Brighton and Western Ireland

I arrived at London Gatwick airport after a somewhat sketchy flight from Italy. Who knew you could take a prop plane over the Alps? The poor little girl behind me had to use her puke bag, but I did okay. My plan was to overnight in London and then fly to Ireland the next day. I booked a hotel that looked close to the airport, not realizing that it was in the airport. I just love those kind of hotels. They make life so easy. Also easy was that there was a train station inside the airport also. Within just a few steps, I had landed, checked into my hotel, and was on the train to Brighton. 

Brighton

I wanted to do something cool in England and it turns out Brighton is just a quick 30 minute train ride from Gatwick. I happened to show up during the annual Brighton Pride Festival, so whole lot was going on and thousands of people were there with me. My first stop was food, and I went with a Korean corn dog. Did you know this was a thing?

I then made my way down to the beach and looked at the fun pier. All my Ted Lasso watching failed me, though, and I got honked at while crossing a road. I looked left, when I should have looked right. 👀

Shannon Town

The next morning I got ready and walked for one minute to the check in desk. I arrived in Ireland an hour before my family did. I made a sign with their names on it so they would feel fancy. While I waited I noticed two little girls waiting for their mom. The older one was blond with a cute pink outfit and a crown headband. The younger was darker haired and had a riot of patterns, all the way down to her mismatched socks. This was my sister and me 40 years ago!

Once the crew arrived we picked up our rental car and headed to the nearby hamlet of Bunratty. For the duration of the trip my cousin was the driver and I was the copilot. We had two passenger princesses in the back. Bunratty consisted of a castle, a hotel, a couple pubs/restaurants, a woolen mill store, and a mockup of a town as it would have been a couple hundred years ago.

We did really well to pick this place because it was super cute and very close to a real town if we wanted to drive to it. That night my cousin found a drive through laundromat. I didn’t realize that was a thing, but it was in the gas station parking lot and you pull up in your car, put your clothes in and wait in your car. I suppose you could come back later, but that’s kind of weird. 

Cliffs of Moher

We chose to fly into Shannon because it is near the Cliffs of Moher. The next morning we drove over on a collection of very small roads that two cars could not always fit on. Ireland deserves its reputation for ruining rental cars! We had a hubcap incident but overall did fine. The cliffs are well, cliffs. From the car park we walked a bit north and a bit south looking over the cliff edge. It was very beautiful and we had a great day with good visibility and no rain. There was an audio guide and I learned some cool things.

• The Cliffs of Insanity in the Princess Bride were filmed here
• Some boats from the Spanish Armada were sunk in the water off the cliffs
• There is an Irish legend set here that I will not repeat because really, do we still need legends about unattractive women who fall in love with men who are mean to them?

I also thought it was cool that there were buskers along the path. Hearing the harp and fiddles added a good ambience to seeing the green fields and dramatic cliffs. 

Bunratty Castle

That night we got back to Bunratty in time to visit the castle and village. I was most impressed by the village because I could get a sense of what life was like for the average folk. The lucky ones lived in little thatched roof houses and tended their crops and animals. I would not have loved it because they heated their houses with peat, but I suppose I would have got used to the smokiness. We tried out a couple of the restaurants in Bunratty and my favorite was called the Creamery. We didn’t know it at the time, but it turns out pretty much every restaurant in Ireland has about the same menu. Vegetable soup with bread, fish chowder, and Guinness stew. Our group ate the same things over and over and over. Good thing we liked them!

I also really like how live music was common. Our first night in Bunratty my sister and I wandered down to the pub to listen to a band after I heard them play Galway Girl as I was sitting in my room. This also turned out to be frequent. Lots of Galway Girl and lots of Cranberries. Not much U2, which is interesting. 

Dingle

The next day we made our way down south to the Dingle Peninsula. Yes, the word ‘dingle’ featured in many jokes over the course of the trip. When I had planned this part of the trip I had to chose between three coastal areas: Donegal, Dingle, and Kerry. I’m sure all would have been great, but we were really happy with our choice. We stayed in another little village (some hotels, a church, and some restaurants) in the super fun named town of Ballyferriter. The drive here was lovely. Lots of views of vibrant green fields and the ocean. We had a day and a half to cover ground on this peninsula and we made the most of it. 

Dingle highlights

Here are some of the cool things we saw and did.

• Star Wars beach: I haven’t seen this movie, but apparently when Rey finds Luke meditating by the ocean, it was filmed here. It was very pretty and I got to walk through fields next to some sheep so I lived out a humble sheep girl fantasy.

