Round Ireland In A Wedge

Wordle...

2010-01-14T12:59:00.001-08:00

Lack of blogging...

2007-11-14T09:04:00.001-08:00

I'm Still Alive...

Unfortunately there's just no time to do much by way of blogging. Ho hum. Will sort it out I guess. Jings.

Memories are made of this...

2007-08-07T15:56:00.001-07:00

Ballydavid on the Dingle Peninsula:

Well...over for another year.

2007-08-06T15:17:00.001-07:00

We're back. Failed dismally to update the blog during the trip and lacking the wherewithal/inspiration/energy to do so now. Loads done/seen/photographed and perhaps I'll get around to getting it all down at some point soon. Who can say?

Here we go again...

2007-07-16T16:19:00.000-07:00

Well now, we're mere hours away from another trip to Ireland. "Going Green in the Emerald Isle" is the subtitle of this trip, necessitating - as it does - some eco-friendly malarkey for an article or two in the autumn. Much excitement abounds in the household. Sleep beckons, so until the morning (which is actually now, it being after midnight and all) I shall go.

Vague plans are pretty much all we have. I think that's best. Less room for stress and disappointment. As Ardal O'Hanlon once said, "if you expect a kick in the ba**s, then a slap in the face is a victory."

All I do know is that we plan to head for Dublin on Wednesday, staying in Co. Wicklow on Wednesday night then winding our way down towards West Cork to catch up with some friends in Schull later in the week.

Watch this space as they say in the world of the organised...

Literally literary...

2007-03-08T05:46:00.000-08:00

Well, that's it. The book proposal is away. Hence, I might add, the lack of updates on this site what with not wanting anyone to see the masterpiece ahead of time and all that (ahem).

There may - finances permitting - be a Round Ireland 2 this summer as we'd love to get to some of the bits we missed before. We shall see. Finances aside, it very much depends on the state of the Banana Bus. We've had a bit of an incident...

Absolutely shocking.

2006-05-25T16:05:00.000-07:00

This lack of activity. In my defence I can site laziness, overtiredness and a new baby.

I have given myself some sort of Herculean mission to finish this trip write up one way or another but it is looking increasingly likely that we'll have been on (and returned from) this year's holiday (Wales, possibly) before I even get written up as far as Cork.

By way of atonement (yeah, like this goes any way towards getting this thing finished...) I present a picture of Ben and I outside the greatest pub in the world. Probably.

Sheer volume...

2006-03-28T05:24:00.000-08:00

...of things we did. That's what I noticed as I tried to get my arse into gear to write ab ti more of the Ireland trip. I jotted down a few things to prompt and remind me and before I knew it I'd half a page of A4 of notes from the journey!

Where will I ever find teh time to get it all done? Does it really matter anyway? To me it does, so I may well have to stop working and get blogging full time! I doubt the bills would pay themselves though...

Some of the forthcoming highlights (!) should include: The Dursey Island Cable Car and the
Gypsy caravan we stayed in at Dunmanway.

West is best...

2006-03-15T14:57:00.000-08:00

(this is the bit AFTER the "Dingle Dangle Scaredycats" but a music rant got in the way...)

In what was to become time-honoured fashion during our trip, we indulged in a trip to the “Super Valu”(no thanks, we don’t need any of those new-fangled letter e’s) to stock up for the next few days, where we were delighted to discover that the craze for hot-deli counters had hit the south west. Roast chicken for dinner it was to be then!

