There are, as yet, no Shell Ultra Cities in Ireland. You do get used to them, travelling our South Africans roads and highways. But cast your mind back to childhood, perhaps, and you’ll probably remember stopping off at some sleepy town, finding some sleepy garage where you could use the facilities. Back then it was rather an adventure, trying to find a place to do your business.
Travelling around Ireland and Northern Ireland by mini-bus reminded me in so many ways of times past. Popping into a small general merchant store I was reminded of my childhood, when each stop was an adventure. We entered the tiny, cramped store of a Mr N Collery, a tall, elegant man behind the counter. There were fridges of frozen foods, racks of sweets and crisps and chocolates, all the ubiquitous paraphernalia of a general store - including the facilities tucked discretely behind the door. But glancing up, there is something you’d never find in a roadside facility in South Africa: teats for lambs. How handy.
I drifted into another cramped room. Elvis, a black and white cat, sprawled on an old worn, dusty pink sofa. A group of men crowd around a TV set, watching soccer. I feel like I have landed on a movie set of old Ireland. Still, there was my group to return to. I gave Elvis a scratch under his chin, and walk back into the 21st century.
Only later did I realise how neatly this pit-stop sums up my experience on this green island.
There’s a tangible history that stretches from prehistoric times, to the Troubles of the 20th century, to modern Northern Ireland, discovering tourism and shouting proudly it’s worth to visit.
Ireland offers an experience that is surprisingly diverse for such a small place - from its intimate cities, to strolls along a still unspoiled and beautiful coastline, and past castles and country homes.
There’s a tangible history in Ireland
First, the terms Ireland and Northern Ireland require some description. Ireland is, of course the Republic of Ireland, independent from Britain. Northern Ireland is still under British rule, and this is still a source of discomfort for some.
The only real difference to the visitor, these days, is that you pay in euros in the Republic, and in pounds sterling in Northern Ireland: although the euro is accepted there, your change will be in pounds. There are no longer any borders: you’ll know you’ve crossed over when the speed limit appears in miles, not kilometres, and the accents are stronger and broader than in the Republic.
The accents are not only somewhat more nasal, but at times incomprehensible.
“Excuse me,” I said time and time again as I spoke to hotel staff. It takes a while for the ear to adjust. Even so, there were times when English failed me.
Trying to make a reverse charges call to South Africa, I called the reception desk.
“Eleven is 11,” the man at the desk replied when I asked how to make the call.
“Eleven is 11,” I repeated.
“Yes, 11 is 11.”
“So, do I dial 11, or do I dial 1111?”
“Eleven is 11.”
I didn’t get through that day and on many others. The Irish are not accustomed to visitors who still use the old-fashioned hotel phones. As cellphones and international roaming are ubiquitous, I can only assume many guests carry their own phones.
And staff are, often invariably, East Europeans. Here is another surprise and another opportunity to practise my “Excuse me?” routine as I battled to get to grips with the heavy Polish and Bulgarian accents I encountered.
Unspoiled and beautiful coastline
Many eastern European countries have joined the European Union, so peoples from that region have flooded into Ireland to learn English and have taken jobs in the hospitality industry. You’ll find Polish and Russian delicatessens in many of the cities from Dublin to Derry to Galway.
We arrived in Dublin - an introduction to the many cities - in a tour that spanned the northern arc of the island, with two nights in Northern Ireland.
I was immediately charmed by the city: you can’t call it beautiful, as you would, say, Paris or Seville. But it’s an intimate city and easy to navigate. Its human-scaled buildings make you feel part of the place. And, of course, if you’re a reader, you will have read stories set in this city.
Ireland is known for its wealth of writers. In fact, you can go and find out all about them at the Dublin Writer’s museum as we did. From James Joyce, to WB Yeats to Brendan Behan, take a crash course, and then buy some of their books at the bookshop inside the museum. There’s a sense of discovery in seeing the city you have read about so often. Dublin is also known for the quality of its bookshops, new and second-hand.
On a summer night Dublin was a treat. With European nights famously light till late, you can stroll the streets in the gentle dusk and watch the sun dip pinkly into the river.
Eat out in the Temple Bar district. It’s lined with pubs and restaurants, and is a real night life hub.
We ate boxtys, the famous potato pancakes. They sounded a bit heavy, but were anything but. Loaded with fish, my pancakes are filling and more-ish, and definitely worth returning for. They served as an introduction to the wonderful food we ate during our stay.
