Given it was the 12th July or 'The Twelth', a day that previously had no significance for us, but as we learned from the ferryman is the day the protestant Orangemen march to celebrate the victory of king William of Orange over Catholic king James II at the Battle of the Boyne (1690), a focus point of conflict we decided not to hang around and headed to the North.
We had expected things to be quieter in the country but nearly every house, village and town we passed through were flying Union Jacks and the Ulster Banner, as well as bunting in the streets. Apparently the north is the unionist region and they do this in July to celebrate the marching season. We didn't have a clue and were feeling a little tense as this seemed to be a strong display of loyalty from one side of the conflict and we weren't sure what to expect.
The little village we wanted to stay in also had the flags and bunting but everything seemed ok when we checked in and we didn't encounter any violence or sense of hostility.
The main attraction in the north is a natural rock feature called the Giant's Causeway, the rocky coastline has over 40,000 vertical hexagonal shaped formations, we couldn't believe how popular it was as everywhere else was so quiet.
After a quiet night we headed off for the calm of the Republic of Ireland, I hadn't realised Ireland actually reaches up alongside Northern Ireland and occupies the west coast of the North. We noticed as we headed west towards Londonderry/Derry the flags and bunting disappeared. Obviously we had left the Unionist areas and were now in Loyalist territory.
It was immediately apparent once you crossed the border, the speed signs change to Km/h and prices are in Euro. The other thing we have really noticed everywhere is the number of new and renovated houses, apparently Ireland had a real estate boom after moving to the Euro as this increased the wealth of the Irish, unfortunately it also contributed to the financial crisis as the real estate market was over inflated. This has been noticeable in the number of new but empty properties we have seen, as well as abandoned property development sites.
We travelled down the west coast through Donnegal, Sligo and Galway to a small rural village for the night. Corofin is small but like most Irish towns is well served by bars and pubs, eight for this little place. The campground was a small site behind a hostel. It was nice to enjoy the afternoon exploring the village.
Sam and I saw some boys with hurling sticks walking down the street so I asked if they were off to practice, they were and gave us directions to the field. We'd been told to check out some hurling by the Irish chap on the Jacobite train. The lads seemed a bit reserved at first but eventually took the field. In the meantime a large group of young French students, who it turned out were staying in our hostel, had arrived at the field for afternoon tea and some free time. The french boys quickly started up a game of soccer using the hurling goal, the same goal our Irish lads were about to use. After a brief discussion to determine if any one knew the french for "Heads!!" they proceeded to play.
Hurling is a bit like aerial hockey, they use the same field as for Gaeilic Football, a stick slightly shorter than a hockey stick with a sort of spoon on the end, and a ball similar to a baseball. The game the boys were playing involved taking penalty shots from various points on the field, they decided a 'frenchy' would be worth 10 points if hit in the head, or 2 in the body. They have quite a sense of humour the Irish, we only saw one french boy get hit, they seemed quite unperturbed by the balls flying at them all the time and quite willingly threw them back. Sam and I also had a go, but unsurprisingly weren't that good
There are quite a lot of Irish/French village sister relationships so maybe international relations would be Ok for now, although there was an incident with some village girls we observed later. These same girls also tried to befriend Emily, our kids managed a little bit of interaction with the French back at the hostel, not much more than repeated Bonjour's though.
Corofin's claim to fame is being on the edge of the Burren, a limestone rock landscape, which almost looks like it has been concreted. All up we enjoyed our night of traditional Irish village life, including some music and a pub dinner.
Next day we headed to Killarney, our first stop was Bunratty Castle & Folk Park. The castle is setup with medieval furnishings so was different to those we had already seen, the folk park shows traditional Irish village life throughout history.
We then travelled through Limerick and had a detour to Tralee as the kids wanted to visit Aqua Dome, they had been keen to visit a leisure centre after we had tried at York but found it closed to the public for swimming lessons. Many of the centres have water slides and other features but Aqua Dome is the pinnacle, two water slides, fast & lazy rivers, spas and saunas. We enjoyed a nice break and a bit of fun before continuing on to camp at Killarney.
Killarney was a very pretty town and is the starting point for the scenic coastal drive called the ring of Kerry. We had struck rain at Killarney though and unfortunately it set in as we started on our trip. We therefore didn't get to see a lot of the supposedly spectacular scenery, what we did see was impressive though, and the villages we passed through and visited were enchanting. Here's a link to an album of photos of what we didn't see - Ring of Kerry.
It was a long and slow trip in the rain, we then headed south to Blarney where we have camped. Last night was Harry Potter 7 part 2, the kids have been so cranky that it came out two days earlier in Australia than it did here. It struck me last night, as we sat having McDonalds before the movie just a few kilometres from the famous Blarney Castle, how homogenised the western world is, I could have been going to the movies at home for how similar the experience was, right down to the sticky cinema floor!
Tan's keen to kiss the Blarney stone today, don't know how hygienic that will be. Here's some photos from the past few days:
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| Camper Day 11-13 |
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