We escaped alive from the man in the Transit...

That's the second Transit/Trannie story of this tour (see "Eire we go again?" posted 7th November)

I digress...

Sligo came and went and (as I’d done the last time we’d been there in 2001) I pointed out the street that had the sports shop where, in 1988, I’d bought a brilliant pair of Nike “Hotspur” football boots. Strange how these things stick with you but, being a former believer of the urban myth that “you need to buy football boots a size too big because the socks are thicker” (!) I’d bought a size 9 back then and, being someone who used to be careful about these sorts of things, I’d looked after them lovingly and was still using them when I played for my works’ team in 1999!

Sorry. Back to the bus…

The journey down the N4 through what the map now tells me were the Bricklieve Mountains passed in a barrage of showers so I didn’t really start paying attention to the scenery again until the rain eased on the N61 south of Tulsk and we passed a sign at Clooneyquinn marked “Percy French Birthplace.” Hmm. You’ve got to be intrigued by a sign like that haven’t you? Percy French? Is that the least Irish sounding name ever? Or do Bono and Tony Cascarino edge him into third place?

Intrigued we may have been but we were on a mission – Roscommon for afternoon tea or bust! As it turned out this lovely market town didn’t have any bust but we did get a splendid takeaway cappuccino (hark at us!) from a deserted Italian restaurant. Percy French would keep.

Roscommon held no real interest for the compilers of our youngster-centric Rough Guide (already being referred to by us as the “Rough as F**k Guide”) and reading between the lines, actually reading the lines themselves we’d have been well advised to avoid what sounded – in the book - like a miniature version of Shrewsbury. Ignoring the book (so why bother to read it then?) we had a lovely couple of hours wandering about the town and visiting the park in the grounds of the 16th Century castle. The park, surprisingly as it’s not the sort of thing we normally go for, had a playpark. A dashed good one at that – at the top of the climbing frame there was even a periscopey type thing which I was dying to get a shot of.

Just off the main street, was a fantastic greengrocer’s which had carrots with huge, long stalks all tied up in a very rustic fashion. Eschewing these delights and not thinking for a second of the potential harm to our night vision by doing so we went instead for the lovely looking potatoes. I know that we didn’t have them that night but we certainly got around to them over the next day or so and I can honestly say I’d never had better boiled potatoes. A mundane subject perhaps, but when’s the last time you got a potato that actually had some flavour?

Leaving Roscommon behind, our biggest concern was how we were going to be able to follow the winding, be-junctioned R355 south of Ballinasloe. We needn’t have worried – we got lost long before that as we tried to find our way out of Athlone. Guesswork won the day again. Either we have a natural flair for this instinctive navigation game or that map’s better than I thought. The reason for our route confusion may well have been the distraction of the RTE news bulletins – it takes a hell of a story to push terrorist attacks in London and the G8 summit at Gleneagles off the top of the news agenda.

All I’ll say is that the story concerned an Irish priest – now based in the states – who had been doing a spot of shagging on the side (so to speak) and was, for reasons I now can’t recall, faced with extradition. I told you it was a hell of a story. It turned out he was appealing the extradition on human rights grounds – his argument being that his rights had been breached as – are you ready for this? – he’d been forced, forced, to wear pink underwear in court.

We arrived in Mountshannon shortly after 6 o’clock. It had been a long day and we were glad to stop. Alas things are rarely perfect and we soon came to the conclusion that we’re rubbishy, anti-social type campers. We moaned about the excessively loud music the people nearby were playing, we moaned about their kids running riot. We were tired and hungry. The camper van staple, pasta in a tomato sauce soon remedied this, helped in no small measure by Ben’s home made garlic bread slices and a glass of red. The site itself was excellent. On a beautiful spot right beside one of Ireland’s many Lough Dergs (Red Loch), the site boasted all sorts of water based activities, excellent facilities and a brilliant wee hideaway type cabin which you could rent. We’ve got a picture somewhere – sadly not one of the Polaroids though. It was like a cross between the Wombles’ burrow and Fulton MacKay’s beach hut on Camusdarrach in Local Hero. We were suddenly green with envy. In the picture the cabin appears to be green with ivy.

