In the old days there were four flights; five on a bad trip. First we'd fly to Singapore or KL, wait around in a relatively decent airport for six hours or so, maybe visit the Butterfly Garden or book a hotel for a few hours if the transit was particularly long, maybe even splash out… Continue reading Ireland, after nearly four years
Category: Ireland
A flying visit to an unseasonally cold Dublin
Tina at the Sally Gap Flicking through an old Bank of Ireland calendar for ideas a few months prior to our trip, I got to May and saw a photograph of Lough Tay, called ‘the Guinness Lake’ in the calendar, at the Sally Gap in Wicklow, only to realise, with some surprise, I’d never been… Continue reading A flying visit to an unseasonally cold Dublin
Farewell to Clifden
On a cold February evening in 1999 I met my future husband in a pub on Main Street, Clifden. By the end of the year I'd moved to that little market town on the Atlantic, where I spent the next four years before moving back to Australia. As little towns in Ireland go, Clifden's not bad. Being a… Continue reading Farewell to Clifden
Ireland’s Heritage
One of the best things we did when we first arrived in Ireland was purchase a one year family pass from Heritage Ireland. For €60 we got a year's worth of monuments, castles and manor houses. We purchased it on our visit to Tintern Abbey and Colclough Walled Gardens last September down in Wexford. Since… Continue reading Ireland’s Heritage
St. Patrick’s Day Parade 2016
This year's parade was our first St. Patrick's Day Parade here in Dublin. Of course, having grown up here, I've been to my fair share of Dublin parades, but not for a long time. Not for twenty years or so. Looking up the east side of Parnell Square towards the Abbey Presbyterian Church. Well, I… Continue reading St. Patrick’s Day Parade 2016
The road to the sunny south-east
We’re on a mission to see more of Ireland, to go to the sorts of places, which, if we ever thought about at all when last we lived here over ten years ago, we would have dismissed as the sorts of places tourists went to. Places with castles and visitor centres, or interpretive centres, whatever they're called. Back then the new Ireland we… Continue reading The road to the sunny south-east
Mid-winter in Dublin
The holiday season is well and truly over and we've all settled back into our Dublin routines: the boys in school, myself in college and Ralph working in town. We're still on a bit of a high after our wonderful tour around Portugal and Spain over New Year's. If you're not from Australia or New… Continue reading Mid-winter in Dublin
Glendalough
We've been keeping pretty quiet lately since our last weekend away in Kerry. After school/work/study during the week it's tempting to just relax on the weekends. We've settled into a routine of strolling down to Dalkey village for coffee and a visit to the library on Saturdays and then spending the afternoon reading the papers… Continue reading Glendalough
To Kingdom Come
We looked on Couchsurfing recently for options for a two-day midterm break stay somewhere in Ireland, and Bert from the Netherlands got back to us. He lives just outside Abbeyfeale, in the county of Kerry, or 'The Kingdom' as they like to call it down there, so we thought: why not? That was far enough away to make it worthwhile going… Continue reading To Kingdom Come
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