On the Way to Donegal
We're just returned from our first holiday this year: we spent two weeks on the north west coast of Ireland, in County Donegal. I was going there to look at the place my Irish ancestors left in the 1840's when they emigrated to the West of Scotland. I hoped I would find out a lot more about them, but knew it was unlikely because most of the Irish records were destroyed either in their war of independence or in the civil war that followed. Still, I'm very pleased we went. Bill has always been a bit dubious about the wisdom of a Brit travelling to Northern Ireland, but we had zero bad experiences and found all the Irish people we met to be extremely pleasant.
This involved driving up to catch the ferry at Cairnryan (used to be at Stranrar) from Scotland to Larne, on the east coast of Ireland. We broke our drive somewhere on the coast of southwest Scotland in Galloway. We've joked that if Britain decides to leave the EU then surely Scotland will have another referendum and vote for independence. Then we would have an excuse to move to the southwest coast of Scotland, which is incredibly beautiful and seems to have better weather than we do in the northeast of England. Something about the Gulf Stream I've never got the gist of.
The campsite was miles from anywhere and there wasn't much to do except walk on the beach and investigate the building (a farm house as it turned out) around the corner.
An entirely pleasant way to spend the evening.
4 comments:
Beautiful! I do love reading about your travels. And of course I have to ask, did you have any particularly good meals or comfort foods on this trip?
Hi Revanche! Thanks for stopping by. I remembered that you said you liked my travel posts. I tend to think of them as the modern version of the old slide show parties that everyone seemed to hate, so I'm always surprised to hear you like them. Good meals: we ate mostly 'at home' but fell into the habit of shopping for the main course every day...and it tended to be things like smoked salmon, pork chops, sausages and even steak. A pretty luxurious change from our usual beans, chicken, fish. And there was a fantastic meal on our way back. I had smoked salmon (served with rocket salad and heavy rye bread and real butter), the best roast duck I've ever eaten (served with green beans, asparagus and mangetout and potato croquette); we had red wine and split a cranachan for dessert: this one had oatmeal, honey, cream, raspberries, crushed meringue and probably some whisky in there...
Oooh, Ireland! I must go, as you did, to "research" the family history. It looks & sounds wonderful.
Hi, Indigo! It was wonderful - but I'm no further forward on my family history!
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