Here’s a thing, campsite showers. Rarely, if ever, on our trip did we come across any whose cubicles were big enough to get changed in without getting your clothes or towel soaking wet from the puddle you’d just made. After a while it started to get on my nerves. From about day three onwards it came to be known as Irritable Towel Syndrome.

Trusting our fate to the R.A.F.Guide we set off, early doors, for “The Ferry to Kerry,” unnecessary capitalisation notwithstanding. The Ferry… does exactly what it says on the tin. Well, on the signpost, travelling as it does, from Clare to Kerry. The signpost on the Kerry side mustn’t have quite the same ring to it. Though Kerry, to be fair, does have a certain ring anyway (sorry, apallingly crowbarred tourist destination gag there). To get there we went cross country, skirting Ennis and passing evocatively named villages and hamlets like Tuamgraney, Fair Green and Lissycasey. As I checked the spellings on the map I came across an “instructional” location we would narrowly avoid later in the day: Moanmore.

Kilrush, the town near to the ferry, proved to be wonderfully memorable for two reasons. Firstly, in a shop I’d gone into to look at sweatshirts (I didn’t know it would be over 30degrees by the weekend) the owner took it upon himself to share with me the source of his and his assistants’ amusement: The Daily Star. Not being a tabloid reader I don’t know if it’s normally funny, but I indulged him. Front page, full colour, taking up the whole page was a picture of the devastation in London. Unfortunately the photographer, whether deliberately or not, had chosen to photograph a mangled double-decker from the side which clearly showed the advert on the side for a summer blockbuster, with the caption “OUTRIGHT TERROR – BOLD AND BRILLIANT.” “Ah sure now, it’s a terrible thing right enough,” sweatshirt man assured me.

The second reason Kilrush proved such a delight was the tourist information office. Not normally a cause for much comment – except that fake one in Girvan – but we’d gone in to find out if the Family Farm, with all its unfortunate connotations, mentioned in the Rough As… was open. It wasn’t, but what was that flyer? “Relive the Percy French Experience…Are you right there Michael, are you right?” So, Percy was deemed an “experience” now? Was that experience in a Jimi Hendrix sense I wondered? How could we resist? Could you? Moyasta Junction here we come…’scuse me while I kiss this guy.

Surreal about sums it up. We laughed and laughed. The story of our Percy French Experience is as strange as that of Percy’s own story. Mr. French, it turns out – and for comedy context you must bear in mind that this was all told to us by a Tommy Vance look & soundalike – perhaps it was he? – was a celebrated songwriter and storyteller back in the early 20th century, hailing – as we already knew from near Clooneyquinn in County Roscommon. He wrote the types of songs that Val Doonican used to sin on TV in the 1970’s and 80’s: “Phil The Fluter’s Ball,” “Delaney’s Donkey” and the like. Well…one day old Percy had a big gig in Kilkee and he hopped aboard the now defunct (though about 200 yards of track still runs, we’ll get to that) West Clare Railway at the station in Ennis. The train was late. Hours late. Percy arrived in Kilkee just as his audience had given up and gone home. Percy, understandably was not a happy chap. He went mad and called the West Clare railway all the bad names under the sun and proceeded to write the ditty, “Are you right there Michael?” all about his experience of the tortuously amateurish (as he saw it) West Clare Railway set up, whereby at every station a railwayman (Michael) would get out and check all the doors to see that they were closed – thus slowing down the whole travelling and sticking to the timetable thing. The driver, no doubt wishing to get home in time for tea or perhaps get to Kilkee to see the Percy French Experience, would check that they were ready to go by asking, “Are you right there, Michael?”

Can you see where this is going? The West Clare were suitably stung by this and sued old Perce for slander, saying that his song was detrimental to their business. They were, they said, a professional outfit, a model of reliability and safety. The judge in Limerick agreed and awarded them the then not inconsiderable sum of ten pounds, plus costs.

Percy was, understandably upset and appealed the decision. A date was set for the hearing and our good friend set off for court in Limerick. When, over an hour after the appointed time Mr. French had failed to show up, the judge had no choice but to dismiss the appeal. At which point – some of you are ahead of me here, I know it – Percy walked into the courtroom, explaining his tardiness in the most priceless fashion ever – the train, yes a West Clare Railway service, had broken down en route from Ennis and they’d had to wait over a hour for it to be repaired. Game over, court awards Mr. P. French Esq. Ten pounds, plus costs. Altogether, “Are you right there Michael are you right…?”

