Following the coast from Westport, we drove north around the Nephin Ben Range. This country was very different to what we have experienced so far and impossible to capture in a single photo, so I took a video instead - see my fb feed. For 70kms, the road took us across a tundra like plain, with the land running almost flat to the Atlantic coast to the west and massive treeless rock faced mountains to the east, rising in a sweeping uniform arc from the plain, 600...

Leaving Ennis, it was a very enjoyable 70km of 4 lane motorway driving to Galway, where after a brief stop, we continued on our way to Clifden for a couple of nights. Galway was only ever intended to be a quick coffee break and then to move on, but as always, a chance meeting with a local kept us better informed and staying longer than intended. Winding our way through the back streets and lanes from the car park, we chanced to stop and look at some ancient ruin...

Our starting point for the days excursion is Kenmare, in County Kerry, a town whose origins date from the Bronze Age, evidence of which lies nearby in a Druid Stone Circle, one of the largest in southern Ireland. Like so many other places we have seen, the local Irish population and their land holdings were displaced by English settlers after the Cromwellian invasion in the mid 1600s and were also subjected to the destructions of the Irish Civil War in the early ...

The start of our drive along the aptly named Wild Atlantic Way. With a few helpful tips from the cab driver on the way to pick up our hire car, and what I hope is our good share of Irish Luck, we were off out of Dublin and heading 250kms south to Kinsale, a small coastal town just a leprechaun’s leap from Cork. Our first stop was at the ancient seat of the Irish Overkings of Munster, known as the Rock of Cashel. This 4th century fortress occupied an important...

The 1 1/2 hour drive from Chester to Holyhead took us through picturesque North Wales, lush green fields, hedge rows and the occasional castle. That was the good part. The driver was something else. Even before we got in the car he was talking and he didn’t stop until we waved him goodbye at the Holyhead ferry terminal. And to prolong the torture, he didn’t go over 50mph the whole way and this was on a 4 lane motorway. Crossing the Irish Sea to Dublin, it fe...