Our Great Northwest Adventure (A)
After a few weeks off to recover from our European adventure, Matt and I agreed it was time to take off on our next adventure - the great Irish Northwest. Due to the fact that the Bike was still in the Man Cave awaiting some much needed care and attention, we hired a car to act as our noble stead for the weekend. Unfortunately I forgot that the Friday was the last day of the Month and I had to work Friday night, which delayed our leaving until Saturday morning.
Matt orginally wanted to get up at 6am and get out the door. But well, he was travelling with me and 6am just isn't a time that I am familiar with. We did make it out the door before 8am though, which I thought was pretty respectable, and we headed north to Donegal to begin our discovery of the northwest.
Donegal is one of the three counties that were historically part of Ulster, but that were left out of Northern Ireland (Ulster) when Ireland was divided. I think the main reason was that there really isn't much that the English saw as being of any value. Donegal has been the last county in Ireland to experience the benefits of the Celtic Tiger. The recent change in economic fortune was very evident driving around the area. New houses and housing developments appeared to be mushrooming everywhere. Most of the houses in the area appeared to be less than five years old.
Killybegs, a small fishing village where we stopped for lunch.
Donegal township itself is a plantation township. Now, when I first heard about the English plantations I was a little bit confused about what exactly they were growing here. Turns out they were making plantations of British people in Ireland. The central area of the town is shaped as a Shamrock. There was a pretty cool Castle there that is rumoured to have a tunnel linking it to an Abbey on the other side of the river, but I am not sure that anyone has actually proven that or not. There is a big information board near the information centre telling of the history of the town. It was a bit hard to follow though, as the history was in no particular order and there was no real theme to it. Ireland's first invasion is thought to have happened in the area, when some descendant of Noah landed here with his bandit friends. I found this a little confusing though, if Noah and his family were the only people to survive the flood then surely we would all be descendants of Noah.
One of the beaches around from Donegal. Almost as good as a kiwi bridge.
After a brief stroll around Donegal were were off again. We stopped for what we would call a cavery lunch in Killybegs, which is a nice little fishing town. The next place we planned to stop was the Cliffs of Slieve League. After a very scenic unplanned detour we reached our destination, we missed the turn on the first pass as a truck was parked in front of it. These cliffs are reportedly Europe's highest, from the bits we could see of them through the fog they looked pretty big, but I will have to take the information plaque's word about them being the biggest.
Looking out to sea from the Slieve Leagues.
And the famous cliffs themselves, who knows how high they tower into the fog?
Time was marching on and we still had a fair way to travel before reaching where we were staying. Whilst stopping for petrol it was decided that we needed some treats to keep our energy up. Well you can imagine my excitement when I found Toffeepops. Sad to say though that they didn't quite live up to expectations. They weren't as tasty as the NZ ones. Still, it didn't take us long to polish off the whole packet.
By the time we got to our B & B we were pretty tired. Since we only had three channels on the TV we weren't left many options. One was in Irish and the second was showing soccer so we watched the First Eurovision Dance Contest. It was pretty entertaining actually. The programme had the English footage with Irish commentary over it. The Irish woman was pretty serious about the dancing, but the guy was holding no punches, he was hilarious, no PCness at all about him. The NZ Dancing With The Stars guy was dancing for the UK, and was back with his old partner after they took a break. Next thing the Irish guy is going on about all the affairs he had behind her back and why they broke up. And when they were announcing the vote totals of each country, an unbelievably long and boring process, he added the comments that we were thinking but that you wouldn't ever say. What I thought was funny about the voting was that it somewhat reflected the political histories between the countries. The voting didn't really seem to correlate between the dancers ability and points but moreso how much each country liked the country in question, which explains how Ireland got third and Lithuania got tenth.
On the Sunday morning we went around Fanad Head, which was a very pleasant drive, and checked out some World War One lookouts. It really would have sucked to have been stationed in those places. They really were in the middle of nowhere, and the weather there sucked, and as Ireland only ever got invaded by the English a good 400 years previous, they really didn't have much to do except try and stay dry.
Fanad Head and a lighthouse.
We visited Rathmullan, which is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Flight of the Earls. They had an exhibition in the town about it, but much to Matt's relief it was not open. To me it seems like a funny thing to celebrate. Your great leaders skipping the country in your hour of need with their nearest and dearest. But well each to their own I guess.
Rathmullan.
