September Trip: Counties Clare and Donegal

Another wedding, another fabulous adventure. On September 2, our friends Kevin and Nicola were married in County Clare, which is about a three-hour drive from Dublin. We decided to make a trip out of it by spending a couple of days in Clare and then a couple of days in County Donegal. This was no ordinary holiday, however, this was a working trip for Peter as a newly professional photographer.

Without further ado, here is the trip report. Please note that in an effort to provide photographs and links without disrupting the narrative flow or spawning a zillion extra windows, I've used forms and buttons. I'm not sure how well this is solution is going to work on all browsers, so please let me know if you have any trouble.

The Wedding

Not counting my own wedding (which was in Ireland but not really traditionally Irish as such), this was my first Irish wedding. The ceremony was in a church on the grounds of a hospital in Ennis. It was a modern church that sort of reminded me of my grandparent's church in New Jersey. A string quartet and a flute-guy provided the music. (I absolutely despise the word flautist - don't make me use it.)

Nicola looked great - very happy and beautiful. I loved her elegant dress, especially because it didn't have a train. Every bride I've ever known (me included) has bitched mercilessly about not wanting to drag a 20-pound train off our asses all nights. So what do we all do? Go out and buy perfect fairy-princess dresses with the aforementioned 20-pound train. Nic's dress proved that you could have beautiful and elegant without the dreaded train.

The ceremony was the standard-issue Catholic affair although through a combination of a thick accent and a faulty (or perhaps non-existent) microphone, I missed a fair bit of what the priest said. After exchanging the rings, Kevin gave Nicola a piece of silver (again, I was back pretty far so I think it was a coin and not like a fork or spoon or something) as a token of all he had. That was about the only unusual thing I noticed in the ceremony.

The reception was in Lakeside Hotel in Killaloe-Ballina. (Think Minneapolis-St. Paul, but on a town-level instead of a city-scale.) I had a bit of confusion over which town was which, but in practical terms it didn't really matter. It was just funny to realise that our B&B was only a 10-minute walk from the Lakeside, but was in a different town and county.

There was a coffee and hors d'oeuvres reception before dinner and we had a good time catching up with all of our friends. The college gang was spread out in the tables at dinner, which gave us a chance to meet some of the other guests. I sat next to a Canadian woman who came all the way over for the wedding.

Dinner passed fairly quickly and the highlight was definitely the profiteroles, which were the overwhelming dessert choice. The speeches were also a lot of fun since several tables had bets going on length of time they would take. Kevin's speech was off-the-cuff but very well delivered and included two pieces of advice from a stranger - "First thing, remember, you're much luckier than she is. Second thing, everything is going to be fine."

We were ushered out of the dining room so it could get set up for the dancing portion of the evening. The band was good but loud and conversation among the non-dancers was a bit tricky and involved bellowing directly into other people's ears.

The band played a good mix of favourites including the Beatles, the Saw Doctors and the Waterboys. I am pleased to report that the traditional Irish reception does NOT include the Hokey Pokey or the Chicken Dance. It did involve having to get up and stand holding hands in a big circle on the dance floor and then pushing in on Kevin and Nicola, who were standing in the centre. All of this pushing around involved some Irish dancing moves (or, in my case, Irish kicking and flailing) and went on while the band played "Galway Bay" with some bits of "Belle of Belfast City" and "It's a long way to Tipperary" interspersed. (And for the record, with modern Irish roads, it is no longer a long way to Tipperary. At least not from Dublin.)

All of that was probably my favourite part of the evening. It was something my brothers would have absolutely loved. The band finished up maybe around midnight and then a DJ came on to continue the music. Most of our friends retreated to the hallway, where we pulled up chairs and sofas and talked with our inside voices, which were at this point cracking from the strain of competing with the band all night.

A wedding of one of Peter's friends just wouldn't have been complete without some singing of Monty Python songs, so that also happened out in the hallway. We left shortly thereafter, around 2:30 am. (We're just getting too old for this staying up late thing.) Peter been drinking for part of the evening, although it had been awhile and he was fairly sobered up. We still decided it would be safer to walk back to our B&B.

