Posts Tagged ‘ireland’

As of this month, we’re no longer splitting our time between Leeds and Dublin. We’re just in Leeds now, sailing away from the Poolbeg Towers for the last time.

I’ve fallen in love with Ireland over the past few years. It’s physically a goregous country. And Dublin can be a fun place to be in. it is also a country that is changing. Historically, it has been quite conservative and that is still present in many areas. But in other areas, such as being neuroaffirmative, it is leading the way internationally.

Also, it has Supermac’s and Abrakebabra.

My total score was 54 different parkruns. I was going to stop at 50, but then I found out that the 5K app counts parkruns in the north as British rather than Irish. Sounds like a car bomb waiting to happen but there you go. I’m counting it as 54.

We had an amazing time in Donegal and I would like to redo that, and also potentially explore more of Cork, and drop back in on Dublin. Until then, see you soon, Ireland!

Killarney National Park is located in County Kerry in the south west corner of Ireland. We have previously visited every county in Ireland except two: Cork and Kerry. To resolve this, we headed down the M8 to tick the final counties off (it’s the final counties, du du du dudh), stopping in Mallow to tick off County Cork and spending the weekend in Killarney.

It also meant I could engage in a bit more parkrun tourism, completing Killarney House parkrun.

There is free parking at the Muckross estate which includes farms, a house, an abbey and more. We started by walking over and exploring the abbey. There are lots of old trees, including one inside the cloister of the abbey. We then took a walk along the lakeside and hiked over to Torc Waterfall.

We had lunch at the garden restaurant which offered a really nice roast chicken. One of the challenges when you are outside of Yorkshire is that people often don’t understand when you say you want a generous portion of gravy. There is just never enough gravy. But not a problem here.

There was so much to do that we spend both days in the park and did a tour of Muckross House the next day.

Killarney is a happening place and the whole weekend was busy in the town. This made for a lot of traffic but also plenty of atmosphere. We were worried we might not be able to find somewhere to eat but luckily The Porterhouse were able to fit us in. On Sunday, we had lunch at Manna Cafe, which is also worth a visit.

Leaving the Inishowen peninsula, we arrived in Letterkenny. With over 20,000 people it is by far the biggest town in Donegal and feels like a big place. It has a Dunnes and everything. Fantastic food, as well. We ate at The Yellow Pepper on the first day and I had the hot seafood platter with haddock, muscles, chowder, and a bunch of other stuff. On the second day we ate at Sister Sara’s gastro pub.

We also paid a visit to Tropical World. Obviously, it is not quite as good as Tropical World in Leeds (because, again, everything is better in Yorkshire), it has a lovely range of bugs, birds, mammals and non-real dinosaurs to explore. We also got to stroke a snake, and they have a play area, too.

Glenveagh is a national park in Donegal containing Lough Veagh and a Derryveagh mountains. It is free to visit and offers some beautiful walks and views.

West of Glenveagh you will find the coast. We stopped at Narin Beach to build another sandcastle. I am writing this two or three weeks later and my hands are still blistered from all of the digging.

Ireland has a series of folk parks which are open-air musums with traditional buildings and often have people in character doing traditional activities. In Belfast, you will find Ulster Folk Musum and in Clare you will find Bunratty. In Donegal, you will find Doagh Famine Village, which had been on my bucket list for a while.

Unfortunately, they recently had a fire and some of it was closed. But they were still offering visits and a large part of it is a tour in which a former resident of one of the houses presents some living history, demonstrating the food and traditions of the area. You also get some seaweed and a shot of potcheen to try. There are a few buildings to explore after that.

Inishowen is a peninsula north of Derry featuring a load of cool stuff, including Malin Head, which is the most northerly point of Ireland. It’s fantastic. I loved Donegal and Inishowen was probably my favourite part. We drove up the east coast and stayed in the village of Greencastle where our bedroom had a view of Lough Foyle.

The good was great, too. We ate at the Redcastle Hotel on the first night. My rule is that hotels don’t do food good, but I will grudging admit that their food was good. Was also ate at Rosato’s in Moville, which is a pub and restaurant serving good food. God was smiling on me because there was only one slice of mint aero cheesecake left and the table just ahead of us foolishly passed on it.

Inishowen is also home to several beautiful beaches including Stroove, where we built another sandcastle.

And Doagh Strand which is an incredible place to watch the waves come crashing in. There are other beaches, too, that we did not get time to visit. Add to that a lot of beautiful hills and not too much traffic and it is a wonderful place to spend some time.

When Storm Floris rolled in, we decided to head to Derry to seek a bit of shelter. After some lunch at the Terra Bakery, we headed to the Museum of Free Derry in Bogside to learn about The Troubles. It is a small but well put-together museum telling the story of Battle of the Bogside and the surrounding events during The Troubles.

Dunluce is a ruined castle sitting between Portballintrae and Portrush. It is built on a rocky outcrop of land that is connected to the mainland by a bridge. Excellent for defending if a little intimidating to cross. A good place to defend and you get some fantastic views down the coast while you are there.

It’s a bunch of rocks.

They are cool rocks. I always imagined it being a whole coastline of suff, but it is one rocky ourcrop. Much smaller than Filey Brigg, but then everything is better in Yorkshire. Still, it was cool to see, and the scenary around it was lovely.

The site is managed by the National Trust who heavily monitise it. They have to provide public access for free. But what they have done is built a visitor’s centre and car park that they do charge for. So if you want park near the site, or want to have a wee, it’s £15 per adult. And if you want to use the shuttle bus ro get up an down the hill, that costs extra money.

Our first base camp for our road trip was the seaside town of Portrush. Long beaches, fish and chip shops, arcades, the whole classic British seaside town feel. It also had a parkrun. With Portrush being a summer hotspot, over 500 runners turned up for an out-and-back along the beach. The sand was firm enough under foot but there were some wet bits to run through. A lot of runners did it in bare feet.

After parkrun, Venla and I built the first of many sandcastles.