Clutching the hot fowl tightly – just to add to that uncomfortable, way too hot situation I was encountering in general – we found our way back to the van and promptly held up the traffic by attempting to reverse out of our parking space. Two somewhat longer vehicles had pulled in either side of us during our stay in the town and I was in the unenviable position of having to try to come out blind onto the busiest bit of road on the peninsula. Eventually a kindly soul slowed to let me out. At least I hope they did – by this time I’d moved graduated to the “ach, bugger it – it’s too hot to hang about” school of driving etiquette and just floored it. Unscathed we pootled off in search of accommodation, not daring to switch on the radio lest we heard the phrase, “…and in Dingle a thirteen car pile-up is causing congestion near the roundabout, Gardai are keen to speak to the driver of a yellow Volkswagen camper…”

The Gallarus Oratory is, according to the RAF Guide, “the single most impressive early Christian monument on the Dingle Peninsula.” I’m hard pressed to argue but, having visited it on our previous trip too, I’m still struggling to think why the guidebook limits the impressiveness solely to the Dingle Peninsula. Can there really be a better monument – early Christian or otherwise – anywhere else on the island? Answers to the usual address… The oratory was apparently built between the ninth and twelfth centuries, those early builders certainly knew how to stretch out a job, that’s for sure. The structure looks like an upturned boat and is said to be the transitional stage between the early monastic beehive huts (which, says the book, “litter” the area – how careless) and the later rectangular churches. It truly is a staggering piece of architecture, yet so seemingly simple. Perhaps that’s where the beauty lies? It’s rare, I would suppose, for something so understated to have such a huge – and I just know I’m going to hate using this expression – “wow factor” (yep, hated it) but site at Gallarus is really something special.

So, too, the campsite. Segue or what? Did you like that? The Campail Teach an Aragail is – says the blurb – Europe’s most westerly campsite and, aside from excellent facilities and lovely pitches (bordered by hedges and almost lit up by fuschia), has a fantastic entry in the C&C guide which assures weary travellers that the site is “300m from oratory.” I love the idea of places being located by their proximity to ancient monastic sites. Edinburgh – only 7 miles from Rosslyn Chapel, home of the Knights Templar; Camp Bethlehem – no room at the inn? Try one of our serviced pitches…

I digress. Finding a lovely pitch we had a bit of a lie down and a rest – it really is amazing how tiring being on holiday in soaring temperatures can be. Schedulelessness (is that a word?) can, I suppose, be a problem. If you let it. In no rush to do anything much, we did nothing much. The campsite grassy areas and old motorboat-cum-climbing frame provided plenty of entertainment for Ben and we felt no compulsion to do anything much other than go for a quick pint in the nearby village of Ballyferriter. Writing this (far too) many months later, the exact order of things is a bit of a blur but we supped a Guinness on the terrace outside “Tigh TP’s” in the early evening sunshine before chugging back along to the lovely golden sands here…

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/2795/374/320/scan0005.jpg

…for a bit of a paddle. We were getting quite into this whole Atlantic thing.

Next day, our burgeoning passion for sunbathing sated, normality was restored as we set off in search of a tea-room. You weren’t expecting that were you? Unpredictability, that’s the key…Anyway, we weren’t just looking for any old tea room, this was (according to the Rough As…) “the best place for daytime eating, The Dunquin Pottery Café.” Always a winner – the old pottery/cake/tea combo. We’d been a bit disappointed, to be truthful, on our last visit to Ireland when we’d visited the wonderful Stephen Pearce’s outlet at Shanagarry to discover that there was no café in which to enjoy a cuppa in one of the lovely Pearce mugs. Digression again…

Back at Dunquin, we pulled into what looked like a recently laid car park next to what looked pretty far from the slightly careworn and ramshackle pottery/café building I’d been expecting. This was impressive, outbuilding upon gloriously restored outbuilding and, what was more, no obvious sign of a café. This simply wouldn’t do. Investigation proved what I’d begun to suspect – we’d been duped! This wasn’t the rustic potting operation we were after, this was none other than Louis Mulcahy’s, much beloved of the Dublin coffee table set. Fully glazed and high up on the arsey nonsense scale, who really needs a glazed blue urn in the middle of the Dingle peninsula?

URNS

To top it all, the refreshments on offer were limited to (albeit complimentary) overbrewed filter coffee in tiny (glazed and jaggy) mugs. You’ll admire my restraint as I stomped out unrefreshed…

Woah, listen to the music.

