Leaving Dublin, Seeing Ireland

Deeper and deeper we drove through the Burren...

We had a First World Problem: My employer discourages carrying over holidays into the new year, so I had a week of vacation time that had to used. This sparked a search for a reasonably-priced tropical vacation, which didn’t seem to exist for us. We moved our search north, then farther north, then more north and found a deal to Dublin.

Dublin was on our bucket lists of cities to visit, but we had always thought of it was a weekender. With a week, we could go further afield to the Cliffs of Moher, which meant leaving Dublin and spending a few days in Galway.

When we arrived in Dublin, we did some sightseeing – Books of Kells, pubs, the Temple Bar, more pubs. After a day, we felt ready to leave Dublin for a day trip into the countryside. We spread out a handful of brochures from the tourist office and started reading.

There was a long trip to Belfast and the Giant’s Steps and the spot where they film the King’s Road in Game of Thrones – this thing about places where famous shows or movies are filmed would come up often on the tours. There were trips to Howth, which seemed much greener than Hoth, and to Cork. We chose a trip into the Wild Wicklow Mountains.

It wasn’t a bad choice. We drove along the old Military Road– built by the British to catch Irish rebels hiding in the mountains and now bringing tourists like us to locations where they film Vikings and the ruins of the Glendalough monastery.

We had the monastery to ourselves, since other tourists avoid the soggy Irish cold for warmer places that we couldn’t afford to fly to. It was also, to use some Irish slang, a ‘Soft Day’ – it was drizzly and mild, not rainy and cold. It was the perfect day to walk about the Medieval monastery. The park was surrounded by the tree-covered walls of the valley and the monastery's stone ruins were often shrouded in rolling mist.

Glendalough's ruined stone cathedral.

A "Soft Day" is a good day for a Discovery Walk around Glendalough.

We drove higher into the mountains. Away from modern civilization, deeper into the peat bogs and heath. The clouds got heavier and the fog thickened, so the landscape seemed almost primordial. 

Out of the bus' windows, we see shallow trenches through the mist where the turf cutters once did their work. From here, they dug up the preserved bodies of kings sacrificed to the gods when crops had failed.

Then the sun cleared as we came to some stone bridge from some movie you didn’t see, P.S. I Love You, which was a big deal for most people on our tour bus. Seriously, it was selfie city.

Very happy people on some bridge some from P.S. I Love You movie.

After a return to Dublin, for more pubs and pints and potatoes, we took a train to Galway with a long list of tips for more pubs, live music, culture, and Discovery Walks from an Irish friend we know in Budapest.

Our mission in Galway was the Cliffs of Moher, so we stopped by the tourist office to book a tour the next day. The lady widened her eyes in surprise. “No,” she said. “The weather will be awful. They have flood warnings all over the country.” She gave us a look as if we should've known that – the Irish pay close attention to their weather. That day was the only day we could go so, hoping for some of the Irish luck, we booked the tour for what might be a flood day.

The rain lightened overnight, but it was by no means a "Soft Day." It was cloudy and it was raining off and on. But all the fog and clouds just added to the ancient, neolithic feel of the landscape we were driving through.

The Poulnabrone dolmen, a portal tomb older than the pyramids.

The name of this place was the Burren, and it was barren. The hills were covered with grey limestone with the occasional granite boulder left by retreating glaciers eons ago. It felt older than old. Overgrown stone ruins dotted the landscape. There were some farms, but we saw no one out and about.

Somehow, people have been eking out a living here for thousands of years. We visited an tomb that was older than the pyramids. When we arrived, our bus driver warned us that to avoid curses, we should not walk around it counter-clockwise or take any rocks with us.


It was windy and cold and rainy. So, while half the tourists stayed in the bus, a small group of us ventured out to the Poulnabrone dolmen. Once again, with the time of year, we had the site to ourselves... aside from the cows that chewed their grass and watched us as we walked around the haunting stack of rocks clockwise and snapped photos.

Walking on the Karst 

As we approached the Cliffs of Moher, the tour guide kept looking towards the ocean as he drove, pointing out the mist rolling in. He said we might not even see the cliffs. Sometimes, he said, the fog was so thick, you couldn't even see in front of you.

We got to the cliffs and, to our relief, we could see them. They might be majestic and awe-inspiring and completely Instagram-friendly on one of those rare sunny days in Ireland. But in the horizontal rain and the howling wind, with patches of fog rolling in, the Cliffs of Moher were one of the most beautiful things you could lay your eyes on.

They tower hundreds of feet over the ocean below, stretching on in either direction, like stone waves laid down vertically, one cliff rolling out after another in the distance,

In the rain, the ocean takes on a grey colour, which makes the green clifftops and black-ish brown of the cliff faces stand out even more. As you take it all in you see the layers of limestone on the cliff-face, the green mossy patches, and the little blips that are people standing at their edges.

Of course, I feel lucky. We would not have seen all of these wonderful things if we only went to Dublin for a weekend. If we hadn't had that week of vacation to burn, we'd have stayed in Dublin for a weekend and miss out on the rest of the country. I'll take a First World Problem if it means an incredible trip like that.