 “When you see the signs for Sligo – follow the airport signs – it will lead you straight to the site” were the instructions issued by Tommy over the phone and which we were following judiciously but I have to say that if we did not know that Tommy and Diane had already driven the route, then we certainly would have sought a different route. The road twisted and turned, hither and thither uphill and down dale and although perfectly adequate, is certainly not to be attempted by the faint-hearted. We lost the airport signs as we entered the village of Strandhill and stopped to ask a group of people if they knew where the site was. “Oh, there you are” said one chap “We passed you just outside of Limerick and wondered if you were coming this way. T’is wonderful thing to see such a monster truck visiting our little village – will you and your good lady be coming in for a drink, now?” – “Oh, and by the way, the site is just up the road on your left.”
And so started what was probably the most enjoyable part of our entire tour. Tommy and Diane, our new RV full-timer friends, had booked the pitch adjacent to theirs with Tommy, the site manager. The pitch was sited less than 50 yards from the sea and had originally been built to accommodate a 36ft static caravan and therefore came complete with a concrete base and built in sewage sump, drainage and electrics – all we had to do was reverse onto it, drop the jacks and connect up – and within twenty minutes we were sitting in the sunshine, staring out over the glassy sea watching the surfers at play, sharing a welcome drink with Tommy and Diane – absolute bliss.
Diane told us that just beyond our pitch was a path that led into the village and that less than 100 yards along the path was a superb old-fashioned Irish pub and a really good Chinese take-away restaurant. We had had a long day and decided to try the take-away that first evening – and what a revelation it turned out to be. The Irish had banned smoking inside Public Houses earlier in the year, so it appeared that just about everybody in the village was sitting, smoking, on the pavement outside the pub whilst inside it was eerily quiet, until I went upstairs to the restaurant which was full to bursting. That’s how we ended our first day at Strandhill, feeling wickedly replete, having stuffed ourselves full of superb Chinese cooking washed down with a couple of bottles of decent red wine, lounging on the sunbeds beside the beach in the evening sunshine.
We had intended to stay at Sligo for a couple of weeks before travelling further north toward ‘The Downies’ (at the top end of County Donegal) for a few days, by which time the wedding was drawing near and we would need to make our way down to County Cavan. As usual, we used the car to recce the route to the next site and found to our horror that the site was almost totally full of static ‘holiday-let’ caravans and was not at all what we expected and bearing in mind our complete contentment with the site at Strandhill it was not difficult to decide to extend our stay there much longer than planned – in fact, had we not already booked our return ferry date, we would probably have stayed there for the rest of the Summer. Tommy and Diane had left us to visit ‘The Giant’s Causeway’ on their way back to Scotland so we took full advantage of the sunshine to visit every last square inch of the North West of Ireland.
 We drove through villages where the locals still lived in ‘cottages’ that were several hundred years old, albeit refurbished up to modern-day standards – and very picturesque they were, too. The roads were lined with rhododendrons just coming into flower, the blues and reds merging into purple and clashing beautifully with the golden flowers of the gorse, interspersed with the spring-green freshness of the trees and bushes – see what happens when you kiss the Blarney Stone! Almost literally, we drove the wheels off of the car by visiting every valley, sea front, village and tourist spot marked on the map, from Malin Head in the extreme north of Ireland down as far as Connemara and Galway in the south. We stopped in such places as Blacksod Bay and Sheepshead Point and talked to the locals and ate and talked to the locals and drank and talked to the locals and just looked in awe at some of the most magnificent and historic scenery that Ireland has to offer – we just couldn’t get enough of it, and rest assured, we will be back for more at a later date.
There were two financial instances that happened whilst we were in Sligo - one of which (and we still don’t know which one) was to cause us immense heartache upon our return to England. The first instance was where we used a credit card to buy a pair of sandals in a large department store. This store was being refitted at the time and the rather elderly lady assistant said, “You’ll have to excuse me for a moment or two, our credit card reader is not working so I’ll have to take your card to another department to process it” and promptly disappeared out of the door. She reappeared two or three minutes later with the relevant forms that we duly signed, collected the receipt and the sandals and went happily on our way. The second instance occurred when our mobile phone company called us to say that being as our contract was now a year old, we were entitled to an updated phone. The caller seemed to know most of my details but requested a check on the contract and payment details, which apart from the actual security code, we were happy to oblige with and we agreed a date and delivery address for the new phone. When the phone did not arrive on the agreed date, I contacted the phone company - only to receive the news that they had no record of any operator trying to contact us. Later that month whilst reconciling our credit card statement we discovered that someone in Middlesex had illicitly spent several thousand pounds on our card – in fact, on one occasion we were actually drawing money in a Bank in Sligo at 10:30am while at 10:32am someone was drawing money out of the same card in Middlesex! The credit card company reimbursed us with the money but being as we did not know how much the fraudsters knew about our finances we had to completely change all of our credit card and bank account details.
