If you’re wondering about the title, it means “A few words about County Donegal” in Irish… or at least that’s what the pamphlet our tour guide gave us said it means. I’m writing this a few weeks after our great exploration of County Donegal in the north western part of Ireland, so my already questionable memory might be a little off. I will try my best, as I always do, to recollect my experiences with ya’ll. Thank goodness for photos, though, am I right? Inspiration to write comes and goes for me. And I often only feel like I need to write if I can write well. Anyway, that’s besides the point…

DONEGAL! What a long and winding road we took to get there. Literally. From Cork, my fellow explorers (Alyssa, Kaitlyn, and Kelsey) and I took a bus to Dublin first, which lasted about three hours. We left on a Friday morning before sunrise and got a small breakfast in a bus depot in Dublin. From there on, the trip just got more winding as the roads got smaller and rougher heading northwest from Dublin. I don’t exactly remember how long it took from Dublin to our next stop (my memory has yet again failed me here, sorry folks), but I know we got dropped off at a small fishing town at night fall. By that point, I had already experienced full-blown car sickness from all the winding roads. I was happy our bus travel was almost over. From there we were taken to our hostel, which seemed like in the middle of nowhere. All I could remember looking outside the shuttle bus was how dark it was. There were no lights besides that from the bus so we couldn’t really see anything outside. My friends and I joked that we couldn’t tell if what we were looking at outside from the bus was a field of grass or a wall of bricks. That’s how dark it was. The darkness also didn’t help when we were trying to figure out as to when we should get off. We actually got off one stop after our hostel. The owner of the hostel was conveniently waiting outside and saw that the bus had not stopped, so she followed us in her car to the next stop. She kindly took us back to the hostel and got us properly settled. Another example of the kind hospitality of the Irish!

One of the first things I noticed stepping outside were the stars! I mean, it wasn’t even that clear of a night, but since there was no light pollution, the stars just stood out so perfectly. I  looked up and whispered, “Wow”. The hostel itself was absolutely wonderful. It’s called Áras Ghleann Cholm Cille in Maliinmore, Glencolumbkille, County Donegal. You can check out their Facebook page here. It was very homey and well kept. The four of us shared a room for 2 nights. Each of us paid only 10 euro each night, plus five euro for each breakfast. Here are some photos I took of the hostel during the day when we could actually see things:

After a good night’s sleep, we went on a guided tour on Saturday. However, before we went out we had breakfast. It was the first time I ate a full Irish breakfast, and lemme tell ya, it was sooooo sooooo good. Toast and butter, sausages, an egg, “bacon” (I put it in quotes because it’s basically what we Americans know as ham, but it was still delicious), and what they call pudding (which is made from deep frying left-over parts). The black pudding supposedly has cow blood in it (or something like that). Having eaten my fair share of questionable foods in the Philippines, this didn’t bother me at all. It was quite good actually.

I could talk about food all day, and I probably will write about the food here in Ireland another time, but back to the tour… Kelsey had contacted a tour guide through Tour Donegal, a privately started business. One of its founders, Derek, was our tour guide for that day. He explained that his tours are personalized, meaning we can go basically anywhere we wanted to go. Derek had a pre-planned course to maximize our experience, but it totally depended on what we wanted to see. Our first stop was a 6,000 year old tomb. Amazingly, the marshes in which the tomb was enclosed preserved it through the years. It was remarkable how some of these huge boulders weighing at least a ton were moved before the invention of the wheel! Needless to say these ancient people left no stone unturned.

Afterwards, Derek took us to the Slieve League Cliffs. These cliffs were breathtaking. At its highest point, they stand at 601 meters (1,972 feet) tall, which is three times taller than the more famous Cliffs of Moher in County Clare, another place I want to visit. Standing on a wooden deck viewing the cliffs, it’s almost as if I forgot I was afraid of heights. For some reason it didn’t seem so high. The wonderful colors of green, orange, brown and red dominated the cliff side. We could see a  small waterfall along one side of a cliff. The weather definitely made things more interesting; it was very misty. It was rather cold up there too, mostly because of the winds. We had to exit the car one by one carefully, because Derek said that the winds could literally blow the doors off (it has happened to him before). Despite being a bit nippy, the view was absolutely worth it. The more dedicated and braver hikers walked from the bottom of the cliff entrance, which was a good 8 minute drive from where we got out.

