The winding roads through green Ireland

EDITOR: SECN’s Travel section publishes readers’ stories about their travels and adventures around the world.  If you would like to tell readers about your recent travels, please email markham@secalgarynews.com
 
By Shaun Frenette, Calgary
 
PART 1 – IRELAND

When they say Ireland has 50 shades of green, and Scotland has spectacular scenery, they aren’t kidding.  My fiancée, her parents and I just returned from a wonderful vacation to the Emerald Isle and Scotland, and we will be telling others about it for years.
 
Away We Go
 
We started our vacation by flying direct from Calgary to Glasgow, Scotland on Thomas Cook Airlines.  We then picked up our rental car, and drove across some pleasant countryside and coastline to Stranraer, Scotland. We overnighted at a very nice bed & breakfast located in an old manse (an old church minister’s house).  We had to leave early the next morning to catch a ferry to Northern Ireland, and the family that runs the B&B kindly packed us a hearty breakfast for the trip!

The beautiful scenery of the Emerald Isle

 
Off to Northern Ireland
 
We drove our rental car (a Ford Mondeo mid-size wagon – large enough to seat four, with room for luggage under the hatch) onto the ferry for the three-hour trip from Stranraer to Belfast, Northern Ireland on Stena Line.  We paid £20 extra (about $38 Cdn. at the time) for the “premium” fare.  It was well worth it.  It guaranteed us full credit if we needed to change our travel dates, and it gave us access to a special lounge on the ferry where we could enjoy complimentary snacks, drinks, internet access, newspapers and even wine.  We disembarked at 10am, and drove right onto the scenic Causeway Coastal Route.
 
Dizzying Heights & Giants’ Bridges
 
We were awed right away by scenery along the coastal route…its rocky shores, green pastures and many sheep.  Make sure the driver (which was me) is prepared for narrow roads.  The coastal route has many twists and turns, on a road with narrow lanes and no shoulder.  You must watch for rock walls right along the road, tree branches sticking over the lane, and even sheep on the road.  (This is actually true of most roads in Ireland and Scotland, except for the motorways, which are divided highways with speed limits up to 120 km/h).  Plus, you must drive on the left!  It was a challenge at times, bit I enjoyed driving throughout both countries.

Driving on the left was sometimes a challenge

 
Back to the coastal drive…we stopped at the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge – a suspension bridge connecting the mainland to an island, where fishermen catch salmon.  After a hike along some spectacular cliffs above the ocean, we got in line to cross the bridge.  It is very sturdy and safe, but a long way down!  We all braved our way across and back.  A very scenic spot.
 
Our next stop along the coastal drive was the Giant’s Causeway.  This is a unique rock formation that was created when lava from a volcano cooled millions of years ago.  It left behind thousands of rock columns in hexagonal shapes.  It’s named the Giant’s Causeway because a legend says the rocks are what remains after an Irish giant tried to build a bridge to Scotland to fight an enemy giant.  The Causeway is a UNESCO World Heritage site.  It was fun to climb on the rocks and watch the waves crash against the rocks.  My fiancée said the rock columns look like a city of tall buildings!

The Giants Causeway

Londonderry/Derry
 
Our next stop was the city of Londonderry, or Derry, depending on who you talk to!  The city has a long history of conflict involving the IRA.  Loyalists to Britain prefer to call it Londonderry, while Irish nationalists drop the “London” and just call it Derry.  You can learn about the IRA and the city’s long history going back hundreds of years at Derry’s various attractions.  We walked the entire distance around the walled city.  Derry claims to have the best preserved walled city in Europe.  It was a pleasant walk, and we saw historic buildings and murals depicting the IRA’s struggle.
 
Car trouble
 
After a night in another nice B&B, we drove to Belfast, where we were faced with the biggest challenge of our vacation!  Downtown Belfast has many curbs that jut out into the street for no apparent reason, and we drove over one curb, flattening both our left tires.  This happened on a Saturday at 5pm, when no tire repair shops were open!  We called a tow truck (the Irish call them “recovery vans”), and we had the car towed to our hotel.  While looking in the yellow pages, I found a tire shop with a mobile number.  I called to ask if they were open on Sundays, hoping that we might be able to get new tires the next morning.  To my delight, the tire man said he would come over right away to help!  He took the wheels to his shop, put new tires on the rims, and sent the new tires back to us in a cab.  We put them back on the car that night, and were able to continue on our vacation as planned!  We had the luck of the Irish with us on that day.  We really got to know the friendly side of the people of Belfast because so many people were so friendly to us (cab drivers, tow truck operator, hotel manager and staff) as we tried to figure our way out of our situation in a foreign city.  We had to fork over £140 for two new tires (our rental company, Hertz, wouldn’t cover them), but the tow was covered through Hertz’s emergency roadside assistance plan.
 