Hold that thought. This was an Irish wedding and I haven't mentioned drinking yet. I hate to disappoint you, but either I've acclimitised completely into Irish culture or there just wasn't THAT much drinking. I didn't witness any puking, passing out or fist-fighting. The alcohol consumption seemed pretty normal and under control to me.

It was a cash bar and the Irish have an interesting social custom of ordering rounds. So, you're out with your friends and someone goes up and gets drinks for everyone. I guess the idea is that at some point, everyone will have bought everyone else a drink. Buying a round is known as your "shout" as in "It's my shout, what are you drinking?"

When someone else is buying my drink, I'm often difficult and just insist that they surprise me. Doing this got me a Bailey's (timeless classic, you must agree) and a Jameson and Red (an Irish peculiarity that must be had to be understood). When it was my shout, I was over-ruled by Big Kev, who is about a foot and a half taller than me. That's the other thing about buying rounds - it can be a contact sport. But it's a weird sport because you don't want to be seen to not be pulling your round weight but sometimes it's hard to get your round in. I guess this is why it's called a shout, because you have to shout that it's your round and whoever shouts the loudest wins.

With that insight into the Irish drinking culture completed, it's time to go back to the walk to the guesthouse. We stopped at the car so I could get my jacket since I was freezing and then we started the walk. It was pretty short and the only people we passed were some lager louts out near a pub. (One of whom was peeing on a wall.) We passed them without incident and then made our way across the long, narrow bridge to Killaloe.

This was the part of the evening I'd been dreading the most, since it was a one-lane bridge and the traffic lights were non-functional. I had visions of us getting wiped out by a bad driver, but in the end, we made it across the bridge without encountering a single car.

Well, I made it across the bridge without encountering a single car. Half-way across the bridge, Peter realised he'd left the room key in the pocket of his sports coat, which was in the car which was, of course, back at the hotel. Doh! We briefly debated our options and decided it was best that he dash back for it while I made my way to the guesthouse with his camera equipment.

This is how I found myself standing outside a locked guesthouse on the dark and deserted streets of a small Irish village at 3 am on a Friday night. I felt about as safe as a chicken in a fox den. I sat on the window sill of the guesthouse in such a way as to hide the camera equipment. I mentally measured the distance to the doorbell and tried to think of what I would do if something bad happened. The couple of cars that crossed the bridge into Killaloe gave me the heebies.

A guy crossed the bridge and walked towards me, telling me to smile and being typical Irish-chatty. Except it wasn't 2 in the afternoon and we weren't meeting in a supermarket so I couldn't really react like a normal person. I jumped up and stood closer to the doorbell, wondering when was the right time to panic. The guy stood WAY too close to me and tried to shake my hand while I shifted awkwardly and tried to find a polite way to say that he was making me uncomfortable. He asked what I was doing and told him that I was waiting for my husband.

I think either my deer-in-the-headlights expression or my hand edging toward the doorbell alerted him to unease. He jumped back and said "Oh, no, no don't be scared. I'm a good person. Really. You don't have to be afraid of me. I understand." Then he said goodnight and went on his way. Peter arrived in the car 2 minutes later. I'd been alone for about 10 minutes and was on the verge of collapsing in a panicky ball.

So, now we know, 10 minutes is how long I can stand by myself on a dark, deserted village road without having a total paranoid meltdown. I think I'm getting better. There's a time I wouldn't have been able to last 10 seconds.

County Clare

We decided to use Doolin as our base in County Clare. We'd been there 10 years ago and had enjoyed its fishing village feel. I'd have to say that Doolin has been a victim of its own tourism success. Even though it's sliding into the off-season, the town was still packed. The land outside of Doolin is owned by farmers who are clearly completely sick of finding people in their fields. The area now has a sort of "gawk and then get out of here" feel to it.