2006-02-17T15:58:00.000-08:00

They say the longest journey starts with a single step. Or something like that at any rate. Well, no journey that I know of is complete without a suitable soundtrack. It’s at this point that I could easily go off into my anti-MP3 rant and rail against the – as I see it – sacrilege of the intangibility of the format, but I’d soon need a lie down after words of that size.

I can see the point, I suppose, of MP3s for long – or any – journeys, particularly when your record collection (how old does that make me sound? Though I do love the fact that much of it is still ON proper records…) is as large and catholic – in the true sense of the word – as mine. It would be lovely, sometimes, when travelling to suddenly be able to access the ancient Lost Soul Band track that might pop in unannounced to my head, or to put on an apposite track for the moment: something by Mojave 3 to chill out to as the waves crash nearby, a spot of Johnny Cash for the mountain passes of the west coasts of Ireland or Scotland, even – gulp – a spot of Tom Petty for those endless expanses of motorway to which our bus is such an infrequent visitor. BUT this, I would – and will, if you give me half a chance – argue is where the art of planning comes in…

CUE sad Nick Hornby High Fidelity anoraky type images as I attempt to justify the almost primal urge I have to put together – in the old days – a good tape or two for journeys or – now – a mini disc or six. The days of the compilation tape may be on the way out with the advent of 10000 song capacity I-Pods and the like but I reckon (hope?) that maybe, just maybe this overwhelming choice (is it really choice? You’re not telling me you don’t occasionally press “skip” when you get to what would have been the middle of the second side of that difficult second album by The Undertones?) will prompt people to be more discerning in their listening choices. Perhaps they might even make full use of what I believe is known as the “playlist” function on these Poddy type things. Playlist wouldn’t just be another term for “my choice a.k.a. compilation tape” would it?

My compiling days stretch back farther than I can – or care to – recall but I still have a lot of the tapes I put together back in the student years of the early 90’s right through to the ones I made just before I got the mini disc player a few years ago. Obviously there’s stuff I wouldn’t necessarily choose to listen to now on those tapes but I still get a bit of a thrill from discovering “Sheriff Fatman” by Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine on a collection I entitled “London ’97: The Trip – The Tape” for a post-grad journey to the capital aboard the overnight National Express (ooyah – jaggy seats and a sweaty bum. Dry mouth. Batteries running out on the walkman. Stop, stop. Too many bad memories). I digress. Or the incendiary bark of the Stiff Little Fingers’ “Alternative Ulster” on “Pure Genius” the 1994 opus put together after a stint working as an Outdoor Activities Instructor in Shropshire. “Go! Take My Car!” the 1999 anthology complied to assist our progress on a road trip to family in Lincolnshire was named after a Bill Bryson story about Durham in “Notes from a small island.” We stopped in Durham en route from Edinburgh but the cathedral was closed. Still, the tape was good and if memory serves contained hidden gems from criminally underrated guys like Kevin McDermott and Darden Smith.

Hornby maintains in High Fidelity that there’s an art to the making of a compilation tape: bury the REALLY good stuff a few tracks in so she (he’s assuming you’re making these tapes to impress a girl but I’m so sad I make them for me. So does Nick really, he just wants us to not feel sorry for him. That’s what I tell myself…) will have to listen to some other great songs to get to it. He uses phrases like “cranking it up a notch” to illustrate that sometimes you need to put in something unexpected but which, nonetheless, somehow still fits with the overall vibe. I used to love doing stuff like that and indeed I cranked it up a notch on a personal level during a stint as a hospital radio DJ, giving myself challenges like getting from AC/DC to Otis Redding in four connected or non-jarring moves. (“Whole Lotta Rosie” – “Sweet Child O’ Mine” (Guns N Roses) – “Paint It Black” (Stones) – “Satisfaction” (Otis covering) since you asked)

I took this level of obsessiveness into my home taping (killing music? Yer arse – I’ve bought more music after getting compilation tapes from pals than almost anything else!) as I strove to get seamlessly from track to track, artist to artist and genre to genre, memorably bridging the gap between the whale noises and ethereal vocals of Portishead and the feedback-fuelled alt-country twang of Wilco with a bit of Asian tinged glam rock electronica from Cornershop on an early mini disc compilation. Honest, it works.

