Ireland map and itinerary (8-22 August 2019)

Clockwise around Ireland, Start/Finish Dublin.
Circled are overnight stays. (Click to enlarge)

Click to enlarge

Jing and I went over to Ireland to catch up with John who had just completed a two-month internship with RTE, the Irish equivalent of the BBC.  His project was research on Brexit (!) interesting as our family -- like many in the UK -- is split on the issue.  I was a squishy retainer and have become a clean Leaver, John a Remainer who nonetheless believes -- correctly -- that the referendum should be respected and ditto Jing... So we did have a few discussions about Brexit.  But mostly we were about Ireland the place, the people, the vistas, the weather, the foods, the Guinness.  And the Titanic, of course, which had her last berth before heading off into the Atlantic to become the world’s most troped metaphor. And in Belfast where she was built.

We met in Dublin and had a few lovely days there -- live music from every pub -- before heading off around the island clockwise.  

Initially I’d wanted to hire a barge or boat and cruise the canals and rivers.  Just as well they were all booked out. Because the weather meant that it would have been pretty dire. And we would not have seen nearly as much. It rained every day. And the Irish told us that was normal. Although John told us they’d had great weather for the month before we arrived.  So, as usual, it was “you should’ve been here last week!”.
Ireland is really small. Check out the scale on the map above. So a week or ten day is plenty. A lot of the back roads have high hedges, so you can’ t really see the country side a lot of the way. We thought they ought to cut them back, but it turns out that the reason is not that they’ve just let the grow -- they’re for the wind, the prevailing westerlies. So they’re a feature, not a bug.  That said, there are surely plenty of lovely vistas. The Slieve League was  bit of a find...