Ireland! What a magical place to visit. Of course, when in Ireland it helps to actually think Irish as they have a great way of explaining themselves. Their accent is lovely to listen to and we never tired of it. I would buy one postcard at a time so that I could hear the shop assistant say "Tirty p. Tanks!"
In many areas the locals talk to each other in Gaelic. This is more popular in recent times in an attempt to keep their native language alive among the young people. We never understood a word of that, however it was pleasant to listen to. While we were staying in Tralee we went to a theatre and were treated to a fantastic night of traditional dance and music. All the singing was in Gaelic so we couldn’t understand a word, but enjoyed every minute.
We traveled to Ireland by ferry that we caught from Swansea in Wales. The ferry departs in the evening and arrives in Ringaskiddy near Cork early the next morning. We had a very smooth crossing and arrived on a lovely morning. Once off the ferry we took some back roads (we stayed off the main roads as much as we could) into Cork. We were looking for a campsite that was listed in the Lonely Planet Guide. We discovered that it had been closed down for two years and spent most of that day cycling back to near from where we’d started. We ended up staying in a campground near the airport that first night.
From there we cycled to Kinsale on a beautiful morning with a tail wind and great scenery. Does life get any better than this? Kinsale is a very picturesque town and well worth a visit. After a look round and a meal we cycled on to a campground in Timoleague. In common with places in England, the campgrounds were nearly always a few kilometres out of town. The next day was pay back time or that’s the way it seemed. It was cold and drizzly. We rode 46 kilometres to Skibbereen that day with a couple of stops through the day. The first one was in a very colourful town, Clonakilty, where there was a whole street of really bright houses painted all different colours.
From Skibbereen we turned inland and rode to Glengarriff at the start of the Beara Peninsula. The campsite had two resident musicians that gave us some great traditional Irish music using the tin whistle and Irish bagpipes. Next morning, it was on to Castletownbearhaven (the longest town name in Ireland). We had some lovely scenery with the Caha Mountains along side us for a long time. In the town there is a converted nunnery, now a hostel, and we camped in the grounds along with a Danish couple and a French couple, all of us cycle touring. The following day we left all our gear behind and went for a pleasant ride around the end of the Peninsula. It was beautiful rugged country. Everywhere we looked was a photo. I was glad we didn’t have our luggage with us as we did a fair bit of climbing that day in the Slieve Miskish Mountains, but the views were well worth it.
Next day, our bikes fully loaded again, we crossed to the other side of the peninsula and on to Lauragh. From there we opted to take a country track (a short cut?) to Kenmare. It was very steep and even walking was difficult. At the top, wow! Beautiful views every which way. Then there was a lovely downhill run into the campsite. From there, we had a fair bit of climbing up Moll’s Gap then quite a few kilometres of down into the valley, through marsh lands where peat farming was the main industry. Up the other side was the Gap of Dunloe, which proved to be our busiest climb. There were plenty of pony traps for the tourists as well as walkers and the occasional car. Dodging them all on the way down was the hard part.
We stayed in Killarney that night. Killarney is the gateway to the famous Ring of Kerry. We had read many bad reports on the tourist traffic on the roads around the Ring of Kerry. As it was raining, we decided to leave the bikes behind for the day and did the touristy thing. We took a bus trip. All around the Kerry Peninsula the views were spoilt a bit by the drizzle. However we did have fun at a couple of the stops, mainly at the sheep dog demonstration. We also had a wander around Sneem.
We got back on the bikes the next day and headed for the Dingle Peninsula. It was like going to a different country as once over there we were riding in brilliant sunshine, all the while looking across to the rain hanging over Kerry. Our campsite that night was a few kilometres out of Dingle at an old mansion. It was now a youth hostel with camping available within the grounds. There was also a free shuttle bus into Dingle that came in handy when we went into town for a few beers with the other cyclists. We did the same here as on the Beara Peninsula, and left our gear behind and toured the peninsula unloaded. There are many ancient buildings here. A few which are well worth a visit include Dunbeg Fort, a stronghold on the cliff face with parts dating back to 500BC. The Gallarus Oratory, a weird shaped stone building about 1300 years old and still waterproof, was used for private prayer. There is a booklet on the area available from the tourist office.
