Republic of Ireland: Kilkenny and Dublin

On July 25 we left Cork and traveled to the Cobh Heritage Center, the last port of call of the Titanic on April 11, 1912. They have a really good museum there and we spent a good amount of time exploring the museum to learn about the Titanic.

In the mid afternoon we arrived in Kilkenny, a city in Ireland on the banks of the River Nore. One of my favourite ways of exploring cities is to walk around, which is exactly what we did – we took a walking tour with a local guide. The city is quite small, and the tour took us through the small streets and past all the pubs and shops, while our guide kept us entertained with his jokes and stories about the city. Below are a few photos from around the city:

The following morning (July 26) we left Kilkenny and traveled to Dublin – our last location in Ireland. Our first stop was the Guinness Brewery. Guinness is a dark, dry stout that originated in Dublin and has become one of the most successful beer brands worldwide. We visited the Guinness Storehouse, which is located at the St. James’s Gate Brewery. The Storehouse is a tourist attraction and museum, where visitors can learn about the process of making Guinness, can buy Guinness souvenirs and learn about how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness. I enjoyed exploring the museum!

One of the best parts of the visit was attending the Guinness Academy to learn to pour the perfect pint. There are 5 steps in the process.

1. Take a cool, dry, Guinness branded glass
2. Hold the glass firmly at 45 degrees under the tap
3. Pull the handle fully forward towards you. Slowly straighten the glass as it fills. Stop when the glass is 3/4 full
4. Leave the surge to settle allowing the creamy head to form. The head should be between 10-15mm high
5. Top up the glass by pushing the tap handle away from you. Stop when the head is up to the rim
6. Present the perfect pint to the customer with a steady hand, logo facing forward

Later that evening we attended an Irish band and Irish dancing performance. It was really good! I loved the Irish dancing – it is so graceful and takes a lot of skill!

That evening was our last night with the Contiki group. We had spent 17 days with this group, traveling through England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This was my 5th Contiki tour I’ve done, and my 3rd Contiki tour of the summer, and although I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the UK and Ireland, I can honestly say that I would not recommend this particular Contiki tour for someone who wants to explore these countries. I love Contiki as a travel company, and I have loved all of my tours (including this one), but this tour was different than the others in that I felt like I had so much less time in each place than any other tour and I felt extremely rushed. I found this especially bad in Ireland (England and Scotland did not feel as rushed as Ireland). For example, we would drive all day and arrive in a new city around 5 or 6pm, we may have about an hour to explore the city before dinner, and then the following morning we would leave at 8am for the next location. I like to explore cities and sites so that I can have a good feel for the area, and so I can form an opinion on each place I visit. I did not feel like I could form a solid opinion about most places I visited because I had such limited time in each place. This is why my blog entries may have seemed a bit less thorough than normal. I found it hard to write blog posts about locations I did not have enough time to explore. I think Contiki was trying to squeeze as many places as possible into a short amount of time, and because of this we were unable to gain any real depth into any of the locations. For anyone wanting to visit these countries, I would strongly recommend traveling around without a tour group, maybe renting a car or using trains/buses, so that you can explore the areas at your own leisure.

From Dublin I traveled to London to spend my last 4 days in Europe before returning home.

Republic of Ireland: Aran Islands, Cliffs of Moher and Blarney Stone

On July 22rd we left Northern Ireland and traveled to Galway, in the Republic of Ireland. We only had a few hours to explore the city, and from what I saw of the city I enjoyed it.  At this point in the trip I was getting annoyed with Contiki (the tour group that I was traveling with). We had been visiting many cool cities and sites, but we weren’t given too much time to actually explore them in detail. We had approximately 1-2 hours in Galway, which in my opinion is not nearly enough time to visit a city and get a good sense of the area. Either way, since I was unable to change this fact, I made the best of it and took my little time in Galway to explore the pubs and shops along the main street. They have a pedestrian area downtown that is full of pubs and stores and lots of souvenir shops. Below are some photos I took of the city.

