Travel Journal: Northern Ireland
With this characteristic Irish advice (it seems like all the directions I had received thus far consisted of “follow the road”), we finally came upon an ivy-covered structure in the middle of nowhere. A very pretty receptionist gave us the same skeptical/ amused look as the old man as we rushed in, exhaustedly begging for a room. After talking with the night watchman later, I discovered that the Tullylagan was primarily a hotel for weddings in a building across the street. Aside from the occasional tourist who gets sucked into this, the Bermuda triangle of Northern Ireland, it is a very quiet place when a wedding isn’t going on; there was only one other family staying in the Tullylagan that night.
Despite time lost, and a slight compromise in my bubble of newfound serenity, we pushed on. Our itinerary after Cookstown was, roughly, the Bollyshannon beach in Donegal, a quick stop at Yeats’ grave at Drumcliff Church, a night in a little town called Doolin followed by a day on nearby Inishere (the smallest of the three Aran Islands) and the Cliffs of Moher, Cashel to see the Rock of Cashel (which includes, among other things, Saint Patrick’s cross), and a day in Dublin.
Most of these experiences were so amazing and multi-faceted that to attempt a full treatment of them would take a thousand-page book.
However, one of the most significant experiences for
me was the time spent on the Cliffs of Moher.
The only reason I insisted on this addition to our itinerary was because the “Cliffs of Moher” was one of the first Irish traditional tunes I learned. It turned out to be a good choice; the impressive cliffs dwarfed the Giant’s Causeway. We were able to see the cliffs all the more exhilarating from the ferry that took us back from Inishere, a maze of rock walls on a giant rocky hill, with interspersed curiosities like a 3000 B.C. grave-mound adjacent to a kids’ football game and ruins of an early Christian church in the bowels of the local cemetery. We also got to walk on top of the cliffs, because we had witnessed their full majesty from below. At this point, I was able to fulfill one of my life goals: playing “Cliffs of Moher” on the Cliffs of Moher (to be fair, I didn’t decide it was one of my life dreams until after I had done it).
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