blog d'europe: republic of ireland

after the slightly grey & grim northern ireland, when we rolled into the republic of ireland - it was as though we'd gone into a completely different country.

it was a switch from the uk into the european union, from pounds into euros. it doesn't sound like a dramatic change, but to the irish it means independence from britain. in this part of ireland, streetsigns are in both english & gaelic, as there's a much greater number of gaelic speakers here.

first stop: galway. aka university town, with 1/4 of the city's population being students. love galway. we had a great night here - pub, club & bar hopping our way across both eyre square and beyond. also had our first real meal for the trip, thanks to free spaghetti at our hostel. real food = a luxury!

the next morning, our guide conner asked us: "saw you guys had some good crack last night!" to which we all looked at each other a lil' confused. he then went on to explain that 'crack', or should i say 'craic' - means 'fun'. awkward..

we made our way across the countryside, with the famous dry stone walls of ireland to our left, and the vast atlantic ocean to our right. we visited several monastries & cathedral ruins on our way to the burren (stone country) - a part of ireland's west-coast that is, not surprisingly, very rocky. we had beautiful blue skies when we went, so we had an incred view out across the ocean.

next was the cliffs of moher, the famous 200ft sheer cliff-faces on the west-coast of ireland. when we first got here, mist was hanging over the cliffs - giving them quite a spooky feel. when these cleared, we had more blue skies and sunshine. love! passed a beautiful afternoon by the seaside in lahinch, with hot vegetable soup & roast chicken and pesto paninis in a little café overlooking the beach.

we stopped over in quaint adare, with it's thatched-roof houses & water fountains...and the token village church, before visiting knock, where there was an apparition of the virgin mary in 1879. the village consists of nothing but a cathedral, a few cafés, then about a hundred souvenir shops filled with religious paraphernalia. i'm talking rosary beads with diamantes on them...

we stayed in picturesque killarney, with horse & cart rides through the cobble-stone city. that night we hit up a pub with live music and a lead singer who looked suspiciously like peter garrett.. then at 12, the band disappears and all of a sudden there is a door leading out the back to an adjoined club. gotta love the irish.

with all of us running on a steady 4 hours of sleep p/night, it was well relaxing to spend the next day beach-hopping along ireland's south-coast. first dingle peninsula bay, then frolicking around the coastal town of dingle - followed by lamb & mint yoghurt souvlaki's from dingle market. all of this with the warm spring sun shining down on us. mmmm, perfect! all around dingle, you'll find statues, photographs, drawings & dedications to a dolphin called 'fungi'. he's a dolphin who swims into the bay and frolicks around in the water - the locals from dingle love him. whatever floats your boat, guys..

one of our last visits was to blarney castle, where lies the famous (or infamous?) blarney stone. we all trekked up a ridiculously steep & narrow stone spiral staircase in the castle that was built in the 13th century. why, you must be asking? to kiss the 600 year old blarney stone, of course - which, by doing so, gives you the gift of irish eloquence. this involves lying down on your back and kissing the stone upside down. the stone itself has been kissed so many times that it has a worn indent in it. according to lonely planet, locals are rumoured to take a slash on the stone. did this put me off? nah...

with that, our exhausted bunch of gappies jumped back on the bright green paddywagon one last time - en route back home to dublin. everyone say 'paddywagon!'....

is grá liom éire!