Next up was Muckross Head, a popular climbing cliff due to its horizontal stratifications. Along its beach, we could see huge 10 ton boulders that were moved by the brute force of the Atlantic tides during a storm. Derek mentioned that he’d seen certain boulders in different locations of the beach depending on whether or not a storm had recently occurred. On top of the cliffs, there used to be an ancient structure there. Only the steps remained. This piece of archeology is just one of thousands (documented and undocumented) scattered around the Emerald Isle.

On our way to the next site, we stopped by a bridge over a river known as the Owenea River. I believe Derek said that it means “the river of the deer”. Despite not seeing any deer, we did go along the river and spotted a big boulder. This boulder, Derek said, was an ancient boundary indicator that the town had ended. It was common to have a stone or boulder at the edge of towns indicating where it begins and where it ends. Another example of the history around Ireland.

Afterwards, we went to one of the more popular tourist sites of the county: the Assarancagh waterfall and the Maghera Sea Caves. I’ll show the photos first, since there are no words that could possible capture what I’m about to show you.

Breathtaking. Looking back at these photos, I remember how I felt when we first got there and saw the sites. We first got to the waterfall, and by then the rain had stopped momentarily. The only moisture was coming from the waterfall itself. It doesn’t look it, but there was A LOT of water coming down in that waterfall. You could hear the waterfall pour down like it means business. I guess coming from LA, any amount of water coming naturally down would seem like a lot. But, wow, that was a powerful site to see, hear, and feel.

When we were done being amazed by the Assarancagh waterfall, we made our way to the Maghera beach. It was the most perfect sequence of events, really. All day the weather had been pretty bad. Rainy and windy, the worst combination. However, the moment we parked before we got to the beach, the clouds parted and the sun stuck its pretty face out as if to smile at us. We gladly welcomed the sun’s warmth as we walked onto the beach. My eyes had to adjust to the sudden change in lighting, but when it did, what I saw was, like I said, breathtaking. Green everywhere. For miles. Thin green vegetation waving at us as we walked, as if to say “Hello there, Americans! Welcome to true Ireland!” I was very torn at this moment. One part of me just wanted to stop… take a deep breath…and take in everything… the green… the freshness of it all…  I often found myself trying to catch up to the rest of the group because of this. Another part of me couldn’t wait to see what’s next! And yet another part of me, the one that reminds me to document everything for future reference, wanted to take photographs of everything! I managed to balance all three, so I was happy. The beach itself was very pristine. The reflection from the wet sand of the sky was gorgeous. It literally looked like a great piece of art, except better because it was real! Derek walked us across the beach to the elevated sea cave, and we did some exploring. The whole experience was just very fun. That was the last site of the tour, and he definitely saved the best for last. It was supposed to be a five hour tour, but we ended up spending about seven hours with Derek. I highly recommend his personalized touring if you ever go to County Donegal.

Back at the hostel, we met this older couple having their holiday there as well. They are from Northern Ireland, but they spent some time in the States. The man was a professor and the woman used to be a factory worker in Berkeley, California. We were talking about America, when the woman told me this story: She had lived in Northern Ireland during the whole IRA bombing days and what not. Whenever she would enter a store in Northern Ireland, she would get inspected by a security guard in front of the store. She would open her coat and her bag so to let the man inspect for bombs and weapons. Eventually, she moved to Berkeley. During her first visit to a store (it was a K-Mart she said), she saw a man outside and instinctively walked up to him, opened her coat and her bag for him to inspect. Very confused, the man looked at her weird and eventually ran away startled as to what just happened. It was then when the woman realized she was no longer in Northern Ireland. I had a good laugh at that one.

One thing that really got to me was what the man said though. He used to teach at a university in California. Or was it New York. I forgot which one (of course). But he said that one of the things that he noticed after his time in the States was how morally conscious the youth were. He said that many students were very positive and had a good outlook in life. He said it gave him more respect for Americans as well as hope for the future.

The next day, we departed from County Donegal, amazed at what we saw. If you can’t tell, I still am.

Until next time,

Peace. Love. Respect.