I finally got to see the Cliffs of Moher, which look exactly like they do in the post cards. They're beautiful, really, but I guess I just have a troubled history with them. There's something about them that cause Peter and I to become very short tempered with each other. (I read once that the same thing happens to some couples in Ikea because the pressure to achieve domestic perfection hangs heavy in such an outlet.)

What interested me most at the Cliffs was how other people acted. They all seemed far too willing to climb over the slate barrier and get way too close to the edge. Peter even told one guy "The coast guard has enough to do without you adding to it."

Sunday was our big touring day. We went to the Burren, the Pol ne Brone dolmen, and Ailwee Cave. The landscape of the Burren was cool and I can't wait to see it in the spring, when it's full of all manner of wild flowers. (The Burren is a biological oddity because it can support alpine, arctic and Mediterranean species.) The dolmen was impressive in its Stone-Age-artifact sort of way. I enjoyed visiting it although, after reading the rules sign, I had to restrain myself from violating the third rule.

My favourite though was Ailwee Cave, which is called Ireland's premier showcave for a reason (although Peter insists Michellstown is better - I will have to reserve judgment until I've seen them both). The cave was discovered in 1940 by a local guy who was out walking his dog. I give the guy a lot of credit for crawling into the unknown like that, These days, the cave has been renovated particularly for tours, with a concrete walkway, steps, lights and handrails in places. Interestingly enough, no evidence of human habitation was ever found in the cave.

Bears were the main residents of the first part of the cave, because a dry lair area and the constant 50 degree temperature was perfect for their hibernation needs. We got to see 1000 year old bear bones in the first section of the cave. We also got to see some spectacular rock formations and a waterfall. We pictured these great big grizzly bears hunkering down in the cave and then going out in the spring to terrorise the early humans. We were disappointed when we learned a few days later that the European black bear was only about the size of a sheep or a dog.

The highlight for me was when our guide turned off the lights to show us how dark it really was deep in the cave. It's a cliché to say that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, but it was very true. Complete, pitch darkness is pretty damn impressive. If you go into your darkest closet, put your hands over your eyes and then close your eyes you might get a slight taste of the total darkness.

After the cave, we did another thing that I totally enjoyed. As Peter said, it's not a trip unless we visit a petting farm.

Admission included a bag of food for the animals, so I was a happy girl indeed. I've been to a lot of petting farms and there was something a little depressing about this one. Nearly all the animals were skilled in the art of creeping forward, grabbing the food and then jumping away so as not having to provide the quid pro quo petting opportunity. "Betty" the llama was particular skilled and suspicious. She was also actually a he, so perhaps there were greater problems there.

The best part of the petting farm was feeding

She quite willingly ate out of my hand, even trying to eat my hand, my jacket cuff and my zipper. Peter was trying to take a picture of us with his cell phone, so I thought I'd be clever. I opened up the feed bag, thinking Ossie would have a struggle to peck her beak into the bag and that would provide enough time for Peter to take the picture. Ossie outsmarted me by grabbing the whole bag out of my hand. She stretched out her neck high above her head, brandishing her prize nearly out of my reach. I was able to grab the bag before she swallowed the whole thing.

The biggest disappointment of the farm was not seeing the brochure-promised family of Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs. We found their field, but the pigs were nowhere to be seen. On balance though, Ossie more than made up for the missing pigs and the sneaky llama.

Driving to Donegal

One of our most fun days was Monday, when we drove from Doolin to Killybegs, County Donegal. We were up early so Peter could photograph the sun rising on the rocks in the Burren. Yes, I mentioned that this was a working trip of sorts but I bet you didn't think about what that meant.

What it means isn't entirely unpleasant for me, since Peter goes out of his way to make sure we do things I want to do (see Moher Hill Farm). It's just that there is a lot of waiting for him while he takes photographs. Sometimes I wait in the car, other times I hang out where he is. A book is indispensable to this waiting around business. I also get to carry his camera bag, which I usually don't mind all that much even though that sucker is heavy and it makes me nervous to tote around all those delicate, expensive lenses.

