John Ó'Ríordáns Blog

Just got back from my holidays. Went from Cork to Dublin to Belfast to Derry to Galway. Good fun. Went to see Tara, Newgrange, Carrick a Rede rope bridge (where Lorri lost her shoe over the side!) and the Giants Causeway.

Everytime I went on holidays to different countries I met someone who had been to Ireland and they always asked me have I see the Giants Causeway, Newgrange or whatever. So I said the next time I had a week off I’d drive around the country.

Took some photos which can be viewed here.

Was well worth it, Newgrange and the Giants Causeway were fantastic and Derry is a great City! Second best City in Ireland in my opinion (after Cork of course). They really need to advertise more in the South. The walls are fantastic and the people are really friendly. More friendly than any of the other places we’ve been to in Ireland and that is some achievement. Probably because tourism is such a new thing as the area is only after quietening down recently. I would recommend it to anyone and I am going to go back the first chance I get.

If you do go the first thing you should do is take the walking tour. There is very little walking and it only lasts an hour. It really gives you a good idea where everything is and really sets you up for the visit. We had a tour guide called John who was a good guy and was more than happy to give us info on everything.

After that your next stop should be the Museum. One of the bests Museums I’ve visited. When we went in an employee called Jerry offered to show us around and we spent 3 hours in there talking and getting the history of the place (especially recent history) from him. Fantastic. Really got a feel for the place. And again he did it because he saw us showing a genuine interest in the displays. Really brought the history of the place together for us and I think I know more about the history of Derry now than my own city. Great view of the city from the top of it as well.

I would really recommend anyone to go to Derry. Its only around 40km from the border and the bars are full of lively friendly people. The City walls are great, they have a few good large shopping centres and the restaurants are nice.

One of the highlights for me was being able to see a British Army base being demolished when I was there. This base had something like 150 cameras pointing at the residents on the Bogside until recently.

Called into Galway on the way back to see Sean and DJ. Didn’t take many pictures though but some of the ones we have are funny. Especially the “fishing” one.