Fresh chunks of salmon, meaty scallops, lamb shanks, smoked salmon fashioned into roses, the food is endless and plentiful, but mostly of such a hugh standard that we were all gobsmacked. Ireland really is on the cusp of much here - and its food definitely deserves stars.
A morning walk in the city revealed another side to the place. Buses lined the River Liffey and the sky was grey.
As I walked among the workers hurrying to catch transport, I felt like I was eavesdropping on a city still steeped in the past, but also in transition, as all Ireland is.
I heard a woman speaking in Italian into a cellphone and the queue swelled with all sorts of nationalities.
People were buying their cardboard mugs of coffee, and the casino, a small narrow shop, as so many in Europe are, advertised that it opened at 7.30am.
Seeing the Book of Kells at Trinity College was a highlight. It’s described as Ireland’s greatest treasure. This illuminated manuscript has been housed in a library at the college for more than 300 years.
Written in the Monastery of the Kells in the 9th century, it’s the story of the four Gospels in Latin, on vellum.
There’s a long queue to get in, and you crowd along with other tourists to peer at the book. The light is dim, no doubt to protect the paper, but there’s still a sense of wonder and awe, looking in at this tangible history.
There’s history of a different sort at Newgrange. Located in the Boyne Valley this Neolithic tomb is 5 000 years old (built before the Pyramids of Egypt). From the visitor’s centre you catch a bus to the prehistoric tomb, winding through country lanes before arriving at the impressive edifice.
It stands on a hill, round and green against the surrounding countryside. A tour guide takes you inside the tomb itself, a narrow space where you crowd close to each other, but it’s still chilly and damp.
Who were the prehistoric people who built this tomb? What do the whorls and diamonds, lines and dots etched on the stone walls and ceiling mean?
There were no answers, and only a whispery trace of the people who built and used this site.
The guide turned off the light, and the place was immediately plunged into a dank black silence. Slowly light crept in from outside, a simulation of the light that enters along a narrow line from December 19 to 23.
Perhaps this was used as a religious site - the guides will tell you the theories and suppositions, and you are left to make up your own mind.
Open any brochure to Northern Ireland and the enthusiasm, this reaching towards the future, is real beneath the advertising hyperbole.
“Well done,” read one, “you’re considering a holiday in Europe’s safest, friendliest, most exuberant tourist destination!”
It’s a theme that was echoed as we drove into Belfast.
Belfast is exploding - with culture, new buildings, a booming property market and plans to put the city firmly on the tourist map. There are two airports, much accommodation for visitors, and more bars and restaurants open weekly.
Yet, once more, not unexpectedly, you bump firmly in to the past when you visit. Evidence of the Troubles is there: in the murals along the walls, for instance, in Shankhill Road and the Falls Road, Catholic and Protestant enclaves.
Irish history is hard to grasp, and explanations so easily become convoluted. With the 20 years of the Troubles, Belfast was said to have held its breath, waiting. With the ceasefire in the 1990s, however, this is a city whose time has come.
A taste of this came in the tour, which included a visit to the Titanic Quarter. That ill-fated ship was built here, and we had a good look at its dry berth, craning necks and cameras in an attempt to get a picture to convey the size of the once-great ship.
This waterfront area is being developed, with apartments for sale, a Titanic museum on the cards, and the opening of the Odyssey, a concert and entertainment arena. There’s also an Imax theatre, bars and movie theatres. Our day and a night were just a sample of what this vibrant, yet pretty city, has to offer.
This energy and enthusiasm is echoed in Derry, the other Northern Ireland city where we spent a night.
“We’re open for business,” smiled Martin McCrossan, our guide along Derry’s 17th century city walls, built between 1613 and 1618. Here you have startling views of the city, showing its Renaissance-style street plan; again the city was built and has been maintained on a small, intimate scale.
The walls vary in width between 3m and 9m. Described as one of the finest walled cities in Europe, the walls are extremely well preserved. They were built by The Honourable Irish Society as defences for the early 17th century settlers from Scotland and England. Around this time, Derry got a prefix, becoming Londonderry, and although the city is now known by both names, it seems more fitting to call it Derry, the original name.
The city was witness to the 105-day siege in 1688, as well as waves of emigration as many used its port as an embarkation point for emigration to the United States.