This story seemed to us to be too good to be true but we’re assured that it is. I’d love to have been sitting in the public gallery in court that day. I can see the old judge sitting there as Percy rushes in, “how dare you man, the nerve of it, casting aspertions on the professionalism of such an august institution as the WCR whilst you, a shyster, a charlatan, a so-called entertainer (here I imagine him spitting out the word through clenched teeth) have the bare-faced cheek to show contempt for my court…” In my mind I see Percy saying “if I could just explain your honour, allow me to show you the departure time on this here ticket…”

The experience for us had already got off to a great start long before we heard the story. We pulled up in the car park and went into the green carriage that’s in the Polaroid diary (9/7/05) where we were met by, shall we say, a shifty looking character with a near impenetrable Cork accent. It all had scary echoes of our previous trip when we’d visited the Drombeg stone circle near Roscarberry, Co. Cork…

The stone circle, reputedly one of the most complete and spectacular in the whole country (it was) got almost a full page in the Rough As… and sounded just the sort of Place Pete McCarthy would have visited in what is still my favourite ever book. WE parked our hire car in an unassuming looking gravel square and followed the Bord Failte signs to the circle. We certainly weren’t expecting what it now occurs to me was our actual first encounter with counterfeit tourism.

Outside a scruffy looking Portacabin an even scruffier looking bloke said something like “low, Ishowyouhotwedoeer” which translated after a few seconds as, “hello, I’ll show you what we do here.” Obvious really. Though what did he mean? I’ll show you what? We’ve come to see a stone circle, how hard can that be? He mentioned something about leaflets, Italian, French, English and German. Inexplicably I, in terror, shouted “German!” Though I realised my mistake when he handed me a leaflet all about the stone circle, written in German. Needless to say I swapped it, but not before we’d parted with a few punts each (this was pre Euro) and were sent on our way circle-wards, knowing that something wasn’t quite right but not realising until much, much later in the pub that we’d been done. Good on them I suppose, free enterprise and all that…

Back at the Experience, Cork-man said – and I swear this is true - “low, Ishowyouhotwedoeer.” This time we at least felt we were being more ligitimately relieved of our cash, getting as we did the story (from Tommy Vance), the “audio-visual show” (grainy black and white film on a knackered looking 14” screen combi unit perched high above our heads – “okay, that’s enough of that now, the train is ready for you,” CLICK – and off it went), and THE TRAIN RIDE!

No photo could do it justice, no words could fully tell the tale – you really would need to experience the experience, as it were. We were led outside to the platform where a couple of carriages had been nicely painted in full West Clare livery – if I was a train anorak type I could no doubt tell you more about them. The, ahem, locomotive was a slightly bigger version of one of those miniature trains you get a theme parks and in the grounds of country houses, with some fibreglass and perspex bolted on to give it a bit of bulk – bear in mind the carriages and the track were full size – I have to say, it looked incongruous to say the least and was not what one might call confidence inspiring.

Nonetheless, up the ramp (!) we went and into a fully carpeted (I’m talking wall to wall and floor to ceiling here) open plan carriage, complete with electric lights and posters advertising the rental potential of the whole experience – weddings, bar mitzvahs and the like. As the train moved off Ben went tearing up and down the carriage. Being the only passengers, Gail and I did too – just because we could. Had we already been on the station tour with old Tommy V, we’d no doubt have indulged in a chorus or two of “Are you right there Michael?” as it was we simply dashed from side to side, looking for points of interest out the windows (cows, grass and more cows I’m afraid) and laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. The best – Tommy’s chat aside – was yet to come. Having gone about 200 yards up the line, we reversed, went back to the start then kept going back towards the main road, where we stopped and then steamed (sic) back to the platform, before disembarking for our tour of the station with “Rock on” Tommy.

