Ireland - Home of blarney and craic
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2005
1
34
145
Trip End
Dec 31, 2008
Dublin,
Ireland
Monday, July 18, 2005
We chose to do a three day backpacker bus tour of the southwest and a one day tour to Belfast in the North with Paddywagon tours. The rest of our time was spent in Dublin. Besides being cheap Paddywagon tours proved to be an excellent choice. The other travellers were mostly young, friendly and wouldn't let us get to bed before 2.00 am - we had to go night clubbing with them! We stayed in hostel dormitories and our driver Don, Irish through and through, did the commentating as he drove the bus which included profanities when traffic cut him off etc
1 Irish Castle Ruins
. Plenty of "craic" (Irish for humour) with Don and the paddy wagon crew! We kissed the Blarney stone, wandered around Galway and Kilarney, saw lots of castles and Irish history, were overawed by the cliffs of Moher and danced in nightclubs to the early hours. Our day trip to Belfast, Northern Ireland was very much the perplexing part of Ireland. We became even more confused as to the politics/religion of Northern Island the more we learned. We saw for ourselves the huge dividing fence's ( barrier against lobbing Molotov's etc over) between residential homes of Protestants and Catholics. A few days before we were there, there had been a protest march which had turned ugly with people seriously injured. There are amazing graphic murals in both areas depicting their struggles. Basically the majority Protestants don't want the Catholics and are OK with remaining under British rule and have denied Catholics any political power. The Catholics don't want to move down to the Southern Republic of Ireland (nor apparently do the Republic really want them!) They just want to live where they have always lived. The Protestants arrived in the 16th century and were given huge tracts of land by Queen Elizabeth, so they don't want to go either. There is a peace of sorts now since the Good Friday agreement in 1998 and ultimately Northern Ireland will be moving towards self rule. The highlight of the day though was having lunch in a National Trust Pub which still has "snug" booths. These are wonderful little private booths, ornately decorated with a bell to summon the waiter. The waiter must only enter when summoned. Of course we had to go traditional Irish and have Irish stew with a pint of Guinness. We enjoyed a snog in our snug booth too!
Comments
Just to let you know...
What a lovely accurate description of a trip to Ireland!
Just one correction for you guys - it's a snug, not a snog. Snog is a kiss in Ireland. Snug is a cosy corner of a pub.
Also, down south we would welcome Northerners be they Protestant or Catholic. The hatred up there luckily has gone from the South (with the exception of the odd nutcase who is just looking for someone to hate).
Thanks for the feedback
Yeah, a snog is a kiss in Oz too, so figured thats what it was called. Anyhow have taken it on board and adjusted our text a little. As to the political one, your comments are pleasing, it seems the future maybe rosier. Thank you