Travel

Welcome to my somewhat delayed account of our trip to Northern Ireland on the June bank holiday weekend. I know, you’ve been waiting anxiously.

I have been dying to get my little family to Co. Antrim since I had a wonderful trip there last year with some friends from a former job.

We set off late on Friday afternoon without the cat, somewhat to her chagrin.

Traffic out of Dublin was dreadful. We decided to go for dinner once we were safely across the border. We stopped in Hillsborough where the children were suitably impressed by the phone boxes and the post boxes. It’s like going abroad, only not.

We were staying outside Coleraine. When I mentioned this to a number of people they looked very dubious and my brother announced that “Coleraine is the dullest place in Ireland.” In fact the accommodation was fine. It was on a farm outside the town. Our host was very chatty and kept goats which the children were allowed to feed and, at her request, took the Princess on a full tour of the farm including seeing bags and bags of sheep’s wool which had been sheared during the week (very oily apparently).

In fact the only problem with the accommodation was that the heating was set to what my friend from Bangor refers to as “Ulster Granny” levels and there was no real way to turn it off. Indeed, our host was quite keen for us to light the fire and gave us logs for that purpose. I am sure, most of the time, that is necessary but the bank holiday weekend was very warm and sunny. It would have been quite cheap as well but, despite my hopes, market nervousness about Brexit was insufficient to make any dent on the exchange rate.

The next morning we were up bright and early to go to the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge which we all enjoyed but it was very warm indeed. In fact, a bit too hot which, I suspect is not normally a problem for visitors to Co. Antrim.

Then we went down to Ballintoy harbour for an ice cream. It features in Game of Thrones and I thought that the boys might be mildly interested. They were, very mildly. I hasten to add that they have not seen Game of Thrones but it seems to be seeping into the primary school culture.  Unnerving. Our host told us that our accommodation had also hosted Game of Thrones crew members. I’d say anywhere within a 90 minute drive of the Antrim coast can boast some kind of connection.

Then we went in to Bushmills for lunch and decided that we would do the touristy thing and take the train from there to the Giant’s Causeway. This was a mistake. The train is actually the world’s slowest tram. It was very slow.  And not very busy.  For reasons which became entirely obvious as we were overtaken by hikers en route.

We got there eventually though. We emerged from the tram somewhat disorientated. We saw three locals with fishing rods and asked where the Giant’s Causeway was. They pointed in the opposite direction from where we were going. They were keen to emphasise that although it looked like you had to pay to get in via the visitor centre, access to the site was free via the underpass. I love frugal Northerners. We inspected the Giant’s Causeway. The children were a bit tired and underwhelmed. Herself and Daniel were grabbed by a Chinese woman who wanted them to be in her photo. They were surprised but willing and even now may be being inspected by this woman’s friends in China.

There were busloads of Chinese tourists there. Although it was busier than it had been when I went there last year, it was not too dissimilar. Mr. Waffle, on the other hand had lasted visited in 1986 when he was there on his own pretty well and he found the crowds of people quite surreal.

Unfortunately, the last tram had left by the time we got back to the tram stop and we found ourselves reliant on Ulster Bus to get back to our car in Bushmills. We spent a tense enough half hour at the bus stop but, happily, a bus did come and return us safely to our car.

Mild highlight of the day was returning to our accommodation with a pack of Northern Taytos under our oxters and having a blind taste test as against Southern Taytos to see which was best. For the record, we found them indistinguishable.

On Sunday we went in to Portstewart for Mass which was neither as full nor as long as I expected. After mass the boys went on a bouncy castle and the rest of us had a cup of tea. God, it was hot.

While walking along the Promenade we found this product:

There are no words.

We went to Downhill beach for a swim. This is an amazingly beautiful beach overlooked by Mussenden Temple. The scenery is utterly breathtaking. Our Northern brethern have chosen to let cars come on to the beach and park there. While I think that this is appalling and really, really wrong, a very small part of me has to concede that it is extremely handy to park your car and pull the stuff out of the boot and have it right beside you which seems to be the form locally.

The Princess and I swam and Michael went in as far as his waist. The water was freezing but very clear and when you got out, the beach was absolutely roasting so you dried almost immediately, it was like being in the South of France. Except that the water was freezing.

For lunch we went in to Castlerock. We took ourselves to the only place that seemed to be open and it was quite rough, I thought. For the only time on the trip, I did feel quite conscious that we were Southerners and Catholic to boot. The man told us dourly to take “a wee seat in the wee bar for a wee minute” and we sat with the local, tattooed, beefy, hard chaws feeling a bit unnerved. We were seated speedily enough and our waitress was pleasant and the food alright and extremely economically priced but we were not tempted to linger.

Then we went to look at Mussenden Temple which was quite beautiful and in the hands of the resolutely middle-class and safe feeling National Trust.

I have to tell you that the Earl Bishop of Derry was, however, completely nuts to build a library right on the North coast. Even on the spectacularly warm day we visited it was pretty damp. Apparently in its heyday there was always a fire burning in the basement to keep out the damp.

The big house is a ruin but quite a recent one. It seems to have been pretty much intact up to the end of the second world war.