In spite of the bizarreness of it all, it was great, great fun and hugely informative. The West Clare Railway Trust are raising money to restore the company’s old loco, which even as we spoke was in Bristol being refitted. Tommy told us they hoped to have it up and running by the summer season 2006 and after that it would be a case of repairing and reopening sections of track, with the eventual goal of running from Kilrush, right through Moyasta Junction (where we were) and out to the seaside at Kilkee. He didn’t tell us if they’d sorted out a timetable yet. Old Percy would be proud…

And so onwards to the Ferry to Kerry. Our vague plan – which you’ll already have spotted was out the window – had been to go all the way round the coast coming along through Cork and Waterford before heading north via Dublin and the southern part of Ulster, so we didn’t buy a return ticket. My wee list and the Rough As had throuwn up a few possibilities campsite-wise so we came off the ferry and headed for the sea. The sun was splitting the skies and we were grateful to be sporting shorts and sandals as we pootled along with the windows down. I can still feel the heat on my right arm as I type this – the tan built up far more quickly there! Winding country lanes mingled with occasional glimpses of the Atlantic as we made our way towards Ballybunion, stopping off only to buy a paper. “The Kerryman” (at a whopping one euro ten cents) was my choice as I paid obeisance to half of Pete McCarthy’s First Rule Of Travel: on arrival buy a local paper and read it over a pint. To be honest though I could have murdered a Guinness.

As it was no longer wet, perversely the seaside resort “delights” of Ballybunion made me wince. It was monstrously busy, there were families everywhere and boy racers with their thumping bass sub-woofers patrolled the streets. Instinctively we knew this was not for us. We pushed on past golf course after golf course – including one with a club house the size of a football stadium and a car park which looked like The Best Of Top Gear. The sun continued to beat down and we were a sticky mess by the time we hit Ballyheigue, which the Rough Guide assured us was a sedate seaside location.

Sedate it may have been, but only in comparison to Ibiza. It was mobbed, the main street was so busy we could barely get to the far end, such was the volume of Saturday afternoon traffic. Another quick decision and we made off again, this time for the wonderfully named Ardfert and the beachside site at Banna Strand. I’m sure Banna features in a Christy Moore song and if it doesn’t, it should – it’s a truly spectacular beach. Mile after mile of golden sand, warm gulf stream water and fairly massive waves. Off with the t-shirts, on with the SPF25 (Celtic complexions, what can I say?) and into the sea we went. Ben took to this like the proverbial duck, with his groovy lycra surfy-wetsuit type thing and sprinted off into the breakers. Before we knew it, we’d been there for a couple of hours and were all tired and hungry.

Trooping back, dripping but happy to dry off in the still blazing early evening sun we decided on a barbecue for dinner. Our site, the strangely monickered “Sir Roger’s” was by now almost full and we couldn’t fail to notice a caravan similar to one we’d seen on a caravanning programme (there was nothing else on, honestly) which came with its own pick-up truck and which we knew gave little change from a hundred and thirty grand. Where do people get that kind of money? That’s more than twice what our house cost!

This time it's all happening - 2

And so we continue...
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Anyone with any idea of how things like this normally turn out can’t have failed to guess that after a trip to the playpark (see, it’s started already), a run up to Millford to visit a butcher (for food, not social purposes) and a lovely drive up through the Fanad peninsula, we’d arrive at a particularly scary version of what we would come to christen “Static Hell.” The (very) few touring vans on site had been there so long they had grass growing up the wheels and sure wasn’t that Tony Robinson and his crew digging a test pit in that Sprite Marauder over there?

A pint at the near(ish)by pub and the driving rain did little to raise our spirits or make us feel any better about staying on the site. Thankfully the owner hadn’t been about yet so we’d not paid and decided just to leave.

Another hour or so of driving in deteriorating conditions brought us to Downings, scene of a happy childhood holiday with my granny and my wee sister. Downings has a lovely beach. We had lots and lots of rain. Not an ideal combination. Especially not when married with our awful (sloping, near the main road) pitch on The Site Where All Belfast Stays. The place was mobbed, we were tired, the meat took ages to cook, Ben was cranky, it kept raining, we wanted to go home. A walk on the main drag revealed only the smell of chip fat (a café-de-movealong right outside the campsite walls) and about 400 – well off – boy racers in BMWs and Audis.

Did I mention the rain there too?

So it was that we made some tea, ate some chocolate, packed Ben off upstairs to bed and reached a decision. Gone would be our plan to follow the coast right around and down through County Donegal, into Sligo and so on down the west of the country. No, it was time for decisive action. That’s how, by six o’clock the following evening, we were over 300 miles and two thirds of the length of the country away, parked up in Mountshannon, County Clare.

