Slieve League and Carrowmore

On Tuesday Oct. 2 we bopped around Donegal for part of the day, using an internet cafe, seeing Donegal castle (which we drove around three times because we couldn't find it behind the trees and the wall, and then couldn't find the parking), and doing a wee bit of shopping.

I tried to call a woman near Carrick on Shannon. I'd been given her name by a friend but the one thing we never mastered were the phones. It was a phone booth on the street. I tried punching the number. I tried putting money in. I tried various buttons on the phone and only got the long distance operator who I couldn't hear anyways for all of the traffic.So we never did see Bee, but then we didn't pass through her area.

Slieve League was past Killybegs, west of Donegal. We drove out and it was a meandering drive along or near part of the coast. This was tweed country, lots of sheeps and a few tweed shops that we stopped in, partially for directions. So we drove and drove and weren't sure if we there so we asked a man, dressed in that classic old Irish attire of cap, tweed jacket, baggy pants and wellies. In Ireland the standard greetings is "How are you doing?" This man was walking along the small village road. I believe there might have been a total of 20 cottages at most and it was at the end of nowhere.

He said we were on the right road for Slieve League and as it turned out it was only about five minutes past that village, and dead ended there. We were high on cliffs and below was a long reddish sand beach. It was a long hike down the stairs and would have been a long sweat up. We didn't go down as it was getting late in the day.

As we drove back we found the sign to the Bunglass cliffs (which I think really were higher than the others). Since the guy at the tweed shop had mentioned them we decided to go check them out. I'm sure if my sister realized what we were getting into she would have said, skip it.

We drove through a village as tiny as the one at Slieve League, passing dogs, goats and chickens all running about the road. We rounded a corner where the family working in their yard kind of stared at us like we were mad. Then began the ascent.

At first it wasn't too bad but then it wound higher and higher. And then we were on a hairpin where you looked across to the other side of the hairpin with nothing but cliffs done the curve. My sister, who is terrifed of heights, said not a word, breathing heavily and grasp the car door handle so tight I thought she'd take it off.

It was in fact fairly treacherous. I was only going about 5km and if we'd met someone coming the other direction, I'm not sure what we would have done as it wasn't big enough for two. Plus there were the two spots where the car pointed straight at the sky and I had to take it on faith that there was road on the other side. It was easier going down and a pretty good view.

Ireland 2007--Slieve League & Carrowmore

We then started beetling south to outside of Sligo. We wanted to do the Carrowmore passage tombs and thought we go that far for the night and have a head start in the morning. Regrettfully I saw nothing of Galway. We made an error this night by being far too late in travelling. It was dark by the time we ended up in the vicinity and I think we were near Lough Arrow because there was coast on one side. But it was so dark we couldn't see a B&B anywhere and finally found a small pub/tavern with rooms upstairs. It was dirty but it was cold (no heat), the shower didn't work in my sister's room and the rooms were so small we had to lift our suitcases over the bed. We did find a little restaurant farther in (if we'd known we could have checked that area for rooms) that had fairly good food. Many places did a combo course of appetizer and/or dessert plus a main course, so for 25 euros it was okay.

In the morning, Wednesday, we trotted off to Carrowmore and with the customary few wrong turns (though not many) found Carrowmore just as it was opening. And it rained quite heavily while we were walking through the fields. Not as impressive of Newgrange, still I found it interesting and the number of graves brought such a sense of time and history. We finished in under two hours, soaked to our knees, so we changed in the bathroom and then drove on. (I forgot to remove my duplicats so a few pictures will look the same.)

Newgrange and Knowth

Ireland 2007--Newgrange & Knowth

We left Dublin on the 28th of Sept. However, trying to navigate out of a city that's centuries old with winding streets and missing signs was quite a challenge. The 15-minute drive from the car rental place to our guesthouse took an hour and a half.

The guesthouse gave us directions north on the N1 when in fact the map showed that we really wanted N2 to get to Newgrange. Part of the problem is that here you have a map that fills your lap. It's of all of Ireland. A map even of BC would mean hours of driving so our sense of size and distance were skewed.

On top of that, let's say that Dublin tourish has good maps. They list some of the more known sites. They list major roads and smaller subroutes or connector roads. However, the sites are sometimes before a town when they're shown as being in the town, or north of a place when shown to be west of a place. Some of those connector roads don't connect to anything but a playground while there are new routes not listed anywhere on the map. We had three maps and none were accurate or super helpful.

We took N1 with my sister driving and I kept trying to navigate us back to N2. What a mistake. We did end up in a subdevelopment, a schoolyard, on the M1 and back to still being on the N1 (which can disappear become the M1 and then R125 or something and then back to being the N1. All this plus navigating the many roundabouts any time there is a road leading in a different direction. We were told to turn at a cemetery by a local at one point and either she'd never been up that road in years or they moved the cemetery, bodies and all.

So, eventually with half the day gone after starting at 11 am to get the car, we made it to the Huntsman Inn somewhere around four. We stopped in because it looked cute except for the scary horse thing outside. Thatched roof and a few hundred years old, it seems it was competing as the oldest pub/tavern/restaurant. We saw several of these signs and had while in Dublin had a drink at the Stags Head and the Braven Head pubs, both the oldest for something. Though nice staff I had truly awful onion rings with soft doughy outer layer and soft, too fleshy wings. Blech.

Revitalized and coming to realize that though it's a short distance through Ireland, it's not a fast ride, we continued on. We even found Newgrange all by ourselves...but about a half hour too late to get into that day. So we drove along the road to Slain (Slane) and asked there about B&Bs. We stayed at the lovely little Roughgrange home of Irene and her husband, mere minutes from Newgrange, itself a 17th century grange (form of ranch house). We trotted off to Donore for dinner in a pub and had fairly acceptable food with a few massive potatoes.

The next morning we decided to stay a second night as we had plenty in that area to see and drove off to Newgrange. Only done by tour (not enough time as far as I was concerned) we went first to Knowth (nowth for pronunciation). This was the first of many experiences with the stones of Ireland. Knowth and Newgrange are megalithic (or neolithic depending on the info) passage tombs that date back 5-6000 years. These were Stone to Bronze age cultures. Knowth's chamber was bigger and there were several mounds of varying sizes.

There have been upgrades to the mounds as over the centuries they were farmed or even had small villages starting up on the top of the mounds. Excavation was needed to bring back the kerbstones which are made of a stone called greywacke (greywacky). I believe only one was missing. In most of the passage tombs there is an alignment to one of the solstices or an equinox. As well cremated human remains were found and in some the bodies of several people. Archaeologists know these were used for ceremonial or ritual purposes in the earliest days. Knowth and Newgrange are the oldest manmade structures in the world.

The sense of age and history is immense. I could almost see the people moving amongst these revered mounds of long ago, imagine the importance of sun and rain and the turning wheel of the seasons. This was the beginning of a growing sense of stone in Ireland, as if I was being etched, like the whorls and swirls that were set in these kerbstones of long ago to endure weather and touch, and the changing of culture and times.