Nice restaurant next door where we had tea

Wednesday, 13th August 

           ENNISCRONE - CARROWMORE - DONEGAL

Robyn writes: This is our only full day in Enniscrone, so we wanted to see some of the area around the north-west of Ireland while we had the chance. We had a very nice hotel breakfast this morning, then set off around 10 towards Carrowmore. Yet another very overcast, cold and windy day threatening to rain at any moment. The story of our life this week, it seems!

This is one of the many huge prehistoric sites around County Sligo, which is famous for them. Carrowmore, a huge burial site, is run by Heritage Ireland so we got in for free, thanks to our English Heritage membership, and luckily a tour had just started, so we joined that. Our guide, Padraig, was a walking encyclopedia on Irish prehistory and really interesting to listen to. He explained the whole landscape (there were about 60 burial sites there) and how it related to others across the area and the whole country. He pointed out bumps on surrounding mountains where you could see other tombs, including some huge and untouched ones. Some of the tombs we saw are undisturbed, but many have been excavated, starting with the local landlord in the 1700s, who sold off the treasures he found. Much to my amazement, I realised that I had seen several of them in Alnwick Castle in Northumberland.

Prehistoric landscape around Carrowmore

This huge undisturbed burial mound on top of a nearby mountain is known as 'Queen Meadhbha's tomb'. It's massive.

Padraig showing us the entrance in the reconstructed cairn for the main passage tomb

We got to chat to some of the locals

Lex and one of the bigger tombs. You can see Queen M's tomb on the mountain behind him.

The tour took around 40 minutes and finished in the reconstructed cairn around the main tomb of the complex, then we went to have a further look around. By this stage the wind was howling straight off the ice of the Arctic and I was freezing and rapidly losing my enthusiasm for prehistoric tombs, so I went back to the museum area while Lex happily explored the other burials. When he came back down, I put on an extra layer and we went across the road to see several other sites there. An amazing area, and so good that so many of them are undisturbed after thousands of years.

By now it was nearly one o'clock, so we headed north to Sligo and towards Donegal. Some spectacular scenery along the way, of course - the highlight being Benbulbin, a huge rock mountain we drove around. We stopped for lunch at a nice little cafe along the way and continued on to Donegal, where we actually found a car park right in the middle of town. VERY unusual!

Benbulben

We went and visited Donegal Castle - again, our English Heritage membership got us in for free, then we only had 15 minutes to wait until a tour started. This time our guide was called Sean, and he was great - very knowledgeable and interesting. We really like doing the guided tours as you pick up on so much general history as well as the specific story of what you are seeing. Donegal Castle looks more like a fortified townhouse, and like all of the other Irish castles we've seen, is much smaller than the English ones. It was built by the O'Donnells in the 1400s, destroyed in the 1500s to stop it falling into English hands (it didn't work) and rebuilt by the English landlord in the 1600s. It started to fall into disrepair in the late 1700s and by last century was in ruins, until in the 1990s the main hall was repaired and rebuilt. They did a fantastic job and used all traditional materials and techniques, so it was wonderful to see. Hopefully at some stage this century there will be funding to repair the second building as well (the GFC has stopped all thought of that for the time being.)

Donegal Castle

Reconstructed Great Hall

Original stone fireplace - amazingly good condition considering it was open to the weather for 300 years or so

Reconstructed ceiling of Irish oak

After our tour, we went for a walk around the central town area to have a look - Donegal is a very nice town with some lovely shops. By this stage it was around 4.30, so we headed off for the 100 km or so drive home. We had a reasonable run (roads up here are much wider and straighter than the south) and got back around 6.15.

As soon as we'd got back and dumped all of our things in the hotel room, we went out to look for a meal - the local restaurants have the "early bird" special until 7 so it's worthwhile making it. We ate right next door at the Ait Eile (that's in Gaelic and is missing several graves and accents, and I have NO idea how it's pronounced!) At any rate, we had a wonderful meal - I had the chicken curry which was full of vegetables and delicious, and Lex had the Atlantic fish cakes followed by the 'Blackened Enniscrone Pig' - a blackened pork fillet with mash and a lovely warm apple slaw served with a big dish of vegetables. Yum! The black boar seems to be a symbol of Enniscrone - there's a big black pig statue as you enter town, it's on several shops and even in the local putt-putt golf links! Lex was most impressed with this culinary homage to it, anyway. To help put out the fire induced by the curry, on the way home I had a glorious single scoop of Italian gelato from the icecream shop across the road.

We are now (as usual) so full we can't move and are relaxing and ignoring the fact that we should be packing, as we move on again tomorrow. The Irish road trip continues!