The one thing we’ve decided about Ireland is that everything is so Irish.  All the documentaries, all the stories, all the stereotypes, all the generalisations and jokes, all the stuff in the news, all the myths and legends, all the books and songs and poems about Ireland are all true.  Ireland has spectacular coastlines, Ireland has lush green rolling fields speckled with cattle and sheep, Ireland has a messed up history, Ireland has the most friendly and jovial people in the world, Ireland has horrible weather, it’s all absolutely true.  And we were neck deep in it all and loving it.

Let’s start with the weather.  Every day is an adventure with the weather and if we don’t like what is served up to us we only have to wait a few minutes for it to change.  Drenching rain, howling wind, moments of sunshine, asphalt grey skies, rinse, repeat.  And the Irish just walk around in short sleaves like it was a Sydney summer’s day. 

And speaking of the Irish, they are such a hoot to talk to, talkative, friendly, funny, seriously curious about our travels, amazed at Tramp and our whole camper setup, asking a million questions, telling jokes, even giving me beers in our campsites.  I really can’t understand much of what they say but it all seems very friendly.

We left the Antrim coast, everything so perfectly green and very Irish, after visiting two more castles perched on the rocky outcrops and pulled into the quintessential Northern Irish town of Londonderry (if you’re Protestant/English) or Derry (if you’re Catholic/Irish).  We preferred Derry because it seemed more local and authentic.  Derry played a major role in the Troubles in the 1970’s and 80’s and still has sort of a tough-going feel about it.

But Derry has a wonderful wall around the core of its city, first built in the 17^th century an superbly maintained to this day.  Julie and I had a delightful walk all around the city walls, stopping at times to look down on modern Derry, other times absorbing the history of this hard-working town.  Good luck to you, Derry.

We left Northern Ireland without even a sign to announce changing countries, moving back into the European Union or changing currencies.  All that fuss a couple of years ago with Brexit and how they were going to treat this border seems to have come to nothing – they almost pretend it doesn’t exist.  We can see how the locals just sort of get on with it, waiting for the politicians to sort out something they’ve sorted out a long time ago.

We headed north up onto the Inishowen Peninsula, a large thumb of land that makes up part of the county of Donegal.  The peninsula has towns with unusual names such as Muff, Footburn, Inch and Letterkenny but most of the signs were in Gaelic, as if this magical world is never visited by anyone else.

We wound our way along single lane roads, with barely a tidy whitewashed farmhouse or contented sheep to be found, and free camped that night on Kinnagoe Bay, a stunningly beautiful hidden beach that we only had to share with a few local dog walkers.

Julie and I are into what I call ‘superlative travel’ which basically means if anything is the highest, longest, northernmost or biggest we have to be there (to be fair, this is more me than Julie).  So Malin Head, the northernmost point of the Emerald Isle was on our list and from the point we could see the start of the North Atlantic Ocean all around us. 

And on a surprisingly clear day where temperatures reached a scorching 21C (72F) we dined out on driving through beautiful rolling green hills, through neat little communities where not a blade of grass was out of place, crossing the causeway to Inch Island for lunch amongst the seabirds and arriving in the late afternoon at Glenveagh National Park.  Glenveagh is an almost treeless track of dramatic mountains rising and falling with the tectonic plates of the past, lakes forming in the cleavages of the mountains, everything stunningly beautiful.

Set on the shores of one of the lakes is a 19^th century castle built by some uber-rich land baron and we walked the four kilometres along the lake’s edge to check out this majestic structure in the middle of such a beautiful place.  As we’ve come to learn, the Irish love their castles and this one was certainly impressive.

We headed back to the coast and ended up in a hotel carpark on the water’s edge, enjoying a fabulous Saturday night dinner in the hotel, taking on the Guinness with enthusiasm and enjoying peat-smoked haddock caught locally that morning.

The county of Donegal is known for its sparse population, barren interior and jagged coastline.  The coastline particularly drew us in as we hugged the shore around every inlet and bay, stopping for photos or to walk along a desolate beach. 

Along the way we found two stunning coastline features – the Silver Strand beach, a perfect crescent-shaped beach surrounded by steep imposing cliffs, and Sliabh Liag, a nearly 3,000 foot cliff reaching down to the ocean.  We walked out 2.5 kilometres out to the viewing area of these amazing cliffs, said to be some of the highest in Europe, and gaped at the height of these near-vertical cliffs.  Really special.

After a couple of days of delightful t-shirt weather we woke to more traditional Irish gloom and drizzle.  We’ve loved exploring the county of Donegal, the wild and wooly part of Ireland’s north coast, but we moved south, stopping off in the town of Donegal to check out its castle, first built in the 13^th century, and then down near Sligo to visit Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery, a place where some of Ireland’s first inhabitants lived and died over 5,000 years ago.  Julie and I enjoy this super-old stuff, trying to image how these primitive people lived in such a challenging place, and this ancient cemetery was absolutely top drawer. 

The highlight of the day was a drive out to Downpatrick Head, a lush green promontory sticking out into the sea, which features a huge sea stack.  Nearly 50 metres high and standing tall and free just off the ragged coastal cliff, the stack is a spectacle in itself but there are other fabulous sections of the cliff nearby and as the sun shined for us again we reveled in this breathtaking scenery.

We camped that night behind Hendry’s Pub in the nearby town of Ballycastle and enjoyed another round of Guinness, the locals marvelling at our travels and telling us off-colour jokes. A fitting way to end another week in beautiful Ireland.  And the best part of it all, everything has been so Irish!