Shannon Surprise

After dawdling at Doolin we once again headed inland towards the Lakelands, we are due to meet up with Louis and Niamh and our eldest son Joel along with my niece Mai, who are visiting them, in a few days.  Our first stop though, was a couple of towns, Ballyvaughan on the border of county […]

Around the Edges

After a couple of days inland it was back to the coast to go and see the most visited ‘natural’ attraction in Ireland. You may have heard of the Cliffs of Moher which are a ‘signature discovery point of the Wild Atlantic Way’ and in my opinion, probably one of the most overrated but maybe […]

Trees – food for the soul

We couldn’t leave the Dingle peninsula without visiting it’s namesake. Dingle is a Gaeltacht town, Gaeltacht being the term used to refer to those areas of Ireland where the Irish language (Gaelic) is still spoken as a community language, and its culture and traditions are very much alive  – not that we noticed any difference apart […]

Sandy Beaches & Rip Tides

Yesterday I sent a photo to my sister from a beach that I has just swam from, and she replied ‘Wow, I never thought Ireland was like that!’ And if I am honest neither did I, as I have already written every beach we come across is jaw dropping. I thought we’d seen the best […]

(Not) Hot Dogs & Gourmet Burgers

Taking a dog to Ireland if you intend to do a lot of mountain walks is not a good option, as I have said before there are limited public footpaths in Ireland.  Most of the land is privately owned and landowners/farmers do not give permissions to cross their land, unless it is a national park […]

Sláinte

Wow its been nearly a week since my last blog – we’ve just had 3 days off grid with no electric so limited Wi-Fi. We stayed at a beach site at the tip of the Beara Penisular called Allihies that had only basic facilities so very cheap! Another field owned by a farmer who turned […]

Sea Swimming & Cooking Gadgets.

Our journey along the south coast takes us through the area of Baltimore, the Mizen Peninsular and onto the Beara Penisular which has the county border of Cork into Kerry. I thought we had seen some of the best beaches already but little did we realise that we have only just scraped the surface of […]

West Cork Blackberries

Blackberries for breakfast again today – we have picked them every day since we have been in Cork and I am running out of ways to use them, so any ideas in the comments are welcome. I am sure this window of picking is going to close soon so we are making the most of […]

The Irish Black Stuff

Cork has the second largest natural harbour in the world and is the largest county in Ireland. The first potato was planted in Cork and you often see potato sellers along the roadsides as we see Strawberry sellers. Cork is also home to 2 Irish stout ales to rival Dublin’s Guinness. Beamish and Crawford (now […]

Wild Ireland Ways

There are two companies that operate the ferry to Rosslare – Stena line and Irish Ferries – there isn’t much difference between the two apart from Stena line operate out of Milford Haven and Irish Ferries operate out of Pembroke – so get that wrong and you could end up making a 15 min dash […]