There are also a lot of jewellery shops selling the traditional Irish Claddagh ring. This ring depicts two hands holding a heart with a crown on top of the heart. The hands represent friendship, the heart represents love and the crown represents loyalty. The ring can be worn on either hand and with the heart facing either towards or away from you – all depending on your relationship situation. If you are single then the ring is worn on your right hand with the heart facing away from you (so the pointy part of the heart is facing out - it looks like the ring is upside down). If you are in a relationship but not engaged then the ring is worn on your right hand but with the heart facing you, so the pointy part of the heart is facing down towards your wrist. If you are engaged then the ring is worn on your left hand with the heart facing away from you, and if you are married then the ring is worn on your left hand with the heart facing towards you. The origins of this ring come from the village of Claddagh which is part of Galway City, and many rings are passed down through generations of family members.

The following day we spent the whole day exploring one of the Aran Islands. This was probably the best day I’ve had since arriving in the UK. The Aran islands are a group of 3 islands off the west coast of the Republic of Ireland. We only had time to visit one of them, and we spent all day on that island exploring it by bicycle. The island was just beautiful! I really enjoyed biking along the water, past cows and horses, beaches, rocks and cliffs.

Biking along the paths and through the fields was so peaceful and beautiful.

We saw many animals along the route as well.

On one side of the island there is a large fort on top of a massive cliff. We climbed up to the fort to explore the cliffs. They were really cool – and very scary! There is no barrier to stop people from falling off the cliffs and down onto the rocks below!

The following day (July 24th) we headed off to visit the Cliffs of Moher, Ireland’s most visited natural attraction. These cliffs are about 214m high (at their highest point), and they are much larger than the cliffs we saw on Aran islands!

After visiting these cliffs I was able to compare/contrast them to the ones on Aran Island. Although the Cliffs of Moher are much larger than the cliffs on the Aran islands, I liked the Aran island cliffs better – mainly because we were able to get closer to the Aran island cliffs.  For the Cliffs of Moher we had to stand behind barriers and could only see the cliffs from afar. I understand that this is done for safety reasons, but I did really enjoy getting right up to the cliffs edge on Aran islands!

Our next stop was Blarney Castle, home of the famous Blarney Stone. This castle was built by the MacCarthy of Muskerry dynasty and dates back to 1446.

The main attraction while visiting the castle is the Blarney Stone, which is a famous stone that, according to legend, will give the kisser the “gift of the gab”, meaning that it will give them the gift of eloquent speech. Once you enter the castle, you must climb up narrow staircases and through narrow passageways in order to get to the top of the castle, and to find the Blarney Stone.

 

Once we reached the top there was a long line up of people waiting to kiss the stone, and there were two attendants manning the stone. One was to man the camera (you can buy a souvenir photo of the kiss) and the other holding tourists as they are kissing the stone (just so they don’t fall through the hole!). After every few people the stone is sanitized. 

Kissing the stone is pretty awkward; you must lie down, grab on to two metals bars and lean upside-down and kiss a wet shiny area of the stone. Hopefully it was all worth it and I have now been blessed with eloquence!

We slept in Cork that night, and the following day continued making our way through Ireland.

Northern Ireland: Belfast, Derry and Giant’s Causeway

On July 19th we left the Scottish Highlands and traveled to Glasgow. Unfortunately by the time we arrived in the city there was very little time in the city to do anything other than have dinner and explore the nightlife. The following morning we left Scotland and traveled to Ireland by ferry. It took us the majority of the day to travel from Glasgow to Dublin, and again we had little time to explore Dublin by day – I felt ok about that though since I will be returning to Dublin in about 5 or so days before I go back to London.

On July 21st we went back to regular touring, and we traveled to Belfast – in Northern Ireland, and the home of many struggles and conflict that continue today. It was a very sobering visit and I was able to see first hand many of the struggles that the people of Belfast are still going through. Without going into too much detail about the history I will try to give a brief synopsis. The main issue that caused the decades of conflict and violence in Belfast has to do with different opinions between two distinct groups: The Unionists (or loyalists, or Protestants) and the Nationalists (or republicans or Catholics). The Unionists were mostly Protestant and they wanted Northern Ireland to stay within the United Kingdom, while the Nationalists, who were mostly Catholic, did not want to be part of the United Kingdom and wanted a free and united Ireland.

Today the Unionists and Nationalists groups still exist and the conflict is still very present in the city (although now the conflict is not violent). The city is divided into two halves, one for the Unionists and one for the Nationalists, and between the two halves is a large wall. During the day there are gates open in the wall to cross over from one side to the other, but at night the gates are locked and everyone retreats to their separate side. People on one side of the wall do not associate much with people on the other side of the wall. Unionist children go to school with other Unionist children, and Nationalist children go to school with other Nationalist children.

