Bru na Boinne: We had left visiting this prehistoric area till last and we were glad we had. It was so good that all other prehistoric sites would have paled by comparison and we would not have enjoyed them as much as we had. The area is north-west of Dublin. Two main sites are able to be visited - Knowth and Newgrange. These are megalithic burial sites, Passage Tombs, dating back to between 4000 and 5000 BCE. They can only be reached through the visitor c...

Northern Ireland: In Dungloe, we met a fellow camper who had travelled from his home in Northern Ireland. On asking where we were headed next, we replied Northern Ireland. Oh dear he said, do you realise what date it is tomorrow... it's the 12th of July, the marching season when the Orange men march in the streets and all the Catholics get upset and riots happen. He and his family, and loads of other Northern Irish judging by the numbers on the road, just pr...

The Far North On the Inishowen Peninsula, the most northerly part of Donegal and of Ireland, we came across a 'Famine Village'. The blurb said it was a reconstruction of the times of the Great Famine of the mid 1800s. It was one of the oddest tourist attractions we have ever seen. Yes, the Famine was covered in rather amateurish tableaux, but there were also strange references to gypsies or travellers in Ireland, the 'Troubles', the Battle of the Boyne, the...

The North-West We now feel as if we are in the truly remote parts of Ireland - the north-west. After leaving Galway city, we drove along the coast road poking into little roads which lead to the many beaches along the way. Once we found a lovely remote beach, we decided to 'wild-camp' there for the night. We had been talking about doing this for a while but it was only in the less sparsely populated regions that we had thought we could find good spots to sta...

Galway City: Galway City was a short local bus ride from the campsite at Salthill, a western beachside suburb. Local buses always seem to go a circuitous route and so we enjoyed a tour of the 'burbs of Galway before arriving at the central Eyre Square in town. Galway is a small town (though the third largest in Ireland) and getting around is easy and remarkably quick. The shopping precinct is all pedestrian, with the streets closed to traffic after 10am. We ...