Saint Ernan's Country House Donegal

... no trail marked.

We then drove across the border to Northern Ireland and into the town of Derry (Irish) or Londonderry (Northern Irish or British). The old city of Derry is encompassed by walls that are 18 feet high and 20 inches thick. They were built in 1614 and 1619 and they have never been breached. It’s possible to walk around the city on the walls, and we started our walk just as a rain cloud passed over. We went into a coffee shop for a while, then John ...

... 8217;s landscape is wild with its dark stone mountains contrasting sharply with bright green pastures. There aren’t as many tourists as in the southern counties, and that’s fine with us. When we were on Arranmore, I told Neily and Mary that John had perfected his “one-finger salute”. Here, when you pass someone or they pass you, you raise your index finger from the steering wheel. Mary said in Donegal, they all drive with one hand ...

... the now fog-shrouded island. Neily got into his VW Beetle, and we followed him out. He had told us that Arranmore is twinned with Beaver Island, Michigan and Arranmore’s lake has a little concrete beaver island of its own. Neily took us there and out to the lighthouse. Each time we stopped, he’d get in our car and tell us what we were seeing. Finally, he said it was time to go back for tea--the poor man was getting soaked each time he got out of his ...

... then went into the water. The water looked so welcoming but it did not feel that way. Stephen had this idea that we all sprint in the ocean together everyone agreed exept Silas . So we went sprinting and then we wanted to sprint back out. The water was FREEZING!!! But we stayed in anyways but never got used to it. We body-surfed and played around and by the time we got out we ...

... beach where the sun shone. Touch rugby on the shore, while mad irish did their exercises in the freezing water. Patrick did have a wee swim - brave boy. We even managed to check out a 17th Century castle Castle Doe on the way back - but the wind got up, and rain came down. Back in time for a late lunch and then back to Coleraine with Alan, via Bryn's old mate Michael in Derry. A real treat to get to the South.

... castle was just perfect – it reminded me of one in a computer game I once played that took place in a haunted old hotel. It also reminded me a bit of the bar in “The Shining”. If I had a lounge bar, THAT is exactly what I’d want it to look like. They were playing a great CD of classic rock hits covered in jazz themes. So cool. We ate dinner there – a couple ...

... of the day was driving through northern Belfast, and the areas affected by "The Troubles" between Irish catholics and British protestants. We saw graffiti walls covered by political pictures, homes with either Irish or British flags in the windows to signify their allegiance, and the locations of previous bombings and violence. However, many of the homes had white lillies or white roses in the windows. I wondered if this was a sign that ...

Anything that followed on from Barcelona in terms of WOW-ing power was going to have it's work cut out - and although Donegal was quite the antithesis of the capital of Catalunya, it was still damn good fun! My mate Karl flew over from London for the long weekend and we were going to tag along with a group of KPMG secondees from Malta on a roadtrip through county Donegal. Now there are two important factors that I would like to point out as they contributed to the overall ...

For New Year's, Ross and I drove up to County Donegal, which is in the North-West of Ireland. Ross' brother and sister-in-law, Dara and Rachel, live up there and invited us up for the weekend. The night started at their friends' house for dinner, then we went to a nightclub to bring in the New Year. It was a fun night, but honestly didn't care what we did since I was with Ross. We brought in the New Year with a Champagne toast and a kiss!

... met yet!). Liam and Nora are the parents and looked to be in their late seventies, early eighties. Their children were Noreen, Paul, Moraid, Geraldine and I think Kieran. We stayed for the weekend at Noreen's house. She lives about 10 minutes outside Donegal Town in the country. On Saturday night we had an impromptu Halloween party with Paul playing bartender and a large amount of creative alcohol concoctions (I unfortunately, or fortunately in some light, was still being ...