We took a tour of the city (by bus) and were able to drive through the two sides. Below is a photo of the wall that separates the two sides, most of which is covered in graffiti.

One of the gates to cross from one side to the other:

Throughout the city, on both sides of the wall, you can see murals depicting the viewpoints of either side.

The city does not feel “warm”, welcoming or safe. Many fences (for regular property) have barbed wires or sharp tops so that people will not climb the fence.

I found my visit to Belfast really sad, I had heard about the conflict in Northern Ireland, but I did not realize to what extent it was currently impacting the people of the city. I was so surprised to see the wall, and to learn that the people of the city do not want to remove the wall. They are estimating it may take another 10 years for the wall to come down.

Belfast is also known for being the location of where the famous ship Titanic was built, and because of this they have an enormous Titanic museum. Unfortunately we did not have enough time to visit inside the museum, but we visited outside the building. The building was designed at a height to demonstrate how tall the ship was if you were standing at the bottom and looking up at the ship.

Later that day we visited Derry (also known as Londonderry). This is a city in Northern Ireland where many of the conflicts are also still taking place. The city is divided in two parts, just as it was in Belfast. We had a very interesting tour guide who took us on a walking tour through the city and explained many of the conflicts and how they are currently impacting people. Our tour guide was a Buddhist Irish, which gave him an interesting viewpoint (since he was neither protestant nor catholic). We learned the difference between calling the city Derry and Londonderry – if someone calls the city Derry it means that they are Nationalists (or Catholics), and if they call the city Londonderry then it means they are Unionists (or Protestant). Our guide explained that when someone meets a new person, in order to determine which side they are on they will ask some sort of question or turn the topic to the city name in order to find out whether they call the city Londonderry or Derry.

Our tour manager told us to be careful when talking to locals, and not to take any side, or to discuss politics with anyone! We were also told not to dress wearing a Union Jack flag or have anything that would indicate which side we preferred.

Our tour guide explained how separated the city still is (like Belfast), and that people live parallel lives on either side of the wall – where children grow up on their side of the wall, only going to school with other children on their own side. He explained that the people of the city also do not want the wall to come down and, as in Belfast, it could take another 10 years for the wall to be removed. In order for this to happen, he explained that children of both sides need to start growing up together and attending the same schools. Teaching children under one curriculum poses it’s own set of problems – how do you teach children the history of their city when one side believes strongly in their freedom fighters while the other side believes these freedom fighters are terrorists?

Below is a photo of the wall separating the two sides in Derry/Londonderry

 

As we walked into the Catholics/Nationalists area of the city we could see large murals welcoming us to “Free Derry”.

As in Belfast, there were many murals on the walls throughout the city.

Visiting Derry/Londonderry was an interesting experience and I was glad I had the chance to hear more perspectives on the conflict from our local tour guide.

To break up the mood of the day we left these cities and visited an incredible site: the Giant’s Causeway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the greatest natural wonder in the United Kingdom. This incredible site has hundreds of hexagonal interlocking columns at different heights, leading from the cliffs into the sea.

We had to hike about 15 minutes in order to reach the causeway, and along the route we had a very picturesque view of the sea.

We finally reached the causeway and it was amazing to see the columns. I found it incredible that they were formed naturally!

There is a legend associated with the how the causeway was formed, and the story goes that the columns are the remains of a causeway built by an Irish giant (Finn MacCool) in order to cross the North Channel to get to Scotland to fight a Scottish giant Benandonner. There are different versions of the legend, but the common theme is that Benandonner crosses the causeway and finds Finn’s wife who introduces Finn as her baby son. Benandonner recons that if Finn’s baby was so large then Finn must be an enormous giant, and he flees back to Scotland in fright and destroys the causeway behind him so Finn could not follow him back to Scotland. Whether or not you believe in legends, the causeway is an incredible sight, and photos do not do it justice!

My stay in Northern Ireland was really good. I learned a lot about the conflicts the Irish have gone through, and I also saw the most incredible natural wonder in the UK. I’m not sure I would visit Belfast or Derry again, but I am happy I was able to see first-hand the impacts of the conflict on the people of Northern Ireland.