How and indeed ever, for this epic voyage around the celtic fringe I’d decided to utilise one of the mini disc’s functions which I’d hitherto regarded as being a bit like that button in the great glass elevator from “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (the PROPER FILM) which Mr. Wonka hasn’t ever pressed before, you know? The one that goes up and out? Yes – it was time for RANDOM!

I know, I know. As something of a purist and a pedant – a heady combination at the best of times – this concept has always grated with me. Musicians spend months, years agonising over the running order for an album and I’m sure we’ve all experienced the ones that got it wrong. I mean, what were Coldplay thinking, releasing ANY of their stuff at all? Seriously, only last week I read an interview with Belle & Sebastian’s lead singer where he mentioned them being on the verge of fisticuffs over their latest album’s track listing. I’m not sure I can picture it though. “The verge of fisticuffs” sounds as if it is one of their songs.

Nonetheless, I chose to look upon this not as a problem but – as tossers in big companies say – an opportunity in disguise. I’d opted to use a 74 minute disc and use the long play facility to give me almost two and a half hours of music – around about 40 tracks. That may not seem much in the context of MP3s and the like but bear in mind that ALL of these had to be good, nay great, AND work well together AND suit a variety of moods. So was born “Random Acts of Kindness” – one of our most trusted companions (along with RTE1 and McCarthy’s Bar) on the big trip. Being that sad, obsessive type I mentioned, I of course drew up a list. I still have it. I’m looking at it now and I can proudly say – should one be proud of such an admission? – that I barely crossed a thing out. There were one or two changes of song whilst still keeping the artist and only one outright omission, even that was only on grounds of space on the disc! There’s a scan of the original list here.

It would, were I a normal, sane, rational type, make me wince to think I could be that organised about something so seemingly trivial but as I look at it now, a proud glow sweeps over me. As Phil Daniels said in just one of the many Blur songs I don’t like, it gives me an enormous sense of wellbeing…

THE 41 THAT MADE IT: Jolene (Ray La Montagne), I’m a cuckoo (Belle and Sebastian), Petal to a bee (Nels Andrews), Wade in the water
(Marlena Shaw), Elusive (Neil Sturgeon), Tom Weir (Aberfeldy), Operator (Jim Croce), Just dropped in to see what condition… (Kenny Rogers), Tumbling Dice (Rolling Stones), Mr. Pitiful (Otis Redding), Breathless (Nick Cave), L.O.V.E. (Razorlight), You stole my heart away (Lucky Jim), The choking kind (Joss Stone), You got what I need (David Kitt), Little Discourage (Idlewild), Shine (Colour Wheel), Sha La La (Al Green), Bohemian Like You (Dandy Warhols), Diamond (Kevin McDermott Orchestra), Twisted and bent (Trashcan Sinatras), Picture (Sheryl Crow), London Still (The Waifs), Way over yonder in the minor key (Billy Bragg), Time is tight (Sound Dimension), Lord only knows (Beck), For Your Love (Possum Dixon), Firecracker (Ryan Adams), Don’t go back to Rockville (REM), Guitar Town (Steve Earle), Drag my bad name down (The 4 Of Us), Sha La Lee (Small Faces), Joyful Kilmarnock Blues (The Proclaimers), Jealous Again (The Black Crowes), Reconsider Me
(Margaret Lewis
), Silver Thunderbird (Marc Cohn), I Can’t Wait (Danny Wilson), Maggie May Unplugged (Rod Stewart), Acquiesce (Oasis), Have You Ever Seen The Rain (Teenage Fanclub), Spiritualized (Finley Quaye).