Several people in Belfast told us that they were happy to see tourists in Northern Ireland after so many years when tourists stayed away because of the “troubles” with IRA violence.  But things have been calm since a peace agreement, and our impression is that the region is just as safe and friendly as any place in Canada.
 
Gaelic Football
 
From Belfast, we travelled to a small town in the Republic of Ireland called Clones.  This community, with a population of under 3,000, has a Gaelic football stadium that holds 36,000 people.  We went to a playoff match between Country Antrim and Country Tyrone.  It was very entertaining!  Gaelic football is like soccer, but the players can pick up the ball and run with it.  They can score 3 points by kicking it in the goal, which has a goalie, or by drop-kicking it through the uprights for a single point.  It’s a very free-flowing sport with lots of passing and action.  The crowd was very friendly, and very patient with our questions about the rules of the game!

Gaelic football action

Dublin
 
After spending the night at a very nice golf course hotel in the central Irish town of Virginia, we made our way to the Irish capital, Dublin.  Like Belfast, it’s a city with narrow streets and crazy traffic!  But we made it to the Holiday Inn, which was a good central location for walking around the historic centre of the city.
 
Over three days, we took in the shopping, watched the buskers, and visited the attractions.  Highlights include the Book of Kells at Trinity College (a bible beautifully decorated by monks around 800 A.D.), St. Stephen’s Green park, the National Museum of Ireland (free admission), the Temple Bar district of bars and restaurants, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Kilmainham Gaol (an old prison with a fascinating history – you may have seen it in the 1993 movie, In The Name of The Father), and the Guinness Storehouse, where you can learn how the famous beer is made.  You can enjoy a pint (included with your admission) in the Gravity Bar at the top of the brewery, which has the best panoramic view of Dublin.  We also went on a tour of Croke Park, an 80,000-seat stadium which is the home of Gaelic football, hurling and soccer.  We saw crews setting up for a series of U2 concerts there (more about that later).
 
One night, we went on a musical pub crawl.  Two musicians took our group to three historic pubs, and played some great Irish music for us at each stop.  They also told us about the history of Irish music, its different styles and instruments.  And we learned the traditional Irish toast, “Sláinte,” which is Irish Gaelic for “good health.”
 
The Gift of Gab
 
We left Dublin, and drove the 250 km to Cork, on the south coast of Ireland.  We drove on a motorway that just opened this spring.  We were able to zip along at 120 km/h, and we made great time.  The main purpose of our visit to Cork was to visit the famous Blarney Castle.  You can climb the castle and kiss the Blarney Stone at the top.  Legend says you will gain the gift of gab if you do.  The climb up a narrow spiral staircase was a challenge for many of the tourists there – and it does take you to a dizzying height!  Then, to kiss the stone, you must lie on your back, tilt your head downwards and pucker up!  There is an attendant there to hold you and it’s all very safe, but my fiancée’s mom felt dizzy after getting up and was a bit nervous – but we managed to calm her down, and she was very glad she completed the challenge!
 
Blarney Castle is located on some beautiful, large grounds, with lots of amazing plants.  Even some palm trees – it’s mild enough in Ireland to grow them there.  We enjoyed supper in a local pub and headed back to Dublin.

Kissing the Blarney Stone

 
U2 in their home town
 
We went back to Dublin to see U2 in concert.  All members of U2 are from Dublin, so we thought it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to see them perform in their home town.  And it was very good.  Bono & The Edge put on a great show, playing some new stuff from their current album, and many of their past hits.  There was a giant video screen above U2′s 360 degree stage, which is nicknamed “the claw” because of its four-fingered shape.

"The Claw" at the U2 concert

 
U2 held three sold-out concerts on consecutive days, with 80,000 people in Dublin’s Croke Park Stadium each night.  The people sitting around us were very friendly (especially three Irish teenage girls who we learned had travelled from Galway on the west side of Ireland to see the concert).  The crowd was well-behaved.  Alcohol was not allowed in the seats (you had to drink your beer on the concourse), and when the concert was over, everyone dispersed in an orderly fashion!  There were lots of police on the streets outside, and we walked to our train in no time.  We got on the first train that came, and were at our car in a park-and-ride lot within half an hour.  (We parked in a lot on the outskirts of Dublin and took the train to the concert because we did not want to park near the stadium – it would have been impossible to find a space!)

U2 fans in full regalia

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