Kathleen
Letterkenny including Knock, Slieve League, Mt. Errigal & Glenveagh National Park plus Derry – June 24-26, 2016
Back in the car and headed back East toward northern Ireland, stopping over at the cathedral at Knock along the way…this was the only part of the itineray that Aunt Mo requested, and it was well worth a visit. The story is that in 1879, 15 members of the parish saw Mary, St. John the Evangelist and St. Joseph hovering on the gables of the church with an alter, a cross and a lamb for a period of two hours. After much review, the church declared the event to be true and now this has become one of the major pilgramage stops in Europe, with a new cathedral that seats 5,000 people. We were there on a very slow morning, luckily, but we were told festivities were happening later in the week that would fill the cathedral for masses held throughout several days. It was interesting to see the massive new church, but I preferred the small, older church where the miracle actually occurred. We all said a couple of prayers and then headed onward to the next B&B in Letterkenny.
Actually, the B&B was in a very small town called Drumkeen, which is beween the towns of Letterkenny and Ballybofey (truly, isn’t it just fun to say that?) I must say that John and Tricia, the owners of Glenrowan B&B, absolutely positively beyond any doubt take the prize for most hospitalble Innkeepers both in Ireland and thus far in the world, which is saying a tremendous amount in the former and a fair amount in the latter. It would be impossible to not feel completely at home in this lovely house which was built to be a B&B and in which one is immediately made to feel as if they are a member of the family on a much looked forward to visit rather than a paying guest. John and Tricia invited us immediately into their lovely kitchen and living area and made us feel not only as if their home was ours, but also as if they were extremely interested in us, our travels, our comfort, and even our senses of humor. The first night after dinner we ended up sitting in the kitchen sharing a bottle of wine with them until midnight and feeling as if we had made some very good friends. John and Tricia have travelled fairly extensively, so they instinctively know what comforts are most appreciated by travellers and have succeeded in bringing these to their B&B, which is a nice addition to the genuine friendliness and love of people which is their greatest asset. Please go and see them if you are ever in this area of the world (which is also, as you will see, absolutely wonderful in many ways) and I promise that you will leave hoping to see them in your own homes for a visit as soon as possible!
We spent two full days in this area and they were among the best we had on the entire trip. The first evening we were treated to another 1,000-year-old ring fort in the area which had fantastic views over Inch Island and Lough Killey, which empties out into the North Sea, we then took a short tour around the adorable Inch Island and then had dinner in Letterkenny in a “brew pub” which was actually a Irish pub with an American Brew pub decorating theme. When I asked the bartender if they brewed any of their own beers, she looked at me as if I had two heads. I decided not to try to explain the definition of brew pub to her…..we had a perfectly fine pub meal and a decent pint of beer, so we forgave them and chalked it up to the Irish believing that they had perfected beer when Guiness was created, so why would they think they needed microbrews and brew pubs and the like?
The next day, on John’s advice, we headed back to the West Coast to see Slieve League (coastal cliffs) which he swore was much better and less touristy (hopefully less windy, too) than the cliffs of Moher. He was absolutely correct and although the weather was not clear, it opened up quite a bit when we took a short hike up the side of one of the cliffside mountains. This was an amazing bit of jutty rocks and beautiful cliffs, complete with sheep dotting the landscape…what a delight! See pics for details…
On the last day was the piece de resistance, the 3-hour hike out and back from Mt. Errigal. This is the highest peak in the area at 751 Meters and came complete with stunning weather (sun all day) and an absolutely fantastic view. This is the second most stunning day hike I have ever done and although it was a bit challenging, it was absolutely worth it for the views….what an extraordinary day! This hike was a bit more than Aunt Mo was up for and she opted to be dropped off at Glenveagh National Park and Castle while we ran up the hill. This park is lovely and they have recently nearly completed a walking/biking path that runs from the visitor’s center to the castle (the other option is to take a bus in. Since it was such a lovely morning, she opted to walk the 2 miles to the castle rather than ride the bus with the “old people”. It was so beautiful and peaceful that she had one of her most memorable days of the whole trip and opted also to walk the 2 miles back to the vistor’s center, where we both arrived simultaneously! She said the route was much busier on the way back, but she will always cherish her walk in that morning.
To end up the day and our time in the Letterkenny area, we decided to travel into Derry (a.k.a. Londonderry) just inside the border of Northern Ireland to take a look around. The most astonishing thing about this visit was how very different Ireland seems the moment you cross the border. Although the landscape is the same, the buildings immediately lose their cute and cozy Irish feel and the sense of being in the U.K. rather than Ireland is very real. The city is relatively small in UK terms and bills itself as “the walled city”, however, we walked along the walls and were pretty unimpressed with any medieval feel. Although I can’t remember exactly how old the walls were supposed to be I can easily say that after tooling around Marocco and Portugal in recent history, the whole “walled city” gamut seemed like a bit of a scam here and although they had a couple of pretty buildings and a cool new pedestrian bridge over the river, we didn’t find much else to interest us and decided to head back to the Republic of Ireland for one last dinner before leaving it behind (sadly) for good.
All told, the North and Northwest of the R of Ireland are absolutely phenomenal to visit at much less touristy than Kerry and the Southern regions. We really wished we had more time to roam around this area, but certainly took advantage of the wonderful several days that we had!