TELGEN
VACATION REPORT
Ireland, July, 1999
We thought the best way to begin our second year of residence
over the Atlantic was to take a trip to England's lovely neighbor, the Republic
of Ireland. (It helped that we were invited to a wedding there, but it was high
on our list to begin with.) We spent a week driving around Western Ireland,
visiting six counties along the way. During our travels, we saw a few historic
sites (we actually stayed in a converted military barracks) and went through
some pleasant towns, but the main attraction was the scenery. There's a very
good reason that Ireland is called the "Emerald Isle," since the
hills, fields, and mountains are covered in greenery.
Our first day was spent in County Donegal,
where we drove through hills, visited beaches, and saw plenty of sheep. (It
wouldn't surprise me if there were ten sheep for every person in Ireland; a
common postcard we saw was a picture of a flock of sheep in a road, labeled
"Irish Traffic Jam." We were caught in at least two such tie-ups
during our travels.) This picture here is of a waterfall near Maghera in Co.
Donegal. As you can see by the tiny figures on the bottom left, you could
actually walk up to the rocks and test the water for yourself. The strange
thing (for me) was that not half a mile from this rocky hill was a beautiful
sandy beach. After a week or so spent driving around the Irish landscape, the
seeming incongruity didn't seem so strange after all. There are hills
everywhere, especially near the coast, and plenty of opportunities to see
erosion in action.
One of the interesting differences we noticed between England
and Ireland (besides the landscape) was in the treatment of monuments. In England,
you can't turn around without finding a sign for an old manor or church or
castle or cemetery—or even just something along the lines of "Someone
Famous Slept Here." There are at least two national organizations that
work to conserve historical sites. In Ireland, however, there seems to be a
more laissez-faire attitude toward these kinds of places. So sometimes your
only clue to finding something that looks interesting might be a little dot on
the map. While you may spend a lot of time getting lost—and we did, driving
back and forth around a point on the map and following signs on the road only
to find the landmark was unmarked—there are fewer gauntlets of entry fees, car
parks, and gift shops to run. One place that was very clearly marked was Kylemore
Abbey, located near the Connemara National Park in County Galway. As this
picture hints, the Abbey has a spectacular setting: at the end of a sizeable
lake (Kylemore Lough) and at the foot of a wood-covered hill. It was built in
1864 as a family home (!!) and later came into the possession of a Benedictine
order of nuns. Today it's a boarding school, but you can tour several rooms of
the Abbey, as well as take a walk through the grounds to the Gothic chapel
nearby.
Of all the beautiful scenery we saw in Ireland—and we saw some
every day of our stay—perhaps the most astounding was along the coast of Achill
Island, at the westernmost point of County Mayo. As you take the "Atlantic
Drive," as it's called, you follow many twists and turns along the rocky
coast. In this picture there's quite a bit of room between David and the
cliff's edge, but in other areas you can take two steps and look a lo-o-ong way
down. In the distance you can always see one of the three hills of the island,
the tallest of which is 2200 feet high. You can actually drive to the top of
one of them and get even more incredible views of the countryside, with its
hills, harbors, rocks, and beaches—if you can see through the cloud cover, that
is. We'd definitely recommend a holiday in Ireland to anyone, and will try to
get back there again sometime if we can. But there are still so many places to
see, so stay tuned for our next report!
Copyright © 1999 by Diane
Telgen. All rights reserved.