Travel Jottings

My wanderings are urban as well as rural, and several have taken me overseas around Europe and to North America. All have needed at least some planning: knowing what to see and where to stay remain ever present needs. That and remaining ever open to new possibilities have contributed to what you find here. Everything builds up over time, and I hope that the horizons continue expanding to mean that I can continue to share new things with you here.

Becoming Acquainted

East Clare Way, Killaloe, Co. Clare, Éire

The idea of getting to know a country from scratch only started coming to my notice again as my attention drifted away from Britain and Ireland to other parts of Europe. Telling someone where to start before beginning to plan the practicalities of a trip to Ireland is the purpose of this piece, and that remains today. Once you have an idea of what is on offer, you either can go looking at particular areas in more detail or start sorting places to stay and organising travel. In truth, both may happen in tandem, but you have to start somewhere. Hopefully, what you find here will allow you to make an initial exploratory toehold before progressing further. After all, we all have to start somewhere.

The first belongs to Fáilte Ireland and promotes tourism for Éire, here confusing called Ireland, while the second does exactly what its name suggests. Lastly, a much newer cross-border agency called Tourism Ireland promotes the whole island. All provide the sorts of things that you'd expect of visitor websites: ideas on where to go, what to see, what to do and where to stay. There is nothing to say that official websites have everything, so ones like TravelIreland.org and Georgina Campbell's Ireland are worth a look, and Lonely Planet has their own online destination guide too.

Your Daily Adventure

If you get to peruse visitor information stands at airports, you will find a publication entitled Your Daily Adventure that is free for you to take away. These are regional collections of places to go and see together with ideas for activities. In total, there are six guides in the series and this is the accompanying website where similar content is to be found.

Both of these are prominent brands being used by Fáilte Ireland to promote parts of Éire outside of Dublin. The first to be launched was the Wild Atlantic Way, and that has become such a great success that Ireland's Ancient East came after it. The former extends from Kinsale on the south coast as far as Malin Head in the north, so there is plenty of dramatic coastal scenery to be savoured however you like. Though you can drive along the whole western coastline, there is so much to see that sampling a small section would make more sense, and it allows for slower exploration on land or sea. Hiking, cycling, canoeing or windsurfing are among the activities that you can choose, so this is an active person's destination too. Ireland's Ancient East can be as active as you want too, but there is a fair sprinkling of historic monuments that you can see, with the Rock of Cashel or New Grange easily making their way onto such a list. As if this pairing were not enough, we are starting to hear of Ireland's Hidden Heartlands too, though this celebration of the Irish midlands and the upper reaches of the River Shannon appears to be in its early days.

Island Ireland

More than a visitor site: a useful collection of content-rich websites covering a wide variety of subjects. My impressions are that it is trying to leave Irish-Americans in on the country from which their ancestors came, but that's not a bad idea at all.

Stones of Ireland

It's a vague memory that an earlier sighting of this website revealed its concentration on pictures of and information about several ancient Irish monuments. Looking at it again, I have come to realise that other countries have pages on the Stone Pages website. At the time of writing, these also include England, Italy, France, Scotland and Wales. Though the Irish entries cause the sight to appear here, the others make you realise that megalithic monuments have been left in all sorts of places by mankind. It does seem that what you find here is the result of various trips to archaeological sites made by the people behind the website. It is eerily reminiscent of what my countryside explorations do for my web offering.

Historic Ireland

This website is British and a sister site to Heritage Britain. Nevertheless, there is plenty of useful material to be found on it, and a different approach is never a bad thing. In addition, there is an accompanying annual publication for sale to those who'd rather hold something more physical in their hands.

Mythical Ireland

The telling of tales has been endemic in Ireland since time immemorial. Those stories have managed to reach us through history, and so we hear of Finn Mac Cumhail, Cú Chulainn, the Children of Lir and many more. It never ceases to surprise me is those stories' more than occasional predilection with sorrow. Surely, happy or funny legends were related, but it appears that they haven't made it through to the present day. Weepies weren't a Hollywood innovation but have been related for thousands of years if I am not mistaken, and the same may be true of horror stories too. Those old stories travelled with the Gael and so Manannan Mac Lir turns up in the Isle of Man while Fingal (Finn Mac Cumhail) together with Diarmuid and Gráinne find their way to Argyll (derived from "Eastern Gael" in Gaelic) in Scotland.

Characters like those whom I have already mentioned are featured on this website alongside antiquities and what is known about the Celtic culture from the same time. Make what you will of what you encounter on the site, but it is part of Irish and Celtic culture nonetheless.

Voices from the Dawn

Keeping consistency with a few of the other websites listed here, here is another like them that I found in a guidebook. You get to look at various ancient monuments close up while learning a little about how the locals regard them too; it is the latter that adds an element of folklore to the content. The underlying labour of love has been ongoing since the late 1970's and was turned into the current online form within the last decade. This is somewhere where you spend hours looking at what is there.