Looking now at our “trusty” Michelin map, the journey we made that day now seems like sheer madness. There was no immediately obvious route to take and it had taken us a good hour or so after sending Ben off to bed to decide where to go. From our previous trip together, we knew that we really wanted to end up back down in the South West – Kerry, Cork and the like. Those may be the tourist cliches but cliches tend to exist for a reason and whilst there’s no denying there’s much beauty and spectacle (not to mention history and some great cafes!) elsewhere in Ireland we just wanted the comfort of the familiar.

That same map d’Irlande now screams at me that we missed out on Tory Island, Dawros Head and the Glengesh Pass as we edited out much of Donegal and proceeded instead back to Letterkenny, through Ballybofey and down into the seaside delights of Bundoran for a mid morning pit-stop. Wet seaside resorts hold a certain appeal for me, perhaps it stems from spending four years living in the faded grandeur of Helensburgh on the west coast of Scotland as a youngster coupled with trips to Blackpool, Scraborough and doon the watter to Rothesay.

Bundoran (“the place of the cakes on the door” in Irish) merited a couple of pages in our Rough Guide, extolling the virtues of its pubs, clubs and surfing. To be honest it was really only a few days later we came to the realisation that the Rough Guide series is aimed at gap-year studenty-backpacker types. It’s not the best tome to consult to find some of the quiet bookshop/café type places we were to discover on the road. We did get a scented candle for the bus though. “Always take a smelly candle with you when you travel,” says Gail’s pal Yvonne. Good advice but living in NYC as she does, I hope she doesn’t extend this maxim to her trips uptown on the Metro. You never know…

Letterkenny – Ballbofey (N13) – Donegal (N15) – Ballyshannon (N15) – Bundoran (N15) – Carrick on Shannon (R280) – Longford – Roscommon – Athlone – Ballinasloe – Portumna.

This was the route I’d written down the night before. Tellingly, there are road number omissions, demonstrating, I suppose, a real lacking on my part in the journey planning department. The first few bits – to get us to Bundoran – clearly worked and from there, during our tea and sandwiches, Gail took over:

Bundoran (N15) – Sligo(!)N4 – Boyle (N61) – Tulsk (N61) – Roscommon (N61) – Athlone (N6) – Ballinasloe (R355) – Portumna – RIGHT(!) 4 miles, R353 – LEFT R352 14.5 miles.

Somewhat more exacting I think you’ll agree, but at least the were some common points! Looking at the map again as I’m doing now, anyone would be entitle to look at my route and say, “eh?” It does look, in retrospect, a bit wiggly and definitely sticks far too closely to those wonderful (sic) B-roads (“R” roads in the Republic). Even just typing all those place names makes me want to fire up the bus and hit the road again.

The long haul south from Bundoran started ominously enough when, after an extensive 12o’clock news bulletin on the London bombings on RTE1, the DJ kicking off the next show (the yet to be fully discovered and appreciated by us John Creedon) with the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset,” which just seemed very odd. I’d hesitate to say crass but it definitely jarred somehow, though the darker side of my sense of humour appreciated it then as now.

Approaching Sligo, we were wary of the traffic reports which had foretold of horrendous delays due to resurfacing works, new road builidning and sheer weight of holiday traffic. We’d even considered turning off and making a 20odd mile delay round a windy road past Lough Gill and the mystical Isle of Inishfree, because of course, a world-renowned beauty spot is just bound to be a quieter and quicker option in the height of the holiday season.

As we stopped for some more cheap petrol (the equivalent of about 64p a litre) a mile or two outside the city, a white transit van pulled up. Nothing unusual there, it being a petrol station and all. With the engine still running, one of the passengers wound down the window and shouted over to me “are you looking for a bargain?” I replied in the negative but not because I wasn’t looking for a bargain, to be frank I’m always looking for a bargain, even if (especially if) it’s something I don’t need. No, on this occasion I’d decided against the wisdom of entering into negotiations with a scary looking bloke in an unmarked van less than 100miles from the border. Mind you, if he’d had something really good…

More polaroid moments...

Sniff,sniff...these take me up to the end of the holiday.

Polaroid moments...

A holiday diary in Polaroid form. Seemed like a nice thing to do...
















Another ten or so to come. Scanning is not nearly so quick or easy as it looks.

This time it's all happening...

...I promise.