At most towns we past, the pubs were advertising Sunday Cavery Lunch. We decided after yesterday's yummy and good value meal that that is what we would do for lunch. So, we stopped in Buncrana at the pub/hotel, and asked about the cavery. The guys took us down a rabbit warren hallway, where we saw four buffet tables laden with food. So, instead of having a simple Sunday Roast, we ended up having a four course meal and barely being able to move afterwards (Matt - Ended up being an ironic contrast to the next place we went though...).
A small town on the way through. Can't remember the name, but they did have a nice river.
Over the course of the weekend I had to show a lot of restraint as there were a number of folk villages and museums in the county and I knew that we only had time to see one. And the time for the one had come. We went to the Famine Museum. It was a really good museum. At the start we were given a wee lecture of life in the area. There were a number of recreated houses from different time periods.
We learnt why we say 'He snuffed it', turns out when the deceased was lying in wake the family would put a plate of snuff tabacco on their chest. This served a dual purpose; By placing the snuff on the chest the family were able to sit and watch for any movement up and down of the plate to see if the person was breathing. It also meant that each person only got one lot of snuff, apparently people went crazy for the stuff and couldn't be trusted not to use the lot. We also learnt how someone would have the unenviable task of biting the person's toe to make sure that they were dead.
One thing that did puzzle me a bit was why people didn't fish more during the famine. Well it turns out there was a biblical sized storm a year or two before the famine and that most fishing boats were destroyed.
Then there were a series of Diaramas reconstructing the types of places that people would have lived in the past. My conclusion was being a solo mother back in the day would have been very bad times. They kinda just lived in the side of a hill. They were considered to be very unlucky people, and in general were pretty shunned by society.
We also learnt where the term 'Breaking and Entering' came from. The landlords charged fairly steep rents. And when a family fell on hard times they were often unable to pay the rents and would be evicted. The landlord or his manager would then come along with some heavies and evict the family and nail boards across the door, telling them they were not to enter. If they did they would be charged with breaking the planks of wood and entering.
A single woman's pad back in the 1800's.
A doorway from the Famine Museum we visited.
We have all talked of 'Daylight robbery'. Well, this phrase also had in origins on the Emerald Isle. Landlords used to charge tenants tax on any windows on the property, they were taxed according to number and size of the windows. So, tenant's houses would be built with few or no windows and the Landlords had effectively robbed the daylight from their tenants. Often landlords would also tax chimney's, leading to smoky houses and high instances of lung diseases.
I have written before about the famine walls, the seemingly crazy walls that exist in places no animal would ever want to go. I always thought that these were pretty silly things. But as 'yer man' here pointed out, it was important to give the people in the food queues work to do and give them a feeling of purpose, otherwise the people distributing the food become little more than people farmers. The reason that the famine walls were made over and around barren, rocky, unfarmable hilltops was that there was a lot of rock just lying around up there and therefore the building materials cost nothing and hungry paddies didn't have to cart the rocks at all.
The Northern coast of Donegal.
The fortunes of Ireland have changed greatly in the last couple of decades. Some people don't remember or choose to forget the bad times. Others are very conscious of the fact that if Ireland's export markets close to them or the businesses that came into Ireland and brought jobs and wealth into the country leave then Ireland is once again in a dire position. In the past, the nation of England denied Ireland from having an export economy fearing it would compete with their own. But this time the shift would be Multi-National.
Time was ticking, and we still hadn't made it to Ireland's Northern-most point. Funnily enough, once we got to Ireland's Northern-most point we were able to look South into Northern Ireland. In block capitals the word EIRE was written on the grass, a war-time sign to tell bomber pilots were they were in the war and to tell them to keep going (Matt - Ireland was neutral, y'see). A lot of people had written their names with rocks from the sign but we were too cold to bother. There was another former military lookout there. I really feel for the soldiers stationed in these bases back in the day. The bases were in the arse end of nowhere, and nothing ever happened there.
A military fortification on the Donegal headland.
The Northernmost part of Ireland.
EIRE. In big stone letters, no less.
The last stop on our Northwest adventure was Grianan Aileach, a Ring Fort that was excavated/rediscovered early 1900's and rebuilt to its former glory. It is a seriously cool and impressive ringfort, by far the best that I have seen so far. The views from the top are amazing, it is definitely located in a an excellent strategic position.
The entrance to the Grianan Aileach ringfort.