So, I'm basically the lovely assistant, the pack mule and the lady in waiting while Peter does his thing. It's not a bad life, really.

After the morning photo shoot, we drove north, through County Galway and then County Mayo. We stopped in Aghamore, the village where Peter's mother grew up and had a look around her childhood home, which for reasons I don't really understand is in an abandoned, state of disrepair. We also stopped at the cemetery.

We were making good time so we were able to slow down in County Sligo, which was much prettier than I'd expected. I don't know why I didn't expect it to be pretty - it is Yeats Country after all. We went to Lough Gill, saw the inspiration for Yeats' "Lake Isle of Innisfree" and had a guided tour of Parkes Castle.

The castle tour was cool although I guess Peter is right that when you've seen one castle, you've pretty much seen them all. I should probably limit our castle excursions to ones that are historically or architecturally significant.

We tried to stop in Sligo town to find a bookstore. We'd been using a Fodor's guide to Ireland that we'd picked up in Ennis and were finding it lacking. It's like it was written for rich people with no imagination. Drive to Town A. Look at Sight 1 and Sight 2. Have lunch in upscale restaurant X. Stay in hideously expensive 4-star hotel Y. Drive to Town B. I'm more of a Lonely Planet girl myself.

Sligo is a town under massive construction and their traffic patterns were greatly suffering from it. We couldn't easily figure out how to get where we needed to go, so we decided to just press on to Donegal town, which turned out to be much more navigable. It also had a great little bookstore where we were able to buy the Lonely Planet guide for Ireland, which we used to book accommodation for the next two nights.

I love the Lonely Planet guides for their attention to budget and insider details. We decided we'd stay in Killybegs, since it was near enough to Slieve League and Fodor's had called it a nice little fishing village. Lonely Planet let us know that the emphasis in that sentence should be on fishing and that a fishmeal processing centre on the east side of town pumped extra fishy smells into the air. We took LP's advice to heart and booked a B&B on the west side of town.

On the way out to Killybegs, we took a diversion down a peninsula and ended up at

Unlike County Clare, where the lands are all "preserved" by their owners (essential a posted/no trespassing type deal), the private land we came across in Donegal had signs that said the land was private and asked cars to keep off the grass or do other reasonable neighbourly things while accessing the land.

We shared the land around St. Johns's Point lighthouse with a herd of bulls. Yep, bulls. Not cows. Bulls. For the most part, we ignored them and they ignored us, but I can't pretend that they didn't make me a little nervous. Call me crazy, but 1-tonne animals with horns do that to me. The herd grazed closer down the point and when we were ready to leave, they were between us and our car. We debated walking through them to the car but decided, since we don't have health insurance, to err on the side of caution and take the long way around the lighthouse back to the car. We did and arrived back to the vehicle without incident.

Our last stop, after checking into the B&B, was to head out to Slieve League for the sunset. The cliffs at

go up to 2,000 feet and are all sloping jagged beauty. They're not sheer like the Cliffs of Moher but they are no less impressive or beautiful. Peter took his photographs and I hung around and provided a decoy for the midges. Midges are about the size of gnats, come in large swarms and bite like mosquitoes. I have quite a few souvenirs of our time with the midges, mostly on the right side of my face. Despite the midges, it was a good day.

The Bloody Foreland

The plan for Tuesday was to explore every tiny road to nowhere on our segment of the map. I'm exaggerating, but not by much. We went out toward Glencolumbkille , stopping to explore dead-end roads and sieze photographic opportunities along the way. I persuaded Peter to make a detour into the Folk Village and Museum, a collection of cottages that portray village life in 1720, 1820 and 1920. It was interesting to see the changes between the cottages and compare them to modern life.

The museum also honored Father McDyer, the village priest in the 1960s who brought electricity to the area and helped preserve the village. That aspect of the museum was a bit creepy, like a cult of personality, especially the building that had all these displays on the guy's life that you could walk through while a mannequin of the guy sat at the front of the room watching you. Weird.