Discipline. That’s the key. This was all supposed to have been done, (a) on a daily basis (in July!) and (b) in a book. My litany of excuses is lame and makes for personally embarrassing reading, so I’ll leave it to one side.

Anyway…

Tuesday, 5th July, 1029am.

101337 on the speedo at Strontian village car park. An uneventful and swift drive to Old Kilpatrick before the real business of the day – getting stuck in traffic. After a spot of shopping, what should have been a 20 minute trip to the south side of Glasgow turned into a marathon two hour slog in soaring temperatures due to an overturned whisky lorry. The superstitious would read something into that…

A dreadful night’s sleep was alleviated somewhat by a fairly civilised departure hour, avoiding the early morning rush hour(s) we slipped onto the motorway trying not to look too much like anti G8 protestors. Police were everywhere…looking for what exactly? Not us it appeared as we sped (yes, really) south, making it the 60 or so miles to Girvan in about 90 minutes, which is alright for a fully laden, 23 year old ‘bus.’

Girvan was to be our first pit stop and we forsook the comforting delights of a brew in the van for a trip to a café. The “Minerva” is a 1950’s relic complete with booths, formica and Tunnock’s tea cakes; sadly it adheres to 1950’s opening hours too, closing, as it does, for lunch.

Not to worry, across the road to the chippy for some saturated fat and stodge, washed down with copious amounts of fairly excellent tea. Whilst the others munched on, Ben and I popped into the Tourist Information place, which looked entirely unofficial – perhaps the first recorded case of counterfeit tourism. Nonetheless, they had a lovely touchscreen “infopoint” facility which also allowed one the unbridled luxury of sending an e-card with (in my case) a lovely shot of Girvan harbour. I wanted to mail it to this here blog but a memory lapse lost me the email address. Instead it went to my own account, though I’ve yet to check. Given the slightly dubious nature of the whole enterprise, it’s entirely possible the terminal isn’t even connected. Imagine the crushing disappointment felt by, oh, dozens of holidaymakers when they discover their work colleagues didn’t get that snap of the lighthouse or the fishing museum.

Onwards, then, towards Cairnryan where an overestimate of the distance and an underestimate of the bus’ capabilities meant we were there some 75 minutes prior to check in time. Taking this in our stride we motored down to Stranraer to pick up vital supplies in the form of cakes and some tablet – both of which go incredibly well with tea in the van and indeed both of which feature prominently in this blog as a whole. Suitably stocked up we returned to port where the question, “is your gas cylinder turned off?” failed to raise alarm bells until Gail realised that meant we couldn’t brew up in the ferry queue (though we did spot some campers doing just that on the return journey three weeks later, gits). No tea = no cakes. Disaster.

Fortunately not, for P&O have thoughtfully provided (or decided to cash in, take your pick) a tea bar in the terminal building. This stroke of good fortune provided what I hoped would be the first of many holiday encounters with what is often euphemistically called a “colourful character.” Today’s took the form of a “catering assistant” (I saw the badge) whose name now sadly escapes me. In attempting to pacify Ben who had spied the small soft-play area in the corner, I asked if he wanted fresh orange juice. Cue CATERING ASSISTANT, stage left (adopts slightly camp Belfast accent if you can imagine such an incongruity) “I don’t mean to be cheeky but those are awfully expensive, £1.60 I think, maybe even £1.80 (don’t you know your stock man?), it’s a lot to pay.” Indeed it is, so I decided not to bother and thanked him for his kindness, “all part of the service,” he assured me and I’m sure the bean counters at P&O would wholeheartedly share his passion for pleasing the punters.

A pleasant enough, if late-departing (35 minutes) crossing was memorable only for the barman’s assertion that “we’ll make up the time no problem, we’re using all four engines now,” (why not use them all the time and speed up the crossing, eh?) and a crazy dash from the bar/seating area to the lower car deck with a pensioner in a wheelchair – my gran, don’t fret, she was with us, it’s not as if we’d just grabbed a random wrinkly from the cafeteria – who managed an almost miraculous leap into the van just as the bow doors (how’s that for a VW modification?) opened.

