June 15th

Our plan, such as it was, was to rent a car from Dublin and immediately escape the city toward Navan figuring we’d find a place to stay there for the night. Nancy’s cousins live in Navan, a little over an hours drive from Dublin, and we wanted to stop by for a visit if it was convenient with them. We picked up our Hertz rental, a little (and I mean little) Nissan Micra, in an absolute downpour. Welcome to Ireland.



After making sure the squirrels that powered it were alive and well fed, Nancy got behind the wheel and off we went. Having not really driven much in the past year, driving on the wrong side of the car, not to mention, the wrong side of the road, seemed surprisingly natural.

We reached Navan in what seemed like no time at all and found it had changed quite dramatically in the 10 intervening years since my last visit. I remembered the town, or thought I did, quite well from our previous visit since we walked pretty much all of it looking for Bridgid and Michael’s place. For one thing the town seemed almost like a small city now instead of the rural place from my memories. After driving around for a bit we finally found the information area inside the new library. It wasn’t much help as the person behind the desk informed us she wasn’t even from Navan. A sure sign of how much things had indeed changed. We made some calls, Nancy had bought a sim card for her phone at the airport, securing our beds for the night and also arranging to meet Bridgid.

We found our B&B, Nancy was sure it was the same place she stayed 5 years ago with her Dad and Tim when we pulled into the drive. We cleaned ourselves up a bit and went back into town for dinner which was superb and then to the cousins for the evening. We had a great visit and met the newest member of their family. After an all to short a visit we headed back to the B&B for the night.

We headed north the next day for we both were wanting to see some of Northern Ireland. This was new territory for both of us and I navigated while Nancy was once again behind the wheel. Our destination we decided was the Giant’s Causeway on the very northern coast. Had we more time we may have spent a few days near Belfast but having only a few days before we were due to meet Tom, Julie and crew we had to make some hard decisions. I was surprised to find we had crossed into Northern Ireland without even noticing at first. No border crossing, no police checkpoint, nothing. In fact, we only discovered we must be there when we started seeing road signs in miles. How much the world has changed, and not all for the worse. We took the coastal route which we thought might be pretty and weren’t disappointed. We stopped at this castle overlooking the ocean to see what was here, admission was free that day and there was a fencing competition being held.





We stopped in a small town for lunch and found ourselves parked next to a little café, restaurant, cafeteria place where we each had a great bowl of Irish beef stew. Just what we needed on this overcast and cool drizzly day. Drizzle or no drizzle, Ireland has to have some of the prettiest scenery anywhere. It was getting toward late afternoon when we finally were getting close to the Giant’s Causeway so we decided to stop in a small town a few miles down the road for the night. Better to see it the next day when we wouldn’t be pressed for time by the coming darkness. After once again securing our beds for the night we headed to a place nearby that we had read about.

Carrick-a-rede rope bridge is a 20 meter long, 1 meter wide wire-rope bridge which spans the chasm between the sea cliffs and a small island of the same name. The fun here was just going across the bridge itself which even this late in the day had plenty of visitors. Originally the bridge was put up by fisherman who had been fishing for salmon from the island for hundreds of years and only recently have they stopped. There is an old house on the island and just looking at it in this setting tells the story of what a hard life such must have been.

Do I look super-imposed or what?

Beyond our B&B we followed a narrow winding road to see where it might go and ended up at a small harbor. There was a small café here and we were going to have a drink and enjoy the solitude but they were shutting up for the evening so we had to settle for just the solitude.

I think this might have been the place that started something I continued, with the help of my understanding partner, throughout the rest of the trip. Collecting pictures of signs that I found interesting or humorous. Here’s the one that started it all…

The next day brought us better weather for which we were thankful and we made the most of it as we visited the Giant’s Causeway. What is this place you say? Good question says I. Certainly one of the most geologically interesting places I’ve seen. Right up there with the White desert here in Egypt. And like most places where what you see seems too incredible to be understood in scientific terms, there are myths surrounding it. The myth in this case is an amusing story (sounds Irish already doesn’t it?) about two giants. The Irish giant, Finn MacCool, built a causeway across the sea so he could go fight the Scottish giant, Benandonner. Well with the causeway finished he went across and when he got there he found Benandonner was asleep but he also found that his rival was much bigger than he himself was and so fled back across the causeway. Not much later Finn’s wife heard Benandonner running toward them across the causeway and so she dressed Finn in a baby’s shawl and bonnet and put him in a crib. When the Scottish giant arrived hammering on Finn’s door, Mrs MacCool warned him that he best not wake up Finn’s baby. Taking a glance at the crib, the giant thought to himself, if this huge child is Finn’s baby, then MacCool himself must be immense! And with that thought he fled back to Scotland tearing up the causeway behind him as he went.

Now, I say, isn’t that much better than the geological explanation? If you want that you’ll have to look it up online, I’m afraid I wouldn’t make a very good geologist.

We walked the trail looking down on this marvel from above and then finally descended the path that would eventually lead us to it. There, with other marveling spectators from around the globe, we sat among the stones, basking in the sunlight that we had not seen for days and thinking there was no better place to be in the world right then, together.