Sorry Gram Parsons and your Flying Burrito Brothers. Could you not have shaved 17 seconds off somewhere?

Dingle dangle scaredycats...

2005-12-12T14:28:00.000-08:00

“The park is packed to the feckin’ rafters!” shouted the loudest Cork-man in the world into his mobile, though to be fair with a voice like that he’d have been perfectly understandable without the phone. Inasmuch as one can understand a thick Cork brogue, like.

A peaceful night gave way to another scorching morning and we were glad of the “put your ice-packs in here” facility on offer in reception which would allow us to keep our fridge cool for another day or two. I use the word fridge in only the loosest sense – it’s a cuboid and it’s white, there the resemblance ends. Returning from reception I did a bit of an aural double take – hearing, then dismissing, then convincing myself that yes, that young lad sitting outside a caravan was playing “Moonlight Shadow” on a penny whistle. I would normally have had a chuckle to myself but I feared the emergence of a worrying pattern – three nights earlier, in Downings, we’d been treated to a fairly tuneful “Raindrops keep fallin’” on the harmonica. It’s good to know the traditional music scene is alive and kicking from North to South.

Packing up, we set off for the delights of Tralee. Okay, we set off for the Spar in Tralee. Bread, milk and the usual essentials and we were off again. We managed to sneak past the Blennerville Windmill and Steam Railway without Ben noticing – otherwise an expensive pit-stop would most certainly have been in the offing – and pushed on along the North side of the Dingle peninsula towards Aughacasla and Castlegregory. Rough As… was little use but Le Michelin promised blue tenty shapes and the (rapidly proving indispensable) “Ireland 2005 Caravan and Camping Guide” showed the most splendidly sun-kissed photo of a quiet and peaceful sounding site called the Anchor Caravan Park, near Castlegregory itself.

That reminds me; the “Ireland 2005 Caravan and Camping Guide” was sourced by my dad, from the Irish Tourist Board in Glasgow. He’d had to go in for it because on the day I went, it was closed. There’s nothing unusual in that but I only found out it was closed after I’d managed to locate the offices. St. Vincent St. in Glasgow, not a problem. I was born in the city and have spent around 21 years there all told. Into the foyer, check the brass plaques – “Irish Tourist Board/Bord Failte – 7th Floor.” Into the lift – check the buttons: G, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Confusion. “Alright pal? Y’after the Tourist Board?” “Yes, actually, I was.” “Mind now, it’s the Irish Tourist Board – there’s nae 7th flair, go tae six and walk it.” There’s nothing quite like setting the tone for how a nation is perceived by others, is there? Some people would have been annoyed but I rather like it – I think it’s a stealth anti-tourism strategy, perhaps the hostels of Temple Bar and the B&B’s of Killarney are so full to bursting that it’s now an active policy to prevent all but the hardiest and most resourceful tourists from finding their way to the Emerald Isle.

Digression again. It’s some sort of compulsive disorder. “Multiple digressions, I’m afraid, I don’t know there’s much more we can do for him…”

Anyway, the site was pretty well full but the kindly chap, on seeing we had a fairly small machine with us (we’d already passed somewhere in the region of three and a half million full-size-driven-by-muppets-motorhomes) found us a spot near a gap in the hedge, ideally placed for access to the washing-up facilities and the freezers. How we love our home comforts.