After the museum, we headed out to a few more sights of photographic interest. We followed a long, narrow, twisty road that bore absolutely no resemblence to our map to a small

on the water. It was beautiful and pretty much deserted. Peter didn't like the way any of his photographs from here turned out but I like this one. We checked out the

and the

We also saw a lot of sheep. The Fodor's guide said that in parts of Donegal, it wasn't unusual to find sheep on the road and have them look at you like you were in the wrong place.

Our other major photographic opportunity was the area in and around

24,000 acres of isolated mountain and forest beauty. The weather was not cooperating as it was dark, grey and threatening to rain, so Peter wasn't able to take many photographs. I've no doubt we'll be back there soon, particularly to photograph Mount Errigal.

Glenveigh was originally the estate of John Adair, whom the Fodor's book describes as "a ruthless gentleman farmer", a phrase that has oxymoron written all over it. Adair didn't appreciate having his tenant farmers ruining his view of the valley, so in 1861 he evicted them all without any sort of compensation. Fodor's also says that he destroyed all the tenant cottages, but with the number of abandoned cottage ruins with trees growing out of them, it makes me wonder if Adair got to all of them.

We did make a brief stop in the guest centre at Glenveigh because the trusty Lonely Planet guide informed us that we could buy midge repellent there. (In case you're ever there, wandering around and looking for a shop, the midge repellent is sold from wall-mounted vending machines next to the information desk. Bring 2 euro coins.) To get to the centre, we had to park the car and walk along a brick-paved walkway.

We were walking along when a pack of pigs rounded the corner at the far end of the walkway and headed right toward us. There were about 5 or 6 of them and they were small, maybe the size of a West Highland white terrier. I got within a

of them before they plunged into the

snorting and rooting around for food. It was an unexpected highlight of the trip, especially after I'd been cheated at Moher Hill.

Midge repellent in hand, we set out to check out the mountains and then continued to the coast road and headed up to the small hotel we'd booked a room in - the Foreland Heights Hotel on the Bloody Foreland. Before you go thinking the area got its name from a mythic battle or an insurgency, it's because the setting sun makes the rocks look red. We thought this sounded like an ideal photographic opportunity, which it would have been if we'd been able to see the sun at all. After a couple of good days, the weather had well and truly turned on us.

We checked into the hotel and then went out for a drive up the north way. We'd come from the south, where a profusion of holiday cottages had ruined the views. The north way was much more deserted, a fact that we'd later wish we'd noticed better. We did a scenic tour around Mount Muckish and then had dinner at a pizza place in Gortahork.

It was completely dark and raining when we left Gortahork (cue creepy music). Our first problem was that I'd forgotten we were going back the northern route and was expecting a lot of holiday cottages. Our second problem was that Peter made a couple of turns where he'd go for a little bit, second-guess himself and then turn us around and head back to the last intersection. Our third problem is that it was very dark and some of the roads felt like they were going nowhere, or at least nowhere good.

I was trying to keep it together but I wasn't doing a great job. I don't like getting lost, especially not in the dark in the middle of nowhere. I didn't want to end up in the Irish version of Deliverance. I also didn't want to drive off a cliff or hit a sheep or become "carnage on the road" as the radio and TV reporters always say. And remember, it's not like there are gas stations and quicky-marts to stop for directions.

Peter became convinced that he knew where we were and that dark-scary-road-to-nowhere would take us back to our hotel. My eyes were glued to the map. I was looking at the inviting green-and-white striped secondary road and comparing it to the yellow squiggle of a country road that we were on. The green-and-white would take us to the orange road in the south that we'd used to get to the hotel that afternoon. The orange road that was lined with holiday homes and had occasional bursts of civilisation, like petrol stations and sweater outlets. Guess which route I wanted to take.