Finally, it was a rather long drive home. I felt like I was in a car racing video game when I was dreaming. I could see the GPS in the corner showing what the upcoming road was going to be like, and in front of us all I could see was the lane of the road (it was dark). All in all though a great trip!
Matt orginally wanted to get up at 6am and get out the door. But well, he was travelling with me and 6am just isn't a time that I am familiar with. We did make it out the door before 8am though, which I thought was pretty respectable, and we headed north to Donegal to begin our discovery of the northwest.
Donegal is one of the three counties that were historically part of Ulster, but that were left out of Northern Ireland (Ulster) when Ireland was divided. I think the main reason was that there really isn't much that the English saw as being of any value. Donegal has been the last county in Ireland to experience the benefits of the Celtic Tiger. The recent change in economic fortune was very evident driving around the area. New houses and housing developments appeared to be mushrooming everywhere. Most of the houses in the area appeared to be less than five years old.
Killybegs, a small fishing village where we stopped for lunch.
Donegal township itself is a plantation township. Now, when I first heard about the English plantations I was a little bit confused about what exactly they were growing here. Turns out they were making plantations of British people in Ireland. The central area of the town is shaped as a Shamrock. There was a pretty cool Castle there that is rumoured to have a tunnel linking it to an Abbey on the other side of the river, but I am not sure that anyone has actually proven that or not. There is a big information board near the information centre telling of the history of the town. It was a bit hard to follow though, as the history was in no particular order and there was no real theme to it. Ireland's first invasion is thought to have happened in the area, when some descendant of Noah landed here with his bandit friends. I found this a little confusing though, if Noah and his family were the only people to survive the flood then surely we would all be descendants of Noah.
One of the beaches around from Donegal. Almost as good as a kiwi bridge.
After a brief stroll around Donegal were were off again. We stopped for what we would call a cavery lunch in Killybegs, which is a nice little fishing town. The next place we planned to stop was the Cliffs of Slieve League. After a very scenic unplanned detour we reached our destination, we missed the turn on the first pass as a truck was parked in front of it. These cliffs are reportedly Europe's highest, from the bits we could see of them through the fog they looked pretty big, but I will have to take the information plaque's word about them being the biggest.
Looking out to sea from the Slieve Leagues.
And the famous cliffs themselves, who knows how high they tower into the fog?
Time was marching on and we still had a fair way to travel before reaching where we were staying. Whilst stopping for petrol it was decided that we needed some treats to keep our energy up. Well you can imagine my excitement when I found Toffeepops. Sad to say though that they didn't quite live up to expectations. They weren't as tasty as the NZ ones. Still, it didn't take us long to polish off the whole packet.
By the time we got to our B & B we were pretty tired. Since we only had three channels on the TV we weren't left many options. One was in Irish and the second was showing soccer so we watched the First Eurovision Dance Contest. It was pretty entertaining actually. The programme had the English footage with Irish commentary over it. The Irish woman was pretty serious about the dancing, but the guy was holding no punches, he was hilarious, no PCness at all about him. The NZ Dancing With The Stars guy was dancing for the UK, and was back with his old partner after they took a break. Next thing the Irish guy is going on about all the affairs he had behind her back and why they broke up. And when they were announcing the vote totals of each country, an unbelievably long and boring process, he added the comments that we were thinking but that you wouldn't ever say. What I thought was funny about the voting was that it somewhat reflected the political histories between the countries. The voting didn't really seem to correlate between the dancers ability and points but moreso how much each country liked the country in question, which explains how Ireland got third and Lithuania got tenth.
On the Sunday morning we went around Fanad Head, which was a very pleasant drive, and checked out some World War One lookouts. It really would have sucked to have been stationed in those places. They really were in the middle of nowhere, and the weather there sucked, and as Ireland only ever got invaded by the English a good 400 years previous, they really didn't have much to do except try and stay dry.
Fanad Head and a lighthouse.
We visited Rathmullan, which is celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Flight of the Earls. They had an exhibition in the town about it, but much to Matt's relief it was not open. To me it seems like a funny thing to celebrate. Your great leaders skipping the country in your hour of need with their nearest and dearest. But well each to their own I guess.
Rathmullan.
At most towns we past, the pubs were advertising Sunday Cavery Lunch. We decided after yesterday's yummy and good value meal that that is what we would do for lunch. So, we stopped in Buncrana at the pub/hotel, and asked about the cavery. The guys took us down a rabbit warren hallway, where we saw four buffet tables laden with food. So, instead of having a simple Sunday Roast, we ended up having a four course meal and barely being able to move afterwards (Matt - Ended up being an ironic contrast to the next place we went though...).