Go beyond the cities however, and you’re deep in the Irish countryside, deep in the kind of unspoiled, wild places that we all seem to hunger after. There’s the Atrium Coastway, with its wild beauty, views of the ocean on one side, and those famous emerald green fields on the other. Fat white sheep sun themselves and eat their share of grass, treating ruined stone farmhouses as personal fiefdoms. You can’t help exclaiming over these Irish sheep: fat and pampered-looking, they make wonderful pictures. They were certainly as exotic to this bunch of South Africans as elephants and giraffes to Europeans visiting our country.
The Giant’s Causeway is worth a visit, despite the howling, biting winds that accompanied us. A word of warning: Ireland is cold. There’s no getting around it. We visited at the beginning of summer, and wore coats and stockings under jeans in an attempt to keep warm. We only partially succeeded. But take thermal underwear and be prepared and it won’t quite be the shock it was for us.
So bundled against the elements, and shouting against the wind, we descended to the Giant’s Causeway in another tourist bus. With more than 9 million visitors a year, Ireland is certainly geared up for visitors.
The Causeway is a mass of 40 000 stone columns that form steps leading from the base of the cliff and disappearing under the sea. Clamber among the six-sided columns, if you dare, or wander in the natural amphitheatre bounded by a gentle hill.
Ireland boasts natural parks, of course, and we were taken through the Glenveagh National Park, where you can spot red deer and other wildlife.
Ireland is equally rich in country homes and castles, both old and newish, it would appear. Situated on the banks of the Lough Veagh is Glenveagh Castle, built between 1867 and 1873, and described as a castellated mansion. Built by John George Adair, of a minor landed family, a guided tour takes you through cosy rooms and round bedrooms.
A day or so later we toured Westport House, a beautiful Georgian home in County Mayo. It’s been developed into one of Ireland’s major tourist attractions. An ornate staircase leads you in, and a 19th century Waterford glass chandelier hints at the opulence to come.
A grand dining-room, sweeping ballroom, bedrooms you can sub-divide into apartments, a morning room, where the ladies of the house spent their mornings writing letters and giving orders to the servants, and a library where regular literary visitors such as Yeats, Alfred Lord Tennyson and William Thackery must have swooned.
I particularly enjoyed going deep into the bowels of the house where a rustic-looking kitchen probably housed many servants, and an earthy-smelling dungeon conjures up the unlucky fates of so many who have languished in cold dark places like these.
However, if you prefer your castles a little older and somewhat more authentic, spend the night at Belleek Castle.
Set in 1 000 acres of woodland on the banks of the River Moy, this castle dates backs to 16th century. We toured the rooms below, and gazed at the old wooden beams stripped from Spanish shipwrecks. It’s no less atmospheric soaking up the heat of the fire in an enormous grate in the reception area by a light so dim it could easily come from oil lamps.
Drag your cases up the stairs to a variety of rooms: there are garrets for aspiring artists, four-posters in some of the baronial large rooms, and comfortable ordinary beds to make you feel like a peasant in some of the more modest rooms.
Each room is different; this is a converted castle, after all. Yet the stay is unforgettable and as far away from sleeping in a hotel room as you’re likely to get. There’s atmosphere here and a hint of ghosts who may or may not call on you in the middle of the night.
On the last night in Dublin, three of us decided to end our stay with a visit to an authentic Irish pub. We’d all been to Foxty’s and had a hooley night out - surrounded by other tourists we took in both the excellent food and Irish singing and dancing that you absolutely must see on a visit to this island.
But strolling down to Temple Bar district we were in search of something else. As always the dusk deepens gently and slowly into indigo.
The streets thronged with locals and tourists, the restaurants were full, the bars and pubs even more so.
We ducked out of the cold night into The Quay. With Irish song in the background, all generations mix, some clutching the typical dark pint of Guinness.
The barman took a photo of us and a blonde Irish woman smiled warmly as she watched.
As we emerged at midnight, clutching bags with expensive camera gear, we walked along now dark streets, sometimes surrounded by others, sometimes just the three of us.
Being South Africans, and not used to being able to walk city streets by day or by night, of course we commented on this most unusual activity. A lone woman walked past and we all looked at each other. It wasn’t necessary to say anything.
Ireland really does stretch out a hand of welcome to visitors and I entered our city centre hotel with a sense of wonder and regret: regret that we cannot yet replicate this experience for people visiting our country, or for those among us who make our lives here.
The warm, friendly welcome of Ireland was hard to leave behind.
Arja Salafranca was hosted by Tourism Ireland. Tel: 011 339 4865, email: tourismireland@dpgsa.co.za or visit their website. Tourism Ireland incorporates both the Northern Ireland Tourist Board and Failte Ireland (tourist board for the Republic of Ireland)
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