While Daniel and Michael played in the ruins of the house, the Princess and I rushed to see Hezlett House which was a traditional cottage (price of admission covered by the ticket for the main house). It was quite interesting and we pretty much had it to ourselves. As we arrived, the guide gave us a laminated card and told us that it was a “wee self-guided tour”. He had to say it three times before we understood though. The accent can be challenging for those of us unfamiliar with it.

The next day was the bank holiday Monday in the South but the previous Monday had been the bank holiday in the North. See my cunning? I took us to the Titanic museum in Belfast and it was reasonably empty. It wasn’t totally my cup of tea but I think that the children liked it and it was certainly interesting in parts. It really tries to reset the narrative to focus on shipbuilding in Belfast rather than the ship that sank. It is only partially successful in that regard. A small tender, the SS Nomadic, the last White Star Line boat in the world is available to visit also and we found that mildly enjoyable. Toilets were something of a highlight for the more juvenile members of the party.

And there was dressing up.

And then, back to Dublin. I would definitely go again. It’s really beautiful in Antrim and far more accessible from Dublin than West Cork or Kerry – where the scenery is also pretty impressive. It’s also, busloads of Chinese tourists notwithstanding, generally far less touristy than the South. I think we’ll be back.

We’ve been planning to go to Clare for quite a while. Ever since herself started studying the Burren in geography and asked why we had never been there.

A colleague had been encouraging me to try out youth hostels for some time saying that they have really gone upmarket with family rooms and it would be great for me and my family.

I put these elements together and booked us into a youth hostel in Clare. We booked to go in early March. I was only mildly put off when I got a phone call saying that the hostel didn’t open until after St. Patrick’s day and could we re-book. We did, for this weekend.

It’s a good three hour drive from Dublin and we set off on Friday morning. The children played an amusing and quite successful April’s fool joke by pretending that they all desperately wanted to go to the toilet as we were speeding along the motorway; they are using their increasing age and sophistication against us. It’s working. We stopped in Ballinasloe in Galway for lunch. It was lashing. Ballinasloe, famous for an annual horse fair in October, was grand but, frankly, not at its bright and beautiful best. I managed to get us lost on the way from Galway to Clare and we floundered around the back roads of the Burren for some time pausing occasionally to force the children out of the car to look at damp Karst landscapes. We saw Leamaneh castle which was impressive but not open to the public and surrounded by grazing cattle.

We arrived into the youth hostel in the late afternoon. I am sure that had I seen it in the late 1980s/early 1990s when I last graced youth hostels with my presence, I would have been suitably impressed. However, in the intervening 20 odd years, it appears that my standards have risen quite considerably. The bedroom smelt unpleasant. Mr. Waffle had suggested we bring towels. I said, “nonsense”. There were no towels. You were able to hire them for €2 a towel (it subsequently transpired that this was a mistake and we were refunded for our towel investment). There was a drip in the games room. The light fittings in the TV room did not work. Are you getting a picture?

All in all, it was not a hugely successful day. We went out to the local pub for dinner which was pleasant and afterwards we forced the children to go on a mild walk. Michael was particularly bitter until we found that the path led to a playground. Great happiness followed. Then we went back to the youth hostel and played pool. All my old skills came back to me; I was quite useless. But the children enjoyed it.

The next day, it was not raining. This was a surprising and very welcome development. We had a day of intense activity which was largely successful. We saw the Cliffs of Moher which continue to be impressive. However, we were greeted on entry to the car park by an extraordinarily rude employee. I think when this kind of thing happens in your own country, you are doubly annoyed a) it’s annoying and b) what will the poor tourists think? And there were plenty of them, mostly bus tours with lots of French and German teenagers. In the 20 years since I have last visited, direct access to the edge has been fenced off. Probably for the best.

Herself was quite impressed by the interpretative centre. After that we had more Karst, Caherconnell ring fort, the Burren interpretative centre and the cathedral in Kilfenora of which apparently the Pope is bishop – I doubt he gets there often.

After that we saw the Fr. Ted house. We had tried to book tea in advance but to no avail, alas, so we could only stand outside and admire.

From left Fr. Jack, Mrs. Doyle and Fr. Ted (out of shot, Fr. Dougal).

We then went to the Aillwee caves which was definitely the highlight of the day. We almost didn’t go to the accompanying birds of prey show which was an extra €15 for the lot of us. But we did. It was the best money we spent all weekend. The show was amazing. Michael demonstrated a knowledge of birds of prey which was startling and detailed. Herself got to hold an owl.

The birds flew really low over our heads and the whole thing was unnerving but fascinating. We quite enjoyed the caves too.

Then we had a successful pizza dinner in Ballyvaughan and another night in our communal room in the youth hostel. Everyone else complained about snoring and tossing and turning noises but Michael and I slept fine, thanks for asking.

This morning we visited Corcomroe Abbey which was very beautiful and lonely and quiet. It became considerably less so as a “Paddywagon” bus full of tourists deposited them as we were leaving but we had timed our adventure well.

Our final cultural stop of the day was over the boarder in Galway where we visited Dunguaire castle in Kinvara. It’s the first time I have ever been in one of those square stone castles (with which Ireland is very well endowed) and been warm. Their heating bill must be breathtaking. It was pleasant though.

Then lunch in Kinvara and about 2 and a half hours to get back to Dublin in the late afternoon. The children are back to school tomorrow after a very long Easter break and are not contemplating the prospect with any great enthusiasm. Still, I think that we all enjoyed the trip.