8/18/2019 Road trip, not roots trip, in the West of Ireland
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Road trip, not roots trip, in the West of Ireland
BRUCKLESS, Ireland Many visitors to Ireland make the trip in
search of bicycle tours ireland
heritage, tracking down ancestors in obscure villages and
wandering through ancient churches,
pursuing the dream of a verdant, pastoral homeland. This year,
Ireland is promoting this pastime
with The Gathering, a tourism initiative of some 2,500 local
events and ancestral reunions calling theIrish diaspora back.
But on a visit to Ireland last summer, despite my Irish blood,
my wife and I decided to do a road trip
rather than a roots trip. We set out for a week of pastoral
rambling on the open road or rather, the
precipitous, cliff-hugging road.
We planned two or three days each in Kerry, Connemara and
Donegal, connecting scenic drives
along with hikes to stretch our legs and pub stops to make them
wobbly. It was an ambitious haul
Ireland is about 486 kilometers (300 miles) top to bottom and we
left each county wishing to stay for
another few days.
We meandered from the seaside foodie capital of Kinsale in
County Cork, up to the Atlantic Ocean
inlet of Ardara in Donegal, Ireland's most northerly county.
Tracing a squiggly doodle, we swerved in
and out of the splayed peninsulas of the fingered coast.
Occasionally, at places like Tarbert in Kerry,
we cut a straight line on a ferry.
Ireland is mired in an ongoing recession following the collapse
of an economic boom, resulting in
prices that may seem low to tourists. But one lasting benefit of
the Celtic Tiger has been the work
done to the country's roads. New highways have been built, rural
roads paved and roadway fatalities
have steadily declined for years. American visitors might still
find the roads narrow, twisting and
backward (they drive on the left), but it doesn't take an
exceptionally intrepid traveler to thrill to the
scenic drives of the West of Ireland.
We had come from Dublin, but most tourists heading to Ireland's
West will find the Shannon Airport
outside Limerick and south of Galway the best entry point. Car
rentals there are inexpensive, about
100 euros or $133 a week for a compact with manual transmission
(automatics are available but cost
more). Drivers accustomed to sitting on the left will surely
find themselves jabbing the right-hand
driver-side door a few times while reaching for the stick
shift.
Our first drive was the world-famous Ring of Kerry, a green loop
of 179 kilometers (111 miles)
around Iveragh Peninsula. Its sheer variety of topography from
coastal peaks to inland lakes makes
it feel like a craggy playground of countless secret pathways.
You wouldn't be surprised if a hobbit
lived somewhere in Killarney National Park.
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8/18/2019 Road trip, not roots trip, in the West of Ireland
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The Ring of Kerry is also one of Ireland's biggest
tourist draws, with renowned spots like the Gap of
Dunloe and Ladies View. Tour buses line up
throughout the town of Killarney, their large rear-
view mirrors making them look like giant slugs
clogging up the road. But getting stuck behind one
simply provides reason for a detour to a random cove
or hiking trail.
Other rings in the area, as the circular driving routes
are called, include the Skellig Ring at the end of the
peninsula. The Skellig Ring offers a closer view of the Skellig
Islands, a UNESCO World Heritage
Site and home to a frighteningly steep sixth century monastery.
In the same neighborhood, in the
village of Waterville, is a different kind of oddity: a
bronze statue of Charlie Chaplin, who frequently
holidayed there.
The Ring of Kerry's northern neighbor, the Slea Head Drive,
though less famous, is its equal. It
starts outside the medieval hilltop town of Dingle (where Dick
Mack's offers one of the warmest pub
atmospheres you're likely to find), and takes you to the end of
the narrow, 47-kilometer (30-mile)
Dingle Peninsula. Out at Dunmore Head, the drive reaches a
dramatic crescendo, braced against a
cliff as it turns a corner and opens up to a view of a green
slope leading into the sea, where the
Blasket Islands stretch offshore.
It's a spot steeped in history, too, with monastic stone beehive
huts peering down from the hillside.
Exiting Dingle is no less breathtaking, maneuvering through
Conor Pass, Ireland's highest mountain
pass, toward Tralee.
From there, our trip skipped north, passing through the Burren,
known for its bizarre limestone
formations, stopping for dinner in Galway and carrying on to
Clifden in County Galway, which would
be our base for exploring Connemara. The area was the backdrop
for director John Ford's 1952
drama "The Quiet Man," which starred John Wayne as an
Irish-American reclaiming the family farm.
In Connemara National Park, we hiked to the top of Diamond Hill,
and continued the scenic drive
circuit with the Sky Road. Beginning on the north edge of
Clifden, the 12-kilometer (7.5-mile) route
rises to a staggering, wind-swept perch above Clifden Bay.
We made time for music in County Mayo's Westport (where Matt
Molloy of The Chieftains owns a
pub that nightly cooks up traditional Irish music) but soon
enough pushed north, past the dreamy,
foggy, glacier-carved Killary Harbour.
En route to County Donegal, we spent an afternoon in the town of
Sligo, which has grown in recent
years but has not lost its fine old pubs. (We enjoyed our
stop in one, Thomas Connolly's.) Sligo is also
famed as a place of inspiration for the great Irish poet, W.B.
Yeats. We paused at Yeats' grave in
Drumcliffe, just outside of town, where a tip led us to a less
heralded but unexpectedly charming
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Mullaghmore Head. It was short enough to
do on foot, and we caught it in the gorgeous late afternoon
light, which bathed the jagged shorelinein a tranquil glow.
This late light it can stay bright until 10 p.m. during the
summer frequently nearly did us in. Most
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