From Dingle we headed up and over Connor’s Pass (498m). Up and up leaving the very clear views of the Dingle Bay and into the mist and cloud. However it did clear for a while at the top and gave us good views in both directions. On to Tralee where we visited the theatre mentioned before. From Tralee we rode on to Tarbert where we caught the ferry to Kilrush. It’s a very quick crossing lasting only 20 minutes. Next day, we rode on to Doolin via the famous Cliffs of Moher. The climb up there was quite a drag and when we finally did get to the viewpoint, there were so many buses, cars, and people, that we nearly changed our minds about stopping. But we figured that 50,000 people can’t be wrong and we didn’t come all this way to ride past. So we parked the bikes and went along the walking trail to the top. The views were spectacular and worth the effort. After that we enjoyed a beautiful downhill run on some back roads all the way into Doolin.
We stayed in a campsite near the pier, which was very handy the following morning when we caught a ferry across to the Aran Islands. First we visited the smallest of the three islands, Inisheer. The ferries were a lot smaller than the previous ones on which we’d travelled. We had to remove all the bags from the bikes so that they could be passed over the rail. These islands have very different scenery. There were no trees but plenty of rocks and hundreds of stonewalls. Still, they did have their own kind of beauty and plenty of history. We spent the day riding around looking at lots of archaeological sites including a bronze age (2,000BC) burial mound, 15th century castle ruins and a 9th century church. Back at the pier, it was bags off again for another smooth ferry crossing, this time to Inishmore, the largest island. We camped on this island for two nights. The campsite was very basic with toilet and cold water the only amenities. However it was our cheapest campsite at only 2 pounds per night. That gave us plenty of time to explore the island. One of the ‘must see’ places is – Dun Aonghasa, which is a stone fort approx. 2,000 years old, built right along the edge of a cliff. By this time the weather had warmed considerably and it got quite hot during the day and we were treated to some lovely evenings with great sunsets.
The next ferry crossing took us across to Rossaveal, where we rode on to Clifden enjoying a tailwind for most of the way. We passed through some beautiful undulating countryside, at times not unlike Australia. The campsite in Clifden was at the back of a Bed & Breakfast on a very steep hill. This gave us a good view over the harbour from our tent. We stayed on the coast road for as long as we could to Lettergesh Beach campsite. The wind was getting stronger now, and next day we had a really strong head wind riding alongside Killary Harbour into Leenaun. Once there we turned off onto an ‘r’ road almost backtracking on ourselves (but on the other side of the water) so we now had the tailwind that we’d worked hard for. We continued on up through the pretty Doolough Pass where there is a monument to the 400 people that perished there during the potato famine. There were good views from the top before we headed into some forest country to Louisburgh and the campsite at Old Head.
We rode on to Castlebar the next day. We had to use some main roads in the morning, so it was a relief to get onto some smaller roads with much less traffic in the afternoon. The countryside was getting a bit hillier now. We spent a night at the Easky campground. It was probably the cleanest one we’ve stayed in. Then it was onto Sligo. As we planned to catch an early morning bus to Dublin, we decided to stay the night in a privately owned hostel. This turned out to be a very good decision as we had a torrential downpour that night. It had stopped by the time we went for the bus in the morning. The bikes were quickly put in the luggage hold underneath the bus and away we went, arriving in Dublin three hours later.
There is no campsite near the centre of Dublin, but there is one about 45 kilometres to the north and another 30kilometres to the south. We opted for the one in the north as it is reasonably close to the airport from where we were flying a few days later. So off we rode through the busiest traffic that we had endured for quite a while. A welcome respite to the traffic came from being able to ride through the lovely Phoenix Park, with wild deer, which is right in the middle of Dublin. We did come back into Dublin to have a good look around, but we went in on a double-decker bus and left the bikes at camp. In the city we visited all the tourist spots, including Dublin Castle, a Viking museum and probably the best of all, the Guinness Hop Store museum. On other days we went for local rides to Skerries (a pretty harbour), and to Swords, an interesting castle that is under restoration.
Ireland is not called the Emerald Isle for nothing but we were there for the whole month of July, and we didn’t have huge amounts of rain. We had only one day when we got wet. Most of the showers fell during the night, very convenient indeed. Some days started off with what the Irish call a soft day. That is just a very light drizzle.
One thing that really amused me was the colour and positioning of the letterboxes on the side of the road. They are green and many of them are in hedges! Almost like spot me if you can!
On this tour we covered 4,000 kilometres on our bikes through England, France, Wales and Ireland. Our bikes are Shogun Mountain bikes modified for touring by fitting mudguards and front low rider pannier racks. Some back roads in Ireland are a little bit rough to say the least. Our tent is a Salewa Sierra Leone.