First on the agenda – forsaking the customary on-arrival cuppa – was, if I recall correctly, a trip to the beach, to which the site had its own private access! How exclusive. By the time we’d slapped on more Ambre-Solaire (okay, it might have been Superdrug’s own label) and stuffed a few things in a beach bag, the sweat was pouring off us. A lovely image I know, but it’s hard to convey how unseasonably warm it was. I say unseasonable in the full knowledge that it was July and, technically, not a kick in the shirt off high summer, but we’re talking the West Coast of Ireland here. What happened to all that “wettest country in Europe” rubbish? My stealth anti-tourism strategy theory begins to look less of a fantasy…they’re keeping it all to themselves. No wonder the sites were full of native Irish types, they’ve been telling us for years that “there’s more inches of rain per year here…blah de blah,” yet I now know it to be untrue and the 33degrees celsius on the campsite thermometer on our second morning backs me up! I would have had photographic evidence of this but the camera melted…

The beach was a fitting rival to Banna Strand, a good few miles of golden sands stretching all the way round to Castlegregory itself and beyond. We collected – as is our want – a bucket load of gorgeous pearlescent shells, abalones I think, and some lovely black pebbles, worn smooth by the tides into – wait for this – a 3D parallelogram and a Stanley knife shape. Maybe the sun was getting to me.

I don’t usually go in much for hot, sunny weather, even less for sunbathing. I prefer my beaches a bit blustery and wintry – that way there’s always an excuse to nip back to the camper van for a brew – but we spent a great couple of days here. Swimming (actually swimming, none of yer paddling about nonsense here) in the warmer-than-our-local-pool waters and avoiding “hooj jellyfish” as Ben had taken to calling them.

Behold the delights of the setting sun…

We ventured into Castlegregory on the second day, lazily taking the van as we reckoned the mile and a half each way might be too much in the desert-like conditions. Checking the mileage en route, our instincts were proved correct as it turned out to have been the well known “Irish miles” – two and three quarters each way! I love Polaroids, the soul of the picture really seems to be there, and I reckon you can almost feel the heat in the one from outside Ned Natterjack’s pub where I enjoyed a fairly bland but welcomely refreshing pint of Guinness whilst waiting for Gail to get her hair cut. In a hairdresser’s of course. Reading that back I perhaps gave the mistaken impression that “Ned’s” doubled as a bar & barbers. Sorry. That was in Dunmanway.

We were greeted by another glorious morning as we packed up, ready to head towards Dingle. Our second night on the coast had been notable for being the second successive evening on which the late, great Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World” had been, to be frank, crucified on the radio. On two separate stations. By two separate artistes. First up we had the toe-curling combination of Simon & Garfunkel featuring James Taylor on – I think – Kerry FM, whilst on day two we were treated to Makeo Parker (“James Brown’s right hand man” the DJ assured us) whose rendition could best be summed up as unique.

The journey west took us in the direction of the Conor Pass, which is apparently a notoriously hellish road but which the Rough Guide decided was “steep.” En route to Cloghane, we were tuned to the Tom Rooney Show. Well, we thought it was the Tom Rooney Show, then we thought, days later it was the Tubberdy Show. Though we wondered, every time we heard it, why callers kept referring to “Tom” as “Ryan.” Unable to catch it properly we wondered if perhaps it was a dual-presenter show. I’m ashamed to confess we were well into week two before we understood that we’d been listening to (and thoroughly enjoying) the Tubridy Show. Tubridy? What kind of a name…?

Anyway, old Tom Rooney had to take a back seat in our thoughts as, for the first and surely last time ever, I got to experience the thrill of being a jet pilot whilst still driving the bus! I’d love to say that we were zooming along at Mach1 but alas, the only thing we had in common was a quick bit of what’s known in the trade as “bird strike.” A flying creature of some sort took it upon itself to zoom across the road, about a foot from the ground, right into the path of our VW badge. There was a sort of “whump” and we continued on our way, pulling into the next available patch of land. A quick inspection revealed a long, leathery wing stuck to the bumper and confirmation of our worst fears – we’d mown down Dingle’s last surviving pterodactyl.

“Cheese, Dairy, Pate, Seaweed,” read the roadside sign outside Brandon. Surely further inspection was merited but we felt it best to leave well alone. Some things are better that way. Tom (Rooney) was chatting to a lady who was on for a phone in quiz. She very eloquently described herself as a social engineer. Tom/Ryan probed further and she informed him that hers was a wide-ranging remit, encompassing planning, logistics and transportation. Clearly, felt our host, she was being coy, nay cagey. The penny dropped when she made mention of “domestic engineering” and it was only then Ryan was able to remark on the wondrous Irish propensity for the gift of the gab that turned a housewife’s “job description” into a short extract from a management handbook.