We originally decided to visit Knock because of the plethora of religious stories that abounded about the place, not that Mo or I have a religious bone in our bodies, but that does not stop us being curious about other peoples beliefs. We were navigating from a well-known Sites directory (albeit the 2003 edition) that told us to exit the N17 at the roundabout and proceed up the High Street to the site on the edge of town. We got as far as the general vicinity of Knock but could not find the roundabout, which wasn’t a surprise, after all Tommy and Diane had missed it as well, so we turned around about four miles past the village and tried again – and missed it again. We eventually decided to try a different route that finally led us to a roundabout where we stopped at a Post Office and asked for new directions. The Postmaster re-iterated that we should turn off the N17 and drive through the High Street to the site and was not at all surprised when we replied that we could not find a turn off on the N17. “Aghh, to be sure, you are talking about the new N17 whilst we are talking about the old N17 – that one just over there” whereupon he pointed to a road, which we had never seen before, on the far side of the roundabout. “You see, last year they built a bypass around Knock on the N17 but they still haven’t changed the number of the old N17 which still runs through the village.” “So how does the average visitor know which N17 to use then” I asked. “Oh, to be sure, that is easy, that is - they all get lost then stop and ask me for directions and I get to sell them a sandwich or two!” One Irishman’s business logic with which we could find no fault, so we bought our sandwiches and went on our way.
It has to be said, that never in our lives have Mo or myself ever come across such pure unquestioning religious belief as we found in the visitors to the Basilica at Knock. A service was taking place in the Basilica as we arrived, which was being broadcast over loudspeakers all around the outside of the building and at various points throughout the service all movement in the street would stop and people would simply stand still and make the required replies to the service – even a bunch of hardened young ‘navvies’ digging a hole in the street, stood still and took off their hats in respect. We took a tour through the adjacent museum, where the Receptionist started us on the tour by explaining to us the ‘Visitation’ and subsequent miracles that have made Knock such a prime religious establishment and, incidentally, the only officially recognised Basilica outside of Rome. Once again, her total and utter belief in the truth and validity of the stories was absolutely awe-inspiring, especially to a pair of such fervent and rabid disbelievers as us but it made our visit to the well-laid out and interesting museum an even more memorable event. It has not altered our personal beliefs one iota but it did go a long way towards explaining the huge differences separating the various religious sects in Ireland and the major difficulties being experienced in trying to find a harmonious way of life between them. On a more sober note, though, we stopped off in one of the many eating-houses which lined the High Street of Knock and were dismayed to find the place stacked from floor to ceiling with all manner of religious icons which ranged from badly made plaster figures to badly painted plastic plaques and what was even more dismaying was the huge number of people jostling to pay ridiculously inflated prices for such total tourist junk.
 On a visit to the fishing port of Killybegs we encountered two almost separate worlds within the confines of the one port. On the one hand, we encountered a quaint old fishing village somewhat similar to Newlyn in Cornwall, with a fleet of small gaily painted boats and a range of superb olde worlde buildings and cobbled streets but then on the other hand, you could turn the corner of a street and come face to face with a fleet of huge deep sea trawlers towering over the modern fishing plant surrounding the apparently brand new quays. It is rumoured that Killybegs is probably the smelliest place in Ireland, due mainly to these huge fishery plants and we can vouch that the rumours are most definitely true. Later that evening Tommy the site manager told me a very rude joke concerning the smells at Killybeg but it is far too blue to recount in the pages of this revered magazine so the next time we meet in a pub, buy me a pint and I will tell it to you.
Our abiding memories of the North West of Ireland will be the beautiful deep blue colour of the sea gently lapping against the pure white sands of the long coastal beaches, almost all of which were totally deserted during our visit.