Now, I want you to stop for a minute and appreciate Peter's position. He'd spent all day driving. He was exhausted and eager to get to sleep. It was dark and misty, the rain was blowing sideways. He was convinced that he knew where he was and that he could be home in about 10 or 15 minutes. Going my way would significantly lengthen the trip and the only benefit would be to me, that it would make me feel a bit more comfortable.

It is a credit to Peter's empathy and loving character that he turned the car around and went my way. It is a sad trick of fate that my way sucked so bad. I blame myself and my scaredy-cat nature foremost, but the Irish road-labeling system and woefully inaccurate map industry are close behind.

On the map, it looked like the green-and-white road would take us to Gweedore quite nicely and efficiently. It didn't look like we'd encounter cross-roads and if we did, it should be obvious which road was ours. Right? Not quite. We blew through a couple of cross-roads and none of them were marked, leading us to believe that the side-streets were merely residential streets, not thorough fares.

Then, we got to a marked intersection that had a sign pointing to Bunbeg, 3 km. Fantastic, right near where we needed to be. Only we had no way of knowing if the sign was pointed in the right direction. Ireland still uses the quaint arrow-shaped signs on a single pole for marking direction. In theory (and in postcards), these look great. They show you which direction to go. In practice, a strong gust of wind or a couple of bored teenagers can turn the sign around without much effort. Sure, you think you're going to Bunbeg but really your car is straining up a steep hill and edging along narrow country roads, sure you've found a short cut when really all you've found is the path to a cul de sac or a dark middle-of-nowhere outpost.

We finally ended up in Derrybeg, which was good because it was quite near to our hotel. It was bad though because we never went through Gweedore or Bunbeg like we should have, so we were never on the roads we should have been on. Our arriving close to our hotel was just a matter of desperately needed luck.

At the hotel, I sent Peter upstairs to the room so that I could settle the bill, in case we wanted to leave early to photograph the sunrise. Reception was empty so I rang the bell and waited. Then I rang the bell a little more and waited some more. I rinsed and repeated a third time before deciding to have a look for someone. I went through the empty restaurant, which didn't feel strange because they'd stopped serving dinner an hour before. I walked down the long, narrow corridor to get to the bar. The hallway was dimly lit and had various doors leading to the kitchen, bathrooms, etc. Some of these doors seemed to creak and move a little on their hinges. An objective scientific mind would tell you that this was because of pressure differentials from an open outside door or wind or whatever. A less objective, borderline hysterical mind like mine would just tell you that it was really damn creepy.

And it was made even creepier by the fact that the bar was empty. Completely empty. No bar man, no waitress, no crusty auld fella holding the bar up. Nothing. Not only that, there was no evidence that there had been anyone in the bar the whole night. In Ireland, this is just plain wrong. On my hurried walk back through the scary hallway, it struck me that this isolated resort hotel was the perfect location for the Irish version of The Shining.

I spent the rest of the night in restless sleep, half-convinced that each time I got up to use the bathroom, I'd see those creepy twin girls from the movie. It was all too easy to think that an empty hotel in an area called the Bloody Foreland could host all sorts of delusion-inspired violence.

Weather Delay

Our plan had been to spend one more night in Donegal, maybe in Letterkenny, so that Peter could get sunset photographs of Mount Errigal. The weather forecast predicted rain and clouds for the next several days, so we decided to end the trip and come back for a short break when the weather was better. It's about 200 miles from Dublin to Letterkenny, so it's definitely a doable short trip.

We did get in a little driving and hiking before completely packing it in. We drove around

and the Rossgull penninsulas, both of which are beautiful but somewhat marred by manky holiday caravan parks. Horn Head itself was rustic and pretty. We hiked through the blanket bog out to a ruin. It had a real "edge of the world" feeling, especially when we started to see squalls out over the Atlantic Ocean.

We drove home, cutting across Northern Ireland, in the pouring rain. The sun came out in Dublin, but that was probably just to taunt us. I know it was still rainy and grey in Donegal. After spending several days sharing the road with sheep, it was weird to be back in busy, traffic-choked Dublin. I'm anxiously awaiting our trip back.