One other thing that did strike me, though, was the space – or lack thereof – onboard. I can clearly remember, on countless Stranraer to Larne crossings as a child, wandering from airline-seat type lounge to airline-seat type lounge via a string of gift shops, sweet shops (I nearly typed “sweat shops” but I’m sure they were only on the Holyhead – Dun Laoghrie route) and cafeterias, trying to find somewhere to sit. Now all there is is a bar, a “restaurant,” a tiny “quiet room” (no mobiles, no children, no breathing) and a huge video lounge. There also seems to be no-one aboard despite the full car-deck. Where do they all go? Is everyone else watching the film? Is there a car-swap scheme operating between Ulster and southwest Scotland, with hundreds of bored Toyota Carinas and Ford Mondeos enjoying daily jaunts across the Irish sea, driven on at one end and left to take in the trip before being collected at the other? I think we should be told.

Steady progress was made through the majestic – if steep! – Glens of Antrim, passing many pre-12th of July flags and decorations. It seemed curious to note what appeared to be a decline, since my last visit, in the number of areas with painted kerbstones of either allegiance.

A poorly signposted junction at Maghera aside – a common phenomenon in the days and weeks ahead – we arrived unimpeded in Draperstown. Draperstown is near Cookstown, it has a wide main street and lots of pubs but other than that I’m afraid I don’t know. We dropped Gran off and stayed over with her hosts, who fed us mightily with an impressive impromptu spread of cold cuts and soda bread, washed down with what seemed to be bottomless tea. I’m sensing a pattern here.

Thankfully they were kind enough to allow us not only to park in the drive but to use the toilet too, for I fear too much tea may have been taken.

A hearty breakfast, courtesy of our hosts, set us up for the beginning – in an official “Irish Soil” sense – of our epic trip. The first leg of the journey took us high into spectacular mountain scenery in the form of the Sperrins. These peaks rise to over 2000ft at their highest and straddle counties Tyrone and Derry. Or Londonderry, depending on which side one’s bread is buttered. Climbing through the forest park in a light drizzle we were initially amused by the slightly listless, directionless ramblings of the BBC Radio Ulster presenter who made repeated references to having torn up his script and having no idea what to say. As the 11o’clock news arrived, the reason was clear. How odd it felt to be driving into County (London) Derry – formerly – and indeed currently, albeit to a somewhat lesser extent – a scene of many of the Troubles’ flashpoints and hearing of a series of bomb explosions in the city of London itself. As with any news one hears from “home” whilst on holiday, there was somethng of the unreal about it. Heightened, I’ve no doubt by our location at the time. The sense of the bizarre was – is – overpowering.

Pushing on into what careful locals call Stoke City (Derry/Londonderry, no doubt soon to be named “Slash City” in these www dot times, though perhaps that has some unfortunate connotations) we indulged in a brief bout of retail therapy punctuated by a spot of playpark avoidance, due to the fact that it lookked a bit on the dodgy side. I should mention again that we had a see-saw and climbing-frame obsessed toddler with us, it’s not as if we just drive around looking for playparks not to go into. Playparks were to become something of a recurring theme or bone of contention over the coming weeks.

Leaving Obliquesville behind we went – in time honoured fashion – North but “South” into County Donegal, in the Irish Republic. Following the main road we quickly came to the uninspiring village of Muff, whose comedy name singularly failed to redeem it though we did manage a feeble chuckle as we realised we’d managed a wrong turn and that our first experience of Muff driving wasn’t going too smoothly.

“The roads in the South are terrible, you’ll see a difference straight away,” my Police Force of Northern Ireland cousin had told me a couple of weeks earlier. It took a whole 4 miles of driving in the Republic to bring these words right to the front of my mind. On what – from the map – appeared to be the main Muff – Buncrana road, we seemed to be on someone’s (narrow, overgrown) driveway. At least on a driveway you’d get some sort of sign, a house name, a number. Here we were forced to navigate heavily wooded backroads by guesswork – our E-Bayed Michelin map of “Irlande” already proving hopelessly inadequate – alone.

Having already abandoned our intended overnighter in Moville when we realised we’d be there by 2pm and that that didn’t seem like an awful lot of progress for day one, we had decided to head towards Buncrana for some lunch, though this too was revised on reaing our “Rough Guide” which informed us that “…[Buncrana] is packed out during the summer.” Pesky tourists no doubt. So it was that we ended up overlooking an abandoned and crumbling pier in Fahan.

