Monday, June 20 - A Castle, An Inn, and a Ferry

After a fantastic traditional Irish breakfast cooked by Bernie, our B&B hostess, we started our day with a tour of Donegal Castle.

Wow! The castle is beautifully restored and has quite a history behind it. The castle dates back to the 1400s when it was built by Red Hugh O’Donnell. During the Nine Year War the O’Donnells were forced to abandon the castle, but before leaving they did their best to destroy as much of the castle as they could – leaving it as unusable to the English as possible. The castle, and Donegal, were given to Sir Basil Brooke who took charge of the area for the English. In addition to repairing the castle, he also added on another wing to the castle – which looked like manor homes of the time in England. He also added windows to the tower and added an additional floor as the model below shows.

This castle is one of my favorites, so far. It has been very well restored and is quite beautiful.

One of the interesting parts of this castle was a room called the garderobe, which is a room we call the bathroom today. The garderobe was a small room which had a wooden seat with a hole in it. Waste would fall down the hole into a chute built into the castle wall and would end up in a pit in the ground below, or go directly into the moat surrounding the castle. As time went on, they modified the design of the chute to be angular since there were issues with enemy forces shooting arrows up the chute (imagine where they landed!) or occasionally a brave soul would make his way through the cesspool of waste to climb up the chute and open a door to let enemy forces into the castle. Whew!!

The spiral steps in this castle were purposely uneven and of varying heights so as to trip an enemy swordsman. The stairs were also designed to ascend to the right because the O’Donnells were right handed and this gave them more room at the turn of the stairs to strike down their enemies. Brilliant thinking!

Close up of steps – This gives you some idea of how thick the steps were – anywhere from 10-14 inches tall. The idea of sword fighting on the steps is hard to imagine – I was having trouble climbing up them without tripping!!

After visiting the castle, we went for a walk down by the bay. I took a picture of a few signs we’ve seen which are pretty common throughout Ireland. I thought the dog sign was particularly descriptive

The ring buoys can be found next to most every waterway. Since they are readily available, I was surprised more weren’t missing. It’s obvious they do go missing from time to time, seeing the warning on the sign.

Donegal Bay was beautiful – the River Eske, which runs through town, empties out into Donegal Bay which flows westward into the Atlantic Ocean.

Next to the bay was a cemetery which also housed the remains of a Franciscan Friary dating back to the 1500s. The ruins of the friary were beautiful and the cemetery’s location at the end of the quay was beautiful.

We headed to the car and began our drive eastward across Northern Ireland toward Downpatrick, south of Belfast. The drive took about 3 hours, with a few stops along the way. Northern Ireland is just as beautiful as the Republic of Ireland. We did notice the roads were wider and easier to navigate, which we appreciated, but other than that no significantly different changes. The homes seem larger, the road signs are in English only with no Gaelic translation and the villages are laid out in a similar manner to those in the Republic. From time to time we see evidence of the divide between Northern Ireland and the Republic - the Union Jack flies instead of the tricolors and in one small town the words "No Surrender" are painted on the side of a wall. However, the welcome from the locals is just as genuine and they are just as willing to help direct lost Americans as those we met in southern Ireland. :)

We checked into our home for the next few days – the Cuan Inn in Strangford. Strangford is located on Strangford Lough (pronounced “lock”) which is a large inlet of the Irish Sea. We are on the western side of the Lough and the town Portaferry is located directly across the lough from us on the Ards Pennisula. Both Strangford and Portaferry are popular tourist destinations noted for their picturesque locations along the lough. There is a car ferry that connects the villages of Strangford and Portaferry and has been in operation for almost four centuries. It takes about 10 minutes to cross the lough by ferry as opposed to almost an hour and a half by car.

Our hosts at the Cuan Inn are Peter and Caroline McErlean. The Cuan (pronounced “cue-in”) translates as “peaceful place”. A perfect spot for weary travelers for the next few days. The Cuan is celebrating its 200^th anniversary this year and has been in business since 1811. The inn is charming, historic, and known for its cuisine. Meghan also chose the Cuan so we would be close to Downpatrick where she did an internship through the St. Patrick Centre as a Young Ambassador two years ago. We met up with Tim Campbell, head of the St. Patrick Centre and Young Ambassador program, for dinner. Tim took us across the lough on the ferry to Portaferry for dinner. We had a wonderful meal and caught up over dinner. After promising to catch up with Tim later in the week we headed back across the lough on the ferry. At this time of night, the tide is coming in and the ferry has to work hard to get across the channel. It’s interesting to watch the tidal current as we cross and see how strong it is. At one point it is able to push the ferry sideways before the ferry powers it way through the current. We also notice one of the boats tied to the pier is called the St. Brendan. I just had to take a picture of that! Brendan is actually a pretty great name for a boat, since St. Brendan is the patron saint of sailors.

                     

When we got back to Strangford we noticed how quiet the village was. This was a definite difference from the Republic of Ireland where many of the villages would just be starting their nightly entertainment. Meghan and I headed back to the inn while Will went for a walk to check out the town. About 45 minutes later Will returned to our room quite annoyed to have been locked out of the inn and unable to access the night manager to let him in. Luckily, the bartender on duty across the square was able to contact the night manager. “What kind of place rolls up the streets at 9PM?” he wondered. This was a definite difference from previous towns we’d stayed in, but I was glad for the quiet – we have a BIG day ahead of us tomorrow. We are taking a bus tour of the northern coast of Ireland including Giant’s Causeway, the Carrick a Rede rope bridge, Bushmills Distillery, and more castles. We’ve decided not to put Will through another day of driving – particularly through Belfast during rush hour – so we will catch the local bus outside the inn at 7AM tomorrow and bus to Belfast to catch our tour.