Touring Ireland for 4 weeks

[libby]

2200 miles around Ireland. May - June 2009

 

Having recently completed 4 weeks wandering around Ireland I offer the following.

 

Remember first you are a foreigner!! There are many young Eastern European people serving in hotels, pleasure areas and tourist shops. They are very smart and instantly know you are a stranger. They may smile and be pleasant but remember they may also rob you by over charging at the till and not issuing a receipt.

 

BE AWARE. I GOT CAUGHT. Only pence but it was obviously a scam set up purposefully. The town was Westport Co Mayo. The premises was the café come bar at “Westport House Parkland Caravan & Camping Park” Perhaps some of you have stayed there?

 

I reported the matter to the Irish Tourist Board and the town council who replied that it’s being investigated.

 

Ireland in general was all very easy, the far south is very colourful with purple Rhododendron yellow Iris and millions of Buttercups; it has high mountainous passes and a rocky coastline with miles of empty sandy beaches. The north is more level but has high cliff faces that are equally picturesque. The speed limits and yellow lines in general are ignored. The police were almost non-existent. One cannot buy beer in small shops as we can here. The licence fee is very high plus it’s only permitted to a following family member of the original licensee.; I only met sales of beer and spirits in Supermarket stores.

 

Some of the narrow southern coastal roads are awful with patch upon patch upon patch of tarmac; it often appeared that they were tracks that had been hastily covered. Most of the internal cross country roads are perfect with motorway standard surfaces and have a continental appearance about them.

 

Good breakfast bars are available in almost all garages. Toilets in towns are very scarce; the system seems to be to visit a café, pub or restaurant. People are very friendly particularly in remote areas. Most small towns have no sign posts once you wander away from the main through routes.

 

Ireland is a musical country but it can be difficult to find the true traditional sessions except in the tourist parts of Dublin.

 

Fish is plentiful; mussels are rope grown in many sea inlets. One favourite everywhere is Chowder, it varies in its consistency dependant on what grade of eating place one chooses, the cheaper the food the more vegetables the dish will contain.

 

Maps are a must !! Satnav is non existent outside large towns, only the major roads are shown. Say you need to travel from A to B across country using small roads, the normal route is say 15 miles, dial the town in your Satnav and the distance may be indicated as 54 miles! This is because the Satnav only recognises major routes; it will take you there but via the long way. If you need a small village then there are none because they are simply not shown at all.

 

Dublin traffic is chaotic, the roads are narrow, most housing areas have road humps, some of these are big humps and will empty your rubbish containers. Motorways in and out of the City are under repair. If you walk about in small towns you need a good memory, some roads are like rabbit warrens!

 

Contrary to what I’ve read on these forums there were very few height barriers, I only recall two in the entire 4 week 2,000 milejourney. We travelled to many odd places as well as popular towns and villages and spotted no ‘undesirable travellers’. NONE!

 

There were plenty of remote ‘wild camping’ areas, and very few ‘No Camping’ notices seen even in busy tourist spots. M/H’s were seen parked up for the night in several locations. I was surprised not to see more in remote areas. There appeared to be no nuisance problems from undesirables.

 

There are plenty of new housing estates, they look terrible !! masses of stark white buildings all huddled together en-mass, they were the worst I’ve ever seen in any country. One has a vision of Ireland being colourful and green (which it is) but these ghetto type estates are down right awful. They appear to be constructed with block outside walls and rendered ALL WHITE. Away from the estates there is the occasional brick built house that blends in with the surroundings.

 

In contrast many towns are very colourful with the shops and pubs gaily painted a dozen different colours in one street, zebra crossings are rare but raised sections of road act the purpose very well, the driving attitude was good everywhere but possible contained many tourists.

 

[wild rover]

It sounds great! Did you visit Galway Town? I've always wanted to go there.

 

Pam

[libby]

There was an International boating event in Galway when we were passing through so there were extra visitors etc. Galway is a large town and I tend to avoid them for the above reasons.

 

We went to Waterford and the glass showrooms "BUT" they do not make any glass objects there now, its all moved to the Czeck Republic and closed down early this year possibly for ever.

 

There were around 3,000 employees I'm told. Now there's only a handful in the showrooms where items can still be bought

 

 

[Big Momma]

libby - 2009-07-14 6:13 AM

 

 

Ireland is a musical country but it can be difficult to find the true traditional sessions except in the tourist parts of Dublin.

 

 

Pub in the centre of Belfast has live music 'every' night - Fiddles, Banjo's, Tin Whistles etc. True Irish Folk Night every Wednesday, no charge but gets very crowded with all Nationalities. been there lots of times, never any trouble.

[onecal]

Hi Bill,

Sorry to hear you had not a good Hol' in Ireland. I definitely do not think we look on any G.B. plate over here as a foreigners and I think many of our clubs are very close. Yes we did employ a lot of eastern european people and yes we have had problems but not with them all. Some of these people have gone through a hard time and are glad to get any work. Now I am afraid with the current recession we are paying the price for our boom in the 90's Non main roads are poor and looks like it is not going to improve too soon. Yes houses were built everywhere to cater for the influx of people returning back to Ireland in the boom era. Short lived I am afraid. Regarding the hight barriers we still have a lot of problems, there are still way too many but we are working on it.

Sat nav works well if you have good maping, we have not got post codes yet but in a lot of counties the small roads are now numbered and the sat nav will bring you to the door number.

You may think they are no camping or overnight sleeping in some but they exist, but most towns allow overnight parking , we have some aires and the towns welcome the custom. The Police are very strict on speed and drink driving . Motorhomes dont get pulled over too often for speeding esp' on the small roads if you value your motorhome.

Again sorry about your experience in Wesport.

Regards,

Brendan.