As the third car load of – presumably – locals pulled uup to gawp and point at the strange people having tea and making sandwiches in a van, realsation began to dawn that perhaps there wasn’t an awful lot to do in Fahan.

I had warm memories of Donegal from childhood trips but now something seemed lacking. My childhood perhaps? We were later to discover, from a Donegal born GP now plying his trade in Sneem, Co. Kerry, that Donegal had become something of a bolt-hole for the North’s Republican sympathisers who were “in trouble” or the North’s Catholic families escaping from the potential troubles of the province in July, and that it had, he felt, changed completely and not in a good way.

The vague itinerary – okay, small list of potential campsites/hostels with parking – I’d spent a few weeks compiling, with the help of brochures, the internet and some like-minded VW types online, showed five possibilities in about a 40mile radius of Fahan. On a whim we decided to go for a completely unknown quantity – a blue camping sign on our Michelin map in Fanad. I believe I already mentioned the hopeless inadequacy of the map so perhaps it should have come as less of a surprise to us when the campsite turned out to be crap. Of course, we weren’t destined to find that out until much later on a rain-lashed, desolate evening in the back end of the back of beyond. First we had to motor along the shores of Lough Swilly and head into Letterkenny so that we could get lost looking for the tourist information. When we located it, the kindly souls therein gave us a “Welcome to the Notrthe West” leaflet, detailing all manner of camping and caravan sites. When Gail asked about our planned destination, having established that it rather worryingly failed to feature on the tourist bumph, she was informed that the Touristy staff felt it was better to stick to listed sites. Oh they did, did they? Well, we were the holidaymakers and we’d decide where to lay our hats for the evening.

Eire we go again?

Once again the quest gets underway to finish (start?) the epic write-up of the epic voyage. I'll get there with it, really I will.

One thing I had to share in the meantime though...

A large part of our trip was spent enjoying the many and varied delights of the magnificent RTE Radio 1. Our particular favourite was the wonderful (Ryan) Tubridy show, but there's plenty of time to write about that, and him, elsewhere. What came to mind tonight as I watched the Holiday prgoramme (when really I should have been writing up this blog) was an incident from the John Creedon Show (Oldest Transit in Ireland Competition, how good is that?). For the three weeks of our trip, John had kept us entertained from about 11.30am until 1 with an eclectic mix of music and stories. Whether it was a track from the back catalogue of Goats Don't Shave or a tale about someone in Buncrana shaving a goat with a cat on a log, the Creedon show always had something to raise a smile.

One day in particular - I think we may have been zooming around West Cork or perhaps the Dingle peninsula, in actual fact it's just come to me - we were pootling along towards Dingle itself, this time on our second visit (I told you, there'll be explanations elsewhere), John had asked listeners to call or e-mail in with their "Honda 50 Stories" in tribute to the great moped/scooter/bike type thing (I'm not a biker, what do I know?) so beloved of many a rural gent or city student in all parts of Ireland. Of the very many - and Mr. Creedon assured us he'd no time to read out all of them - which came in, our favourite (and I suspect the host's too) was one involving a Honda 50 spotted by the e-mailer in central Dublin over a period of many months some years back. He recounted the story of how, every night after work he and his biker friends - proper motor bikes and leather jackets this lot - would meet in what we might call and "Old Man's pub" for a pint or several of the black stuff. Every night, regular as clockwork a middle aged man, resplendent in long grey hair, Doc-Marten style boots and a ladies pink dress (!) would park his Honda 50 outside, saunter into the bar with a "Howye' lads?" down a pint or two and then be on his way, swinging his dress-clad leg over the saddle of the Honda 50. The regularity of this gradually eroded the strangeness and in time the "biker chick" was accepted by the group as, for want of a better phrase, one of them. It was, said the correspondent, with much sadness that he and his friends later learned of the old gent's passing and they were not slow to raise a glass to him in the pub that night. Now, many years later and a fully paid up memebr of the car-driving fraternity, the e-mailer still smiles whenever he sees a Honda 50.

As if to prove the magic of Ireland (or to confirm that we were tired, had driven too many miles and indulged in one too many pints of stout) as the tale came to an end, what should pass us but a red and white Honda 50 with a fertilizer bag faring? Sadly there were no skirt wearers aboard and I'll leave the "Oldest Trannie in Ireland" joke to someone else.