 1800's in the middle of nowhere. We drove for an hour from Galway and the only real traffic consisted of sheep grazing on the roadside. They pull double duty as weed control and speed traps - you can't drive too fast when there is bound to be a sheep in the road directly around the bend.

Highlight time - Cliffs of Moher (The Harry Potter/Dumbledore cliffs where they find the horcrux), the tiny town of Doolin surrounded by the Burren, with a side trip to Innisheer, one of the Aran Islands about a 15 minute ferry ride from Doolin. This part of the trip is what I envisioned when I initially thought of Ireland. I think some of the pics actually do it a little justice, but it was even more vivid live. The cliffs stood about 300 feet above the sea and we could hear the wave crashing from our hotel at night. I wish we were able to catch the cliffs in the morning, as the sun didn't want to cooperate fully, but they were still magnificent to see up close from the boat.

The little island of Innisheer offered a fascinating look into ancient landownership and property marking. The entire island, which you could walk in about three hours, was a patchwork of stone walls made in jagged lines, separating the few cows and sheep on the island.

This was my (Husband's) birthday, so we splurged a little and hopped into some beachside wine barrels filled with hot water and seaweed for a surprisingly therapeutic soak. With the cold, windy afternoon, sitting in a steaming tub watching the sun go down was one of my best memories of the trip so far. And the seaweed was just fun to play with.

Funny note, we randomly ran into Erik and Evy 4 times previously on the island, and ran into them twice more in Doolin, at a little restaurant and again on the boat trip to Innisheer. The tourist stars were trying to tell us something, here. We knew they were going to be in Doolin and invited them to dinner for my birthday - we love making new friends and being able to share it on a birthday made the dinner even more special. So, the 2nd pic above (the fish) was from one of the best dinners I've ever had - again, a birthday splurge to the Michelin Homestead Cottage...with our new friends, Erik and Evy. I wish I had more pics from the dinner, as it was simply beautiful, but I was engrossed in the conversation and food (and wine) so much I forgot my tourist duties.

Next to Kinsale, which was the real reason we came to Ireland...for our niece's wedding. Bailey and Chris rented a beautiful couple of houses for family about 15 minutes outside Kinsale, where they had a lovely ceremony. I think wife really enjoyed this part of the trip...in addition to seeing our family, she got to cook again! The first time she's been behind a stove since early January. Pretty sure her happy place made everyone else really happy as well!

Possibly the best "being in the right place" timing for me happened when Chris and Bailey and the photographer were driving out to take some action shots and needed a last minute driver. I got to drive them around for a couple of hours and take my own behind-the-scenes shots. They aren't professional quality pics but the models and the location really made the shots wonderful. The wedding was spectacular...small, intimate and the sun came out for the entire day. It was exactly the kind of ceremony I would expect from Bailey and Chris -personal, completely heartfelt and no pretense.

After being on the road nonstop for the past few months, it was really comforting being with family for a little while. It was also wonderful being with AP and Courtney on their first international trip - I still feel that same 'stranger in a strange land' excitement everyday and it's heartening seeing those you love have the same enjoyment out of travel and seeing new places.

After Kinsale, we were supposed to go our separate ways, but Angie and Bryan got caught up in the Heathrow fire and had to change their plans. So, we met up with AP and Courtney in the darling little town of Cobh for a night. Got to take a Jamison distillery tour (I'm still the designated driver on the whisky tours!) and then we went to a little Cobh dive bar for some wonderful local music. I got a tear when my little baby niece AP bought ME a beer - I guess I am getting old!

Finally, to end up the Ireland trip, we made it to Dublin. Wouldn't you know it, SOMEBODY booked us a hotel next to the biggest whisky bar in the world - Temple Bar...how convenient. We continued the Friends portion of the tour by meeting up with our wonderful friends Dick, Kristine and Christian, from Sacramento, and caught up with Bailey and Chris for another day before they moved on to the next stop on the honeymoon tour.

Really enjoyed Dublin - lots of historical significance, great old architecture, and, like the rest of Ireland, wonderful friendly people. We got to see a Nations League Football match between Ireland and Bulgaria, got to tour the Guinness Brewery (strong thumbs up!!), toured St. Patrick's Cathedral (circa 1200 AD), and the Dublin Castle. BUT, the highlight of Dublin for me was visiting Trinity College, their world renowned library and, most importantly, the Book of Kells. This is an actual book that was written in 800 AD by a bunch of crazy-haired monks under candle-light. The age of the book is impessive, but the actual artwork is truly astonishing. The book is displayed so that the pages are turned every few months, but the multimedia presentation accompanying the book is excellent, offering views of the entire book. Definitely a must see if you are both a nerdy dork and in Dublin!