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Ireland/Northern Ireland
  • Diana O
  • Diana O

Ireland/Northern Ireland

A 15-day adventure by Diana Read more
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  • Trip start
    June 19, 2024
    Diana OIreland/Northern IrelandTraveler

    PDX

    June 19, 2024 in the United States ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    International flights that don’t leave first thing in the morning rock. We had tacos for dinner last night, burritos for lunch, and mediocre but still tacos for dinner.

  • Diana OIreland/Northern IrelandTraveler
    Downtown on the river. Our hotel was also here.
    Trinity College.Storehouse tour pours. Another pint was also included and two vouchers for more pints.View from the seventh (eighth in freedom units) floor of the Guinness storehouse.The medieval palace that was turned into a modern palace via attached wings.Temple Bar.

    Dublin

    June 21, 2024 in Ireland ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    Dublin reminded me a lot of Portland, with worse food (save for the excellent Indian meal we had) and obviously a ton more tourists. The Guinness connoisseur experience was a lot of fun, however, and the Guinness storehouse is like the Disneyland of beer.Read more

  • Diana OIreland/Northern IrelandTraveler
    Neolithic art.
    One of the smaller burial mounds. The entrance is aligned east to catch sunrise.They hypothesize that the undulating part might be the river Boyne or a snake.This is called the sundial stone.View from the top of the large Knowth mound.Newgrange burial mound, which is larger than Knowth. Diana for scale.Over five thousand years ago people hung out here. They're just like us.It is nerve-wracking for driver and passenger to be driving on the wrong side of the car and road.

    Knowth/Newgrange

    June 22, 2024 in Ireland ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    I was really excited about this. Knowth, Newgrange, and a few other spots in this area are burial tombs from the Neolithic era - more than 5000 years old. We weren’t allowed to touch anything, and we weren’t allowed to take pictures when we went inside the tombs, but it was still great. We did get to stand on top of Knowth. This area holds the largest amount of Neolithic art in Europe.Read more

  • Diana OIreland/Northern IrelandTraveler
    Downtown is on an island in between two river branches.
    A monument to Irish independence.Incredible array of olives, cured meats, and cheese at the English market.A view of the English market, founded in 1792.A view of the much newer Marina market. We both had great meals here.

    Cork

    June 23, 2024 in Ireland ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Cork was an unexpected delight. We wandered in, wandered around, and found lots to look at and do. We didn’t get to tour the old gaol or the castle on the river, but still had a great time. The two different markets (one very old and one very new) were highlights.Read more

  • Diana OIreland/Northern IrelandTraveler
    Top view of the flooring they used to germinate the barley on prior to drying.The barley would be heated from below for about a week until it was malted.The water wheel that would power the grinders, located in the attached building.Grain storage. All floors would be filled to the ceiling. The metal plates were structural support.An old granite grinding wheel.The grinder itself.Storage tanks for the wort after it was created from malted barley, water, and heat.The largest copper still in the world. It goes about 5 feet under the floor.Visual of the aging process. The final product loses about 36% to evaporation after 10 years.

    Midleton

    June 24, 2024 in Ireland ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    Midleton was tiny. We came here for the whiskey tour (Jameson and several other brands are distilled here) but the town itself was a dud. Not a single restaurant had something that both of us could eat, and we walked the length of the downtown and back in ten minutes. The tour was great, though.Read more

  • Diana OIreland/Northern IrelandTraveler
    The fireplace in the entertainment hall. The floor was wood - you can see where it was held up.The Earl's extension to his private chambers, unusual for the time.One of the latrines. Just send it on down the side.A spot at the top to pour hot oil down.Ryan kissed the stone.A small watch tower.