• Beaches: we visited a couple beaches here with stretches of white sand. I got in it up to my ankles and was wowed by the kids and older women where were living their best life swimming and splashing. Next to every beach were little popup saunas on trailers. What a great idea! You could get in the freezing ocean and then warm up in a sauna. 

• Boat trip to the cliffs: we took a one hour boat ride along the cliffs of Dingle Town on a cute little boat. It was a great day and calm so no one got seasick. I was wowed with the vibrant contrast of blue sky and gray rock with the green hills. We saw a u-shaped hole in some of the rocks where Cromwell’s forces shot their cannons in the 1600s. We didn’t see dolphins, but there were some cormorants drying their wings off on the rocks. 
• Cute shops and restaurants. Dingle is an adorable town. So much so that it is on the cruise ship circuit. We visited some great shops and ate ice cream and soup, chowder, and stew. I was able to get a chicken hand pie, which made for a tasty change of scene.

• High passes: we drove over a well-trod pass from one side of the peninsula to the other. This was quite steep and in one section we were very lucky to not have oncoming traffic because it was a very small one way for a stretch. I found a more rugged road to drive back on and we only saw two cars and lots of sheep. It was really fun to take these mountain passes.

• Honeycomb ruins. Several thousand years ago, people were making their homes on this peninsula. There are stone ruins left from these people that are roughly in the shape of honeycomb. I loved walking through ruins and thinking about what it was like to have lived at this time. 

Killarney, Blarney, Cork, Kilkenny, Waterford

We had a very busy 36 hours after leaving the coast and heading inland. Our first stop was Killarney, mainly because my mom always played Roger Whittaker’s Christmas in Killarney growing up. We swung in to the beautiful St. Mary’s Cathedral in Killarney, so that forever in the future when I hear that song I can have a frame of reference. This church was very pretty because the stone inside looked rough cut instead of smooth. I also really liked all the green color in the stained glass and banners.

On the way to Killarney we swung into a working wool mill, the Kelly Wool Mill. It wasn’t running when we were there but we got to see the machines and piles of unprocessed wool, in addition to buying lots of cool wool products. I am wearing my stylish wool sweater vest as I type this. 

Blarney

My sister’s main priority in Ireland was to kiss the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle, so we had to make that happen. The stone is at the top of the castle and to get to it, you wander through the different rooms and stairwells. The line is pretty solid so we had lots of time to understand the castle layout and features. To kiss the stone you have to lay on your back and skooch backwards over a foot or so gap in the stone. A worker held on to you and you put your hands on the railings so I didn’t think it was very scary. I am not sure when the gift of gab is supposed to hit me after doing this, but hopefully it will be soon.

I also liked the poison garden at the Blarney Castle grounds. This wasn’t a historical thing, but it was fun to see all the poisonous plants that show up in Harry Potter, like wolfsbane and mandrake. They also had the biggest plant killer of humans: tobacco.

Cork

We overnighted in Cork, which is Ireland’s second city. It felt gritty and edgy. Sadly, we didn’t have time to visit the English Market when stalls were open, but we did walk down the pedestrian roads and ate really great pizza (a nice break from soup, chowder, and stew). Afterwards, my sister and I visited the St. Fin de Barre cathedral. This was a really great decision because not only did we see a pretty church, but we got to hear a warm up for the organ concert that would be performed the next day. This organ is unique because it has underground pipes. We got to stand over them and felt the vibrations when the organist hit certain notes. On our way out, we got a brief religion lesson from the fella who sold us our tickets. He explained that the Church of Ireland is similar to the Church of England, so basically Catholic except no pope. And since it is in Ireland, it is the church of Ireland, not England. 

Waterford and Kilkenny

On our way north to Dulblin we swung into the towns of Waterford and Kilkenny. My cousin wanted to go to the Waterford crystal shop, which was full of pretties. Expensive pretties, so we didn’t buy anything. I did learn that this is credited as the first city in Ireland (I’m sure this is disputed, but they claim it) and it was founded by vikings. I think I could have spent more time here learning more, but we were off to Kilkenny.

Kilkenny was a very cute city. The main road had lots of cool looking shops that I could have spent lots of time and money in, but our main goal here was to visit the beautiful Kilkenny castle. I very much enjoyed this castle tour because it was a historic castle but it also had pretty paintings and furniture and things. The night before I had flipped through the TV and stumbled on a history show talking about famous Irish portraits. Imagine my surprise when we showed up in the portrait hall and realized the show was from that very room! After finishing up at the castle and making a poor choice to eat at a pretzel store (they looked way better than they tasted), we hit the road to Dublin.