| Days to savour
Malcolm Rogers chooses 10 unmissable days out and evenings in from his list of indispensable jaunts in Ireland.
 A dunk in Donegal
Donegal’s coastline faces the full rigours of the North Atlantic, which might not be good news if you want to sunbathe, but excellent news if you’re into whitewater sports.
The award winning surfer’s paradise of Rossnowlagh and the white horses of the Bloody Foreland continue to draw the keenerst of surfers and wind-surfers from across the globe.
Wind, as you might imagine, is never really a problem, and as you have to near enough wear a wetsuit at any time of the year up here in these northerly climes, the real enthusiasts continue throughout the year.
And what could be more enticing than the thoughts of a bracing day on the waves followed by an evening in front of the fire with a hot whiskey in your hand.
Surf, turf and a hot toddy. What more could a waterbabe ask for?
- Go to: www.discoverireland.ie
Get stoned in Tyrone
If you have to visit one prehistoric monument, forget about Newgrange. Head instead for Tyrone.
The county is littered with Neolithic stone circles. Halfway between Cookstown and Omagh is the Creggan Visitors’ Centre, where 44 monuments “of prehistoric significance” have been identified within a five mile radius of the centre.
Guides and maps are available within. Particularly worth seeing are the Dun Ruadh tombs and stone circle.
Cruise the coast
Go motoring in the North, along the Antrim Coast Road. This route along Ireland’s north eastern seaboard is reckoned today to be one of the most spectacular roads in the world, in the same company as the San Bernardino Pass in the Alps or the Monterey-Carmel coast road in California.
The Giant’s Causeway, for centuries a geological wonder known only to kelp gatherers and sheep herders, is today famous throughout the world. Likewise, the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge.
But there’s also the wide sweep of Whitepark Bay and the almost impossibly picturesque Ballintoy Harbour.
Keep heading north and you eventually reach Portstewart Harbour, the enchanting place which led Omagh songwriter Jimmy Kennedy to compose Red Sails In The Sunset.
Yeats in life and in death
If you have to visit one country house, make it Lissadell House, County Sligo, immortalised by W.B. Yeats in verse.
The house itself is a large and austere Grecian Revival home beautifully situated amidst woods and glades on the north shore of Sligo Bay.
Lissadell is an essential stop because of its beautiful surroundings, its history — which includes being mortgaged during the Famine — and its literary connections.
Yeats is buried close by in Drumcliffe cemetery — a fine place to ponder mortality.
Denvir’s Hotel
If you’re looking for digs for the night in Downpatrick, try Denvir’s Hotel, one of the oldest hotels in the North.
In 1642 a retired soldier built this capacious coaching inn, and people have been enjoying the comfort and craic here ever since. Situated in Downpatrick’s handsome Georgian thoroughfare English Street, the hotel is just yards down the hill from Down Cathedral and the grave of St. Patrick.
It’s also within shouting distance of the old Downpatrick Gaol where The Man From God Knows Where (a United Irishman) was hanged, near the romantic Mound of Down, and has a splendid view across the Quoile River to Inch Abbey.
Downpatrick is just a few miles from the fishing village of Ardglass, so the sea bream and Dover sole sold locally are as fresh as the sea breeze that blows in from Strangford Lough.
n Denvir’s Hotel, 14-16 English Street, Downpatrick, Co. Down.
Telephone: 028 4461 2012. Double rooms will set you back about £55 per night.
Lake country
Take a trip through Ireland’s lake district in Galway-Mayo.
The watery area extends from the tiny village of Ballyglass to the north of Lough Carra, south along the shores of Lough Mask and Loughnafooey towards the northern tip of Lough Corrib.
This is a breathtaking panorama of unspoilt scenery, whether your viewing it from a car, boat or a pair of boots.
Offaly good fun
Take a tour round Offaly. This inexplicably over-looked area in the midlands is probably more like the Ireland of yore than the more traditional destinations of Kerry, west Cork, Clare etc.
Here in the stronghold of the O’Carroll clan are more than 400 castles, haunted houses, the sites of bloody battles, Neolithic stones, great wooded valleys, monasteries, friaries and pagan wishing wells.
For tours of Offaly, book with Leslie Parsons whose minibus will take you to every corner of that beautiful county. He’ll even pick you up at the airport.
n Telephone: 00 353 87 276 3565.
Down on the farm in Tipperary
Visit an organic farm in Tipperary, and experience a slice of agriculture, history, geography, mythology — as well as getting some great exercise.
At Fairymount Farm you can walk the fields, meet the animals, find out how our forefathers tended the crops, or merely chill out (or warm-up depending on the day) at one of the self-catering cottages on the farm.
John Kenny’s farm in Tipperary is not just an oasis of rural tranquillity, it’s a slice of history. The Famine bit hard here, and the disaster still scars the countryside in the form of Famine fields, Famine relief roads, and deserted cottages. Parts of Slí Dala (the Old Munster Way) meander through the farmlands — St. Patrick, Chief O’Neill and many less reputable people have traipsed across these lands.
- Fairymount Farm, Ballingarry, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary,
phone: 00 353 67-21139,
mobile: 00 353 87-2726729,
e-mail: kennyfrm@iol.ie
The beautiful Burren
ENJOY a unique slice of Irish countryside, the Burren in Co. Clare. It’s a harsh, strange, but hauntingly beautiful region that occupies most of the top north western corner of Clare.
It’s home to both Arctic and Mediterranean flowers filling the trenches (or grykes as they’re known locally) between huge limestone slabs. You’ll see nothing like it anywhere else in the world.
Where history sleeps
Pay your respects to Ireland’s dead in Glasnevin Cemetery in north Dublin. A large slice of Irish history is represented here — Michael Collins, de Valera, archbishops and cardinals, writers and poets, and the late lamented Luke Kelly. Irish history brought starkly into relief in front of your very eyes.
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