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Ireland
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Sample
itinerary for your vacation in Ireland
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What
to see in Ireland
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Ireland's attractions
are its landscape and people – both in the Republic and Northern
Ireland – and few visitors are disappointed by the reality
of the stock Irish images: the green, rain-hazed loughs and wild,
bluff coastlines, the inspired talent for conversation, the easy
pace of life and wealth of traditional music. Ireland has become
increasingly integrated with the industrial economies of western
Europe, yet the modernization of the country has to date made few
marks. It's a place to explore slowly, roaming through agricultural
landscapes scattered with farmhouses, or along the endlessly indented
coastline. In town, too, the pleasures are unhurried: evenings over
Guinnesses in the snug of a pub, listening to the chat around a
turf fire.
Especially
in the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht areas, you'll be aware of the
strength and continuity of the island's oral tradition. The speech
of the country, moulded by the rhythms of the ancient tongue,
has fired such twentieth-century greats as Yeats, Joyce, Beckett
and Heaney. Music, too, has always been at the centre of Irish
community life, and you can expect to find traditional music sessions
in the pubs of all towns of any size and along the west coast.
Side by side with this is a romping rock scene that has spawned
Van Morrison, U2, Sinead O'Connor and The Corrs.
The area
that draws most visitors is the west coast, whose northern reaches
are characterized by the demonically daunting peninsulas and the
mystical lakes and glens of Donegal. The midwest coastline and
its offshore islands – especially the Aran Islands –
are just as attractive, combining vertiginous cliffs, boulder-strewn
wastes and violent mountains. In the south, the melodramatic peaks
of the Ring of Kerry fall to lake-pools and seductive seascapes,
while in the north of the island, the principal draw is the bizarre
basalt formation of the Giant's Causeway. The interior is less
spectacular, but the southern pastures and low wooded hills, and
the wide peat bogs of the midlands, are the classic landscapes
of Ireland. Of the inland waterways, the most alluring is the
island-studded Lough Erne, easily reached from Enniskillen.
For anyone
with strictly limited time, one of the best options is to combine
a visit to Dublin with the mountains and monastic ruins of County
Wicklow. Dublin is an extraordinary mix of youthfulness and tradition,
a human-scale capital of rejuvenated Georgian squares and vibrant
pubs. Belfast, victim of a perennial bad press, vies with Dublin
in the vitality of its nightlife, while the cities of Cork, Limerick
and, most of all, Galway, have a rediscovered energy about them.
No introduction
can cope with the complexities of Ireland's politics, which permeate
every aspect of daily life, most conspicuously in the North. Suffice
it to say that, regardless of partisan politics, Irish hospitality
is as warm as the brochures say, on both sides of the border.
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