After leaving the venue of our cousin barry's awesome wedding to Louise, we went to visit our cousin Catherine and her four kids in Donegal in north west Ireland.
The weather was grey and rainy, despite this Kirren and I wanted to see a beach so picked one in laghey not too far from Catherine's house. This part of Ireland felt strange compared to the rest of Ireland and England for just how sparsely populated it seemed. Searching for a supermarket showed few with the nearest tesco being an hour away. Donegal itself and all the towns we drove through were picturesque but small and quiet. The beach was nice but, obviously rainy and cold, life guards were optimistically opening up a watch tower when we were leaving. On this beach and others we found toppled concrete pillboxes overturned by erosion of the sand supporting them. I can only think that they are from world war 2 but if so they are in very good condition.
From there we went to my cousin Catherine's house. She and her husband built a beautiful house overlooking the hills and mountains of north west Ireland. She took us walking near her house where we saw a giant grave in the woods and a lake.
We had dinner then breakfast with her and her four children and went to a sheep dog demonstration that she arranged for us to see. Catherine's son Fintan is playing the shepherd below.
I'd never really thought about how the dogs were controlled but each has a whistle for left and right as can be heard below. I have trouble with my left and rights so Kirren found it very funny that dogs were better than me!
From Donegal we took the antrim coast to giants causeway stopping on our way at downhill where we walked around a less rainy beach and a cliff side temple. This has been featured in game of thrones where below the temple "The beach below is Dragonstone, where the Seven Idols of Westeros were burned and Melisandre, flames dancing into the night sky" according to the game of thrones filming location driving tour PDF (http://www.causewaycoastandglens.com/Game-of-Thrones-Itinerary.T1163.aspx).
Then on to giants causeway itself which was crammed with tourists and rocks....more rocks... But good if expensive if you use their parking so top tip is to park somewhere else and walk in if you get time.
This post is way late but hopefully they will be more regular soon!
