Today was a drive. I think we covered most of the Irish West Coast. Which means you do nearly twice that, because there’s nary a straight road to be found in this country. Roads felt like they were wrapped like sausage casings by trees and hedges on both sides, if not stone walls. Google Maps sent us down “L” roads barely wide enough for the car for kilometres at a time. I was terrified of a car coming the other way, as one of us would have to back up for a very long distance and I really didn’t want to do that.
Suffice to say, I’m glad we made it to Donegal.
We ate breakfast in Tralee. Although we were at a B&B, the second B wasn’t too clear. The cafe seemed to be run entirely by one very well-dressed man who seemed determined to be win an award for quality and efficiency. The meal was good, the coffee was fantastic.
Google and Carplay conspired against us and getting out of Tralee felt a bit impossible. It was, frankly, frustrating as we have become so wretchedly dependent on technology that we can’t seem to read a bloody map, anymore. Y’know, if we could even find a paper map, anymore. As much as I like having backups, they have to actually exist in order to use them.
On the agenda was the Cliffs of Insanity Moher, which we wanted to see for a few reasons, not the least of which was How to Train Your Dragon. This is one of Choo Choo’s all-time favourite movie series, and Ireland has a number of locations that were supposedly used during the filming of the live action film. (And there’s also that inconceivable movie.)
The problem was that in the years betwixt Alex and I coming to the Cliffs back in ‘06 and today, someone thought it would be a really great idea to upgrade the parking lot from a simple gravel one to a full museum and gift shop and charge €20 a head to park. We’ve been trying not to be too concerned with prices on this trip, but there’s a reasonable limit to everything.
Alex dove into the internet and discovered via Facebook that there was another location to the south that charged a mere €5. Not knowing anything else about it, we headed off. Eastwards.
(If you’re looking at a map, you’ll wonder why we went East from Tralee instead of north. The problem is the Shannon Estuary, which cuts quite a ways inland, which Ireland has not seen fit to cross with a bridge. There is a ferry roughly north of Tralee, but ferries have a habit of being dicey with timning. And Google Maps suggested that it was almost as fast to just drive around it. Suffice to say, after today, Google Maps is going to sit in the corner and have a good long think about what it’s done.)
It was a couple of hours before we found the parking lot, which was an extension of some family’s private residence in Kilconnell, which is about 4 km southwest of the more well-known location. We had to walk another kilometre up a gravel farming road (that had very clear signs not to drive up there, which clearly suggested that people had tried), passing large wind-blown fields of deep green Irish grass, being fed on by various breeds of Irish cows. None of them would tell us the time of day, let alone come near for a pet. Silly cows.
The cliff was … tall. I could immediately feel that vertigo where my testicles desperately wish to crawl up somewhere around my diaphragm. Beautiful, but I stayed a respectful distance from the edges. The girls, on the other hand, looked like they wanted to hang glide off the hills and soar with all the ocean birds that were squawking around. Choo Choo, in particular, leaned into the breeze whilst blaring “Test Drive”, one of the has-no-reason-being-that-great pieces from How To Train Your Dragon’s soundtrack.
Alex went off to find a geocache while we enjoyed the view. There would be no sunset for us this time around, which was a good thing, given that we were to be in Donegal by the end of the day. Until Alex returned, the girls continued to make me fear for their lives at the edges of a certain-fall-to-the-death. Insanity.
Google then directed us to Galway. And by “directed”, I mean “plunge us into the middle of the Irish countryside, down lanes barely able to accept our vehicle, with speed limits approaching 100 km/h despite being unable to see around the next corner and without means of escape”. It was a good 45 minutes before we saw anything even resembling a two-lane road.
When Alex and I were in Ireland the first time, we travelled from Dublin to the Cliffs of Insanity Moher and back over two days. People thought we were insane. “It’s so far”, we were told. That’s a mere 210 kilometres as the shillelagh flies. That’s barely the distance from Calgary to the BC border along the #1; it’s not even 2/3 of the distance to Edmonton! For us, that’s almost a commute.
I think I understood why people were so surprised. I was regularly passing people doing 20-40 km/h under the limit. I wasn’t driving unsafely – my family was in the car, lest we forget – but everyone drives so darn slow! We had places to be, darn it, get out of the way! Suffice to say, it took a while to get to Galway.
In hindsight, I wish we’d actually stayed a night in Galway, at the very least. Because of the schedule to come, we had to either cut diagonally across Ireland tomorrow, or go north to Donegal and head east. It was effectively a no-win scenario. Our choice, however, meant that we had barely any time to spend in Galway.
The first stop, which is why we parked where we did, was the Galway Cathedral. We love cathedrals (well, Alex and I do; the girls, not so much). They’re huge buildings with interesting architecture and beautifully decorated and … that’s not Galway Cathedral at all. It was built in the 50s. The 1950s, that is. (If it had been the 1850s, it would have far more charm.) I’m sure it’s a wonderful church with a great congregation, but the building is … well, remember that trend to whack off the end of a concrete block to expose “texture”? That should never be used on a church, I don’t care what denomination it is.
We wandered deeper into town, following Alex. She’d been to Galway on a previous trip to Ireland, where she spend some time on her own fluttering about. She at least knew a bit of the city, vs. what little I’d gleaned from staring at maps. Some of the buildings were interesting, showing some of the Victorian influences, though clearly quite a bit of the city has had a rough ride through British occupation.
We ended up in the Latin Quarter. I have no idea why it’s considered Latin, and it’s really only a couple of streets – someone can’t math properly and gave it too much prominence in the name. But it is a nice walk with a lot of night life.
We found The Quays Restaurant, largely as there was a statue out front of the original Galway Girl (since reimmortalized by Ed Sheeran). The server was a hoot, the food was okay. We ate early to avoid the rush. A trip through a gift shop to secure our evidence that we’d been to Galway, and we were back in the car heading north.
It was 6:30 as we headed out. Google, living up to its reputation of accuracy within the Emerald Isle, said we’d be in Donegal by 9:00. The highways between the two cities were at least speedy, I didn’t have to spend too much time passing. But they were the epitome of unpicturesque – thick trees on both sides, hardly any hills and farmland to look over, and we were far enough inland to avoid any views of the sea.
We parked the car just before 9:30 on the road near our B&B, a four-storey walk-up next to the Donegal River and a little lonely church. We were beset by a fairly drunk gentleman who didn’t think much of Canadians (whether he thought we were American was an unresolved question).
The room is large, with three beds, and a highly sensitive motion-activated light in the entranceway that threatens to turn on if anyone in the adjacent bed (Alex) even so much as breathes the wrong way. The shower floods into the carpet in the main room, even with extra towels as dams. It’s a good thing we’re here only one night.
I putzed around a bit outside in the waning light, getting some long exposures of the church and nearby bridge over the river. There’s another bridge to the east that looks suspiciously railway-built, but I can’t find any evidence of a railway having gone over it.
Tomorrow, we’re off to Bushmills. May it be less painful driving than today.