    Blarney Castle

    June 25, 2024 in Ireland ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    Blarney Castle and its famous stone is only about 15 minutes outside of Cork, so we stopped by on our way to Limerick. It was a bit of a spectacle with a half hour wait to get to the top, but there was plenty to look at and placards explaining what we were staring at as we waited. I declined to kiss the stone.Read more

  • Diana OIreland/Northern IrelandTraveler
    Part of the Limerick riverfront.
    King John's castle.Under the castle. It was once sieged via mining tunnels dug under the walls and then collapsed.The whole castle was put together with tons of props and info for kids and adults alike.From the top of the walls.The church built in 1150 or so.

    Limerick

    June 25, 2024 in Ireland ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    A quick stop in Limerick to see what it was about since it featured in Angela’s Ashes. What an unexpectedly cute and bustling town! We stopped by King John’s castle, which was very fun, and walked around a bit before heading on to Galway.Read more

  • Diana OIreland/Northern IrelandTraveler
    The main part of Galway.There was some old stuff around town, which was neat.An old tombstone embedded in the wall of an even older church.The church was built in 1150 or so.This grave was of a Crusades-era knight, though they don't think he participated.The tan plaster was added in the 50s. It is slowly destroying the medieval-era stone underneath.Another view of the tourist area.One of the first things we saw when we got to the tourist area, a huge trash heap.

    Galway

    June 26, 2024 in Ireland ⋅ 🌬 19 °C

    Galway was kind of a bust. We only came because it was the logical halfway point between Kylemore Abbey and the Cliffs of Moher. The weather ruled out the Cliffs and then the fact that it was extremely hot in our Airbnb (and the AC it was advertised as having was not working) left me with about 3 hours of sleep, rendering me unwilling to navigate 2.5 hours of wrong-sided driving for Ryan. So instead we tried to walk around Galway, which turned out to be very small, very packed with tourists, and with very little to do aside from shop in generic tourist shops. Can’t win them all, I guess.Read more

  • Diana OIreland/Northern IrelandTraveler
    The Dark Hedges, also used in Game of Thrones.
    The rope bridge connects that small island with the cliffs next to it.Giant's Causeway.The hexagon columns made up the hills nearby too.Dunluce Castle. It was abandoned when part of it slid into the sea.Predictably, I liked the $90 bottle more than the $60 bottle.The peace wall. It has a gate that is closed and locked each night.

    Northern Ireland coast

    June 29, 2024 in Northern Ireland ⋅ ⛅ 14 °C

    In what was our most pricy event of the trip but also the most worth the money, we hired a private driver/guide to take us to some of the more remote attractions along Northern Ireland’s coast. We saw the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge from a distance, the Dark Hedges, Giant’s Causeway, the castle that (along with a lot of CGI) became Castle Greyjoy in GoT, and had a tasting at the Bushmill’s distillery. We also stopped by the Peace Wall in Belfast on the way back to our AirBnb.Read more

  • Diana OIreland/Northern IrelandTraveler
    Cannons from the 1600s atop the walls.This very cool building stands where the river used to be.Derry Girls mural.A cathedral from the 1600s.A tiny cathedral that was built in 1872 but has been a religious site since 1164.Original Derry is a walled city. View from the wall.Museum of Free Derry, giving one side of the history of religious conflict here.The Peace Bridge. Peace accords were reached in 1998 and this built in 2002.

    Derry

    July 1, 2024 in Northern Ireland ⋅ ☁️ 14 °C

    The only real reason Derry was on our mental map was because of the show Derry Girls on Netflix. This honestly could have been a day trip, as we exhausted the usual tourist attractions pretty quickly. Like most of Northern Ireland, Derry is quite segregated between Protestant and Catholics, this time divided by a river with the Peace Bridge connecting them. The religious tensions are still alive and well in the place Bloody Sunday occurred.Read more

  • Diana OIreland/Northern IrelandTraveler

    Dublin

    July 2, 2024 in Ireland ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    Returned to Dublin for our flight home and found ourselves immediately next to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which we hadn’t managed to hike out to during the first part of our trip. We also drank at a bar that is older than the United States of America, opened in 1619, though I didn’t get any pictures because it was quite crowded.Read more

    Trip end
    July 3, 2024
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