For our final day in Ireland we headed back toward Dublin, passing (and salivating at) the sight of the Magners and Bulmers factories near Clonmel, including a great number of tall vats filled with the good stuff.We stopped in Kilkenny for some lunch (yet another soup and sandwich combo, a fave of pubs/cafes in the UK) and a look at the very picturesque castle right in the centre of town.Kilkenny was quite an attractive town overall, and probably one we'd like ...

We were up and away early on day five of the tour, headed straight for Blarney Castle in an effort to beat a much larger tourist group who were headed there from a cruise ship.The ploy seemed to work as we visited the castle with only dribs and drabs of other tourists in sight, and puckered up to kiss the Blarney Stone and apparently inherit 'the gift of the gab'.Looking at the stone, it's quite off colour and dirty looking compared to the surrounding, less pop...

Day three AM was spent exploring the great views and landscapes of the Dingle Peninsula, this provided arguably he best scenery we'd seen thus far on the trip. The town itself had a large amount of pubs and seafood options for lunch, while consistently touting one of it's main tourist attractions, Fungie the Dingle dolphin. Tours are promoted with a deal of 'money back guarantee if you don't see Fungie !' It was around about this particular day that one of the ...

We headed south from Galway with our key stop for day two being the Cliffs of Moher.We made a few stops along the way to see more ruins before stopping at a wishing well, where whoever stands on the stone to make their wish must throw a coin backward, over their shoulder and into the well.Should your coin miss, you risk the reverse of the wish coming to fruition, and the conversion rate amongst our group was not high to say the least. Despite the inclement weat...

We began the Paddywagon tour as two of just six people doing the six day tour of southern Ireland, although soon merged with a much larger group doing a ten day tour of all of Ireland.The group of six of us worked well, given this was the size of many of the dorm rooms we had to share along the way.Our four new friends included Reid and Kim from Canada, Jess from South Africa and Thomas from Holland.An opening day highlight was our first tour guide, Mike, who w...