A small town on the way through. Can't remember the name, but they did have a nice river.
Over the course of the weekend I had to show a lot of restraint as there were a number of folk villages and museums in the county and I knew that we only had time to see one. And the time for the one had come. We went to the Famine Museum. It was a really good museum. At the start we were given a wee lecture of life in the area. There were a number of recreated houses from different time periods.
We learnt why we say 'He snuffed it', turns out when the deceased was lying in wake the family would put a plate of snuff tabacco on their chest. This served a dual purpose; By placing the snuff on the chest the family were able to sit and watch for any movement up and down of the plate to see if the person was breathing. It also meant that each person only got one lot of snuff, apparently people went crazy for the stuff and couldn't be trusted not to use the lot. We also learnt how someone would have the unenviable task of biting the person's toe to make sure that they were dead.
One thing that did puzzle me a bit was why people didn't fish more during the famine. Well it turns out there was a biblical sized storm a year or two before the famine and that most fishing boats were destroyed.
Then there were a series of Diaramas reconstructing the types of places that people would have lived in the past. My conclusion was being a solo mother back in the day would have been very bad times. They kinda just lived in the side of a hill. They were considered to be very unlucky people, and in general were pretty shunned by society.
We also learnt where the term 'Breaking and Entering' came from. The landlords charged fairly steep rents. And when a family fell on hard times they were often unable to pay the rents and would be evicted. The landlord or his manager would then come along with some heavies and evict the family and nail boards across the door, telling them they were not to enter. If they did they would be charged with breaking the planks of wood and entering.
A single woman's pad back in the 1800's.
A doorway from the Famine Museum we visited.
We have all talked of 'Daylight robbery'. Well, this phrase also had in origins on the Emerald Isle. Landlords used to charge tenants tax on any windows on the property, they were taxed according to number and size of the windows. So, tenant's houses would be built with few or no windows and the Landlords had effectively robbed the daylight from their tenants. Often landlords would also tax chimney's, leading to smoky houses and high instances of lung diseases.
I have written before about the famine walls, the seemingly crazy walls that exist in places no animal would ever want to go. I always thought that these were pretty silly things. But as 'yer man' here pointed out, it was important to give the people in the food queues work to do and give them a feeling of purpose, otherwise the people distributing the food become little more than people farmers. The reason that the famine walls were made over and around barren, rocky, unfarmable hilltops was that there was a lot of rock just lying around up there and therefore the building materials cost nothing and hungry paddies didn't have to cart the rocks at all.
The Northern coast of Donegal.
The fortunes of Ireland have changed greatly in the last couple of decades. Some people don't remember or choose to forget the bad times. Others are very conscious of the fact that if Ireland's export markets close to them or the businesses that came into Ireland and brought jobs and wealth into the country leave then Ireland is once again in a dire position. In the past, the nation of England denied Ireland from having an export economy fearing it would compete with their own. But this time the shift would be Multi-National.
Time was ticking, and we still hadn't made it to Ireland's Northern-most point. Funnily enough, once we got to Ireland's Northern-most point we were able to look South into Northern Ireland. In block capitals the word EIRE was written on the grass, a war-time sign to tell bomber pilots were they were in the war and to tell them to keep going (Matt - Ireland was neutral, y'see). A lot of people had written their names with rocks from the sign but we were too cold to bother. There was another former military lookout there. I really feel for the soldiers stationed in these bases back in the day. The bases were in the arse end of nowhere, and nothing ever happened there.
A military fortification on the Donegal headland.
The Northernmost part of Ireland.
EIRE. In big stone letters, no less.
The last stop on our Northwest adventure was Grianan Aileach, a Ring Fort that was excavated/rediscovered early 1900's and rebuilt to its former glory. It is a seriously cool and impressive ringfort, by far the best that I have seen so far. The views from the top are amazing, it is definitely located in a an excellent strategic position.
The entrance to the Grianan Aileach ringfort.
Finally, it was a rather long drive home. I felt like I was in a car racing video game when I was dreaming. I could see the GPS in the corner showing what the upcoming road was going to be like, and in front of us all I could see was the lane of the road (it was dark). All in all though a great trip!
Labels: Donegal
posted by Abby at 6:25 AM
<< Home