With the Atlantic glinting in the mid-morning sunshine we pushed on towards the already-seeming-like-perhaps-not-a-good-idea-really approach to the Conor Pass. As with those signs in Applecross at the Bealach na Bo, we were told in no uncertain terms that bringing anything over two tons up this road was a no-no. Slowing down to hum and haw we decided that the stress of worrying about whether we’d make it without some sort of assistance would outweigh any pleasure to be had in doing so. It was a case of Conor? Pass.

Hurtling back towards Castlegregory, eager to make up time, we turned off after Aughacasla – bless you – and would our way up the steep curves of the N86 through the splendidly named Camp. It’s worth pointing out that there was no campsite. Just thought you should know, I mean there’re spas aplenty in Bath and loads of cakes in Dundee so I reckoned the same should follow if you wanted to park a van or pitch a tent here for the night.

It’s always a pleasure – okay, as I type this I’ve done it three times EVER – to pass through Anascaul, familiar to me from a Christy Moore song, (“Don’t forget your shovel”) featuring the line “Enoch Powell gave us a job, digging away to Anascaul” and – according to the Rough As… familiar to others (at least Dan Foley’s “shocking pink bar”) from “a host of postcards, and the South Pole Inn, so named by local man Tom Crean, a veteran of Scott’s Antarctic expedition.” So there you are. We’d – okay, I’d – actually put Anascaul, which incidentally is a pleasant looking in a kind of sleepy, dare I say, Ballykissangel sort of way, wee village, onto the camping itinerary. The extravagant sounding Fuschia Lodge somehow not making the final cut, such was our eagerness to dangle about a bit in Dingle.

Dangling was the operative term, though squelching might equally well have been applied, such was the vast amount of sweat soaking through our t-shirts by the time we hit the tourist Mecca of the South-West. My goodness it was hot. Busy, too, judging by the difficulty in finding a parking space. Once again, what can I say but: pesky tourists! In the four years or so since our last visit, Dingle had changed enormously. At the risk of stealing an entire chapter from McCarthy’s Bar, I’d say it’s the fault of that dolphin, Fungi. He and he alone seems to be responsible for the vast and bewildering array of both new-age-mystic style boutiques and gullible-tourist-attracting hellholes purveying, as Pete would have had it, their assorted Paddywhackery, Shamrockovia and Leprechaunalia. In the searing heat we settled for the only sane option – a trek up a very steep hill and a nice cup of hot coffee. Ah, bliss!

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

2005-11-30T12:36:00.000-08:00

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

2005-11-16T07:58:00.000-08:00

And so we continue...
__________________

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...

2005-11-16T07:50:00.000-08:00

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

Polaroid moments...

2005-11-15T07:50:00.000-08:00

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...

2005-11-15T07:28:00.000-08:00

...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?

2005-11-07T13:30:00.000-08:00

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.

Eire we go?

2005-08-22T11:26:00.000-07:00

I'm still trying to summon up some time (that does rather make it sound as if I can exert some influence over the space-time continuum, doesn't it?) to get this trip written up (down?) but this seems as good a time as any to do a wee bit...

I'm actually in the hospital, awaiting a knee operation so my trips in tbe van will be somewhat curtailed. Ever the complainer, despite the wonderful technology that allows me to blog in hospital, I must say the keypad is a bit fiddly.

T(25) minus 10hours...

2005-07-04T14:58:00.000-07:00

Aiming, I think, for the 0930 ferry tomorrow morning as we begin our journey south for the Glasgow stopover. That's all really, not very exciting...yet.

And they're off...

2005-06-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

Round Ireland in a wedge, like the title says.

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