The Irish tour came about because my nephew Jake was due to marry his fiancée Michelle on the 20th June and now was the time to move from the beach site at Sligo down to County Cavan and the town of Virginia close to the wedding venue at Kingscourt. We opted to stay on a site bordering Lough Ramor and were pitched on a hard-standing looking out over the water – very pretty. One thing the brochure didn’t tell us was that the site was due for refurbishment and at that time was under planning consent consideration – which meant that although the facilities block was in good order the rest of the site was looking very tired. Having converted the facilities on board Harvey to suit our every need, we rarely use the normal site facilities other than the water point and dump point – and this particular site didn’t seem to have either of them.
The actual ‘Catholic’ wedding ceremony took forever, well at least two and a half hours, during which time I am convinced the priest forgot where he was several times and the guests suffered severe ‘bum’ ache from sitting too long on hard wooden pews.
The reception, on the other hand, was superb – the setting, the food and drink, the dancing and the general ambience were all beyond reproach. Mo and I were strangers to most of the guests, the majority of whom were on the Bride’s side and were Irish but that did not stop them from making us feel more than welcome - nothing more to be said other than a good time was had by all and the majority of us suffered dreadful hangovers the following morning.
We wasted little time in moving on to Forest Farm Caravan and Camping Park at Athy in County Kildare where the pitches and facilities proved more than adequate, even though it was a working farm staffed only by the farmer and his wife. From there we toured north up to Drogheda and Dublin, east across the Wicklow Mountains and south as far as Wexford and Waterford. We managed to drive the complete length of three Irish motorways, the M1, M11 and the M50 but bearing in mind that together they form the ring road around Dublin and are only a few miles long in total, I don’t think our feat will make the Guinness Book of Records.
For only the second time in two months the weather forecast for the next few days was miserable, our heads were full to overflowing with facts about the potato famine of the mid 1850’s and the resulting mass exodus to America and we were due back at the ferry port in two days time. Trying to decide what to do on our last full day in Ireland became a chore and suddenly with one accord we picked up the phone and asked the ferry company if we could travel back a day early - which they agreed providing we travelled on the early morning ferry. We asked if we could park overnight at the port and were told that providing we arrived after 9pm, the port would be closed and we could park in the embarkation area and be first in the queue on the following morning - without further ado we said our farewells to the town of Athy and the site owners at Forest Farm and set off on our way home. This was not quite as straightforward as it sounds because, for the very first time since we arrived in Ireland, during our previous car recce of the journey back to Rosslare we came across a major road junction in the centre of Athy that was too small for us to negotiate in Harvey. The route required us to turn sharp left from a very busy narrow road onto an even narrower major road and some bright spark had decided to put a lamp standard smack bang on the edge of the left-hand pavement. The fact that the lamp standard was very robustly made did not stop it from being badly bent in several places and even in the few minutes it took for us to decide that we couldn’t use that particular road, we saw it ‘leaned-on’ twice more by vehicles much smaller than us. We decided to take a detour that added several miles to the journey but saved a potential heart-attack situation!
We pulled into a garage just outside of Rosslare and refuelled both gas and petrol for the last time at the cheaper Irish prices, arrived after 9pm as ordered and were at the head of the queue for the morning ferry as promised. The crossing was as smooth as a baby’s bum, we finished the telegraph crossword in a record time – for us – and before we could say “Boo to a Goose” we were back on the road toward Dolbeare Caravan Park, near Saltash, were we arrived safely late in the afternoon.
From our holiday start at Dolbeare on the 29 April, to the finish back at Dolbeare on 1 July we had travelled a total of 1034 miles in Harvey spending £655 on petrol/LPG equalling approximately 63 pence per mile travelled and 6.16 miles per gallon. We had also travelled 4700 miles in our car, spending £384 on diesel equalling approximately just over 8 pence per mile and 51.36 miles per gallon. With the £455 ferry fare added to the fuel costs, we had spent nearly £1500 of our £2500 holiday budget but with the reasonable exchange rate from sterling to euro’s we were never pushed to our spending limit and, had it not been for the fraud on our credit cards, we would have returned home with a few pounds ‘spare’ in our pockets.
Taken as a whole, the holiday provided us with a few really scary moments, a few really hairy moments, and a vast majority of gloriously enjoyable moments during which we met and talked to a lot of really nice people and viewed some phenomenal sights and scenery. As we started out on the holiday, I was a little apprehensive of driving Harvey on the minor roads in Ireland but two months later I was so confident I could have parked him on a postage stamp after reversing the trailer around a blind corner with one arm tied behind my back.
well, back to work as the winter Warden at Quantock Orchard Park whilst dreaming and planning for next year’s odyssey!
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