SW Ireland Trip Report
Aug 7th, 2007, 10:49 AM
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SW Ireland Trip Report
Just got back from almost two weeks in SW Ireland with husband, two teens, and one 9 year old. Overall impressions: what a beautiful country! More beautiful than I'd even imagined, and I've seen plenty of the calendars. My 16 year old son called it "ridiculously beautiful." The green, yes, but also the alternately dramatic and peaceful shoreline, the many remote inlets in Galway, the rolling hills right down the to water, the well kept stone walls, the many many sheep, horses, and cows in lovely little pastures around every corner, the stone cottages, the sky, the wildflowers, the textures of the hills and fields, the incredibly colorful (literally) villages with imaginative signage and overflowing windowboxes, the relative lack of ugly development (though we could see it starting), the interesting and beautiful archeological treasures such as the beehive huts, the islands, birds, seals, dolphins....
Other big impression is - what a sad country. I don't know how to explain this exactly, but I was struck by an undercurrent of sadness everywhere in Connemara and less so but still present on the Dingle Peninsula. No doubt the centuries of attack by Vikings, English, etc and the Great Famine and emigration are influential, but I guess I didn't realize how much the feelings of sadness, longing, and of being under siege have lasted. Interestingly, a lot of the pub music is songs that are written from the perspective of being away from Ireland and longing to come back. Let me be clear that this sadness doesn't translate into a bad time for tourists - there's little or no direct effect - it's just a feeling I noticed that I hadn't felt elsewhere in Europe.
As to the details, we flew from Boston to Shannon on Aer Lingus - not leading the pack in terms of electronics at your seat but they got us there on time. Picked up our Ford minivan from Murray's Europcar. Note that you must use your World MC TO MAKE YOUR RESERVATION in order to wave the extra insurance. If you use another card to make the reservation but intend to pay with the World MC, you still have to buy their extra insurance. Bummer, as that was the only reason we got the MC!! As in Europe, the minivans are considerably smaller than American minivans, and I would say that we maxed out this one with 4 adult-sized people, one kid and bags. The baggage was only possible because we brought a soft sided car top carrier. This worked fine, but I wouldn't add a sixth person without a bigger car.
The car was a manual, and it wasn't as hard driving in on the left as we'd thought it might be. It was challenging for sure, but totally manageable. I enjoyed it; husband thought it was ok but exhausting. Yes, the roads are INCREDIBLY narrow - often times more like a dirt track; I'm not kidding. The speed limits were hilariously high - there's no way we could have driven that fast!
We have a Garmin GPS and brought it with the Ireland software, whose voice we named "Corinne." This was extremely helpful as we were mainly on secondary (at best) roads. Corinne really knew where everything was, down to the smallest detail. The only time she got confused was when a brand new road had superceded her data; this happened right outside of Shannon but on the main road so it was obvious. If you can spare the money and are planning to go off the beaten path, both husband and I would advise that the GPS is well, well worth it. We had good paper maps as well, and using them in tandem was helpful in the most confusing parts to get a sense of scale or if we wanted to take a different way than Corinne recommended. More later...
Other big impression is - what a sad country. I don't know how to explain this exactly, but I was struck by an undercurrent of sadness everywhere in Connemara and less so but still present on the Dingle Peninsula. No doubt the centuries of attack by Vikings, English, etc and the Great Famine and emigration are influential, but I guess I didn't realize how much the feelings of sadness, longing, and of being under siege have lasted. Interestingly, a lot of the pub music is songs that are written from the perspective of being away from Ireland and longing to come back. Let me be clear that this sadness doesn't translate into a bad time for tourists - there's little or no direct effect - it's just a feeling I noticed that I hadn't felt elsewhere in Europe.
As to the details, we flew from Boston to Shannon on Aer Lingus - not leading the pack in terms of electronics at your seat but they got us there on time. Picked up our Ford minivan from Murray's Europcar. Note that you must use your World MC TO MAKE YOUR RESERVATION in order to wave the extra insurance. If you use another card to make the reservation but intend to pay with the World MC, you still have to buy their extra insurance. Bummer, as that was the only reason we got the MC!! As in Europe, the minivans are considerably smaller than American minivans, and I would say that we maxed out this one with 4 adult-sized people, one kid and bags. The baggage was only possible because we brought a soft sided car top carrier. This worked fine, but I wouldn't add a sixth person without a bigger car.
The car was a manual, and it wasn't as hard driving in on the left as we'd thought it might be. It was challenging for sure, but totally manageable. I enjoyed it; husband thought it was ok but exhausting. Yes, the roads are INCREDIBLY narrow - often times more like a dirt track; I'm not kidding. The speed limits were hilariously high - there's no way we could have driven that fast!
We have a Garmin GPS and brought it with the Ireland software, whose voice we named "Corinne." This was extremely helpful as we were mainly on secondary (at best) roads. Corinne really knew where everything was, down to the smallest detail. The only time she got confused was when a brand new road had superceded her data; this happened right outside of Shannon but on the main road so it was obvious. If you can spare the money and are planning to go off the beaten path, both husband and I would advise that the GPS is well, well worth it. We had good paper maps as well, and using them in tandem was helpful in the most confusing parts to get a sense of scale or if we wanted to take a different way than Corinne recommended. More later...
Aug 8th, 2007, 05:02 AM
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I agree with Padraig - I think we're a very optimistic, happy country. Perhaps though a visitor can see things that we don't or can't? Glad you enjoyed your trip - I'm looking forward to reading more.