 

[libby]

Brendan,

 

Don't get me wrong the visit was great and I would go again, in fact it was very much easier than I had thought, I just say it as I see it.

 

I made no reference to GB plates or Motorhomes regarding Westport House cafe, this applied to pedestrians and anyone however they travelled, it was as I said "its very easy to identify a non Ireland person".

 

Like any country the further one moves out into the older areas the more

friendly the people are. There was nothing that I disliked except some road surfaces in the very sparce south, but then it could have been our vehicle design as well.

 

From what I had read on these forums about Ireland I was unsettled about the visit but having been there for 4 weeks I would encourage everyone to go and experience it.

 

One sure tip is to make sure you talk to anyone, road menders, park gardeners, anyone, its surprisng what you will learn. Above all talk to anyone.

 

 

Bill

[onecal]

Hi Bill,

Not your motorhome I am afraid, its the roads. Thats why we dont need speed limits even some speed signs may say 100 kph (old 60mph) it is not possible with some of the potholes in the side roads.

We are getting there with motorhomes and hopefully with caravans as many pubs will allow overnight parking (not all).

The height barriers is still a big problem in many car parks in the towns.

We will keep trying. Isn't nice to go away and see lots of different things and be able to come home and be able to talk about those memories. Glad you may thinking of coming back some time, you may see a lot of those houses you saw built empty.

One a lighter note did you visit Kerry? Have a look at the Irish news (google Irish News) and see what they are proposing to do to the horses pulling the tourists in carts around Mucross house. Talk about cleaning up their act.

Regards,

Brendan.

[parkmoy]

Maps are a must !! Satnav is non existent outside large towns, only

the major roads are shown. Say you need to travel from A to B across country using small roads, the normal route is say 15 miles, dial the town in your Satnav and the distance may be indicated as 54 miles! This is because the Satnav only recognises major routes; it will take you there but via the long way. If you need a small village then there are none because they are simply not shown at all.

 

I don't know what sat nav you used but the mapping must be rubbish (lol)

 

I use a Garmin Nuvi and it recognizes (and routes me down, dammit) little roads with grass growing in the middle. 8o|

[Guest Tracker]

Some sat navs show all roads for the UK but only major roads for 'other' European countries - which I presume could also mean Eire - so you might need to purchase extra maps for your sat nav if yours is a UK only model?

[libby]

Call it a rubbish Satnav if you like but its taken me all over Europe with no difficulty, its an N60i Navman, about 5 years old.

 

I say again outside of the major towns much of Ireland has major roads only on satelite, so using a map is a must.

 

---------------------------------

Brendan,

 

I will have to check the Kerry item. We did the touristy Ring of Kerry like everyone else, mainly as we were in the area. We drove on a semicircular route almost all round the country but really it would have been better to have stayed in one area only and visited many times.

 

One of my snags was that my wife cannot walk far so I was restricted to not doing much except be a taxi. I reckon I would need many visits to take in the real Ireland, but having said that much is to be gained by sitting, listening. and looking which we did lots of.

 

Bill

[lennyhb]

You didn’t mention the rain, I go to Ireland quite often went about 8 times last year only been out a couple of times this year, last time was about 6 weeks ago to Cork first time I’ve been and it’s not rained.

 

Satnav, my Navman S90i works perfectly.

 

Never had any problems with honesty with the Irish or Polish (seems to be more of them in Dublin than Irish).

 

Irish drivers appear to be the worst in Europe don’t appear to have any concept of the size of the vehicle they are driving, just plod along or just stop in the middle of the road as though no one else exists.

As for driving in Dublin DON’T takes twice as long to get anywhere than it does in London and it’s only got a fraction of the traffic & traffic light sequencing is diabolical.

Earlier in the year drove back from Kilkenny 70 miles to Dublin 1½ hours first set of traffic lights in Dublin took 20 mins to get through then next mile to hotel another 45min.

 

I do like Ireland although it is very expensive would love to take the Motorhome there but I’ve given up rain on holidays.

 

[onecal]

Hi Bill,

Maybe you should visit some area where a club rally is going on. You will be very welcome to attend. Details of rally events is available if you want to PM me.

Regarding the rain yes we almost can guarantee that and as for the traffic lights well have a laugh, you are only here for a visit, at least you don't have to live with them.

Newer sat navs mapping have Ireland covered well, some of the old mapping are as you say, very poor. Some of the new ones will bring down small roads that may end up with grass in the middle. Its when you run out of grass in the middle and it takes over all the road you are in trouble.

Well maybe not maybe you just found a nice place to spend the night. Regarding the drivers just plodding along well they know those bloody lights are up ahead. You cant win.

Regards,

Brendan.

[parkmoy]

Call it a rubbish Satnav if you like but its taken me all over Europe with no difficulty, its an N60i Navman, about 5 years old.

 

Please don't take my comment personally. I'm sure your satnav is fine, it's the mapping I take issue with. Your comment would have been true about 5 years ago when the maps were pretty ropey for Ireland. When did you last update the maps?

 

I say again outside of the major towns much of Ireland has major roads only on satelite, so using a map is a must.

 

I live there and I can assure you that's not correct. Not with up to date maps in your satnav. Though I would always recommend a map to check the satnav route with - for exactly the opposite reason to you. As I said in my earlier post, the darn thing sends you down the smallest little roads, sometimes as a 'shortcut'. Despite being set for the 'quickest' route it doesn't realize that 1 mile at 10 mph takes longer than 2 miles at 50mph *-)

 

 

 

[libby]

I guess my navigation system is out of date then, Oh well we got around OK pretty easily and using the map was no problem. Like old times I would say.

 

One big advantage with the satnav is that one can always see ahead to the next road layout.

 

I guess I've never updated the maps !! Silly me!!