Holyhead

We left Coniston at 8 am this morning, after breakfasting in the dark (watching English soccer on the TV. So much more interesting and skilled than Australian football... please don't lynch me...). Like a few days previously, we drove out of Sheffield and through Derbyshire, heading south-west until we entered Wales.

The only immediate difference I noticed upon crossing the border was that the road signs are bi-lingual in Wales... and my first thoughts were that the Welsh language needs an urgent booster-shot of vowels. (I didn't take get a photo of a good example, but you can almost see what I mean on this sign from later in the day:)


Quite suddenly after leaving the motorway, the Irish sea opened up on our right. It was pewter-grey and, though calm, looked very foreboding. At the same time, Welsh mountains were beginning to rise high above us on our left - all barren and rocky, and apparently literally in danger of falling down around us - I saw lots of reinforcement work going on around the sides of the highway. We drove along the coast, sandwiched between mountains and cold sea, watching animals grazing on the slopes above us. Is this why the English didn't utterly destroy Welsh culture - because they didn't want such bleak land? I wish I wasn't so ignorant of Welsh history. I also wish I could have seen more of Wales and its people, but you can never fit everything into one trip.

We arrived at the port of Holyhead (pronounced more like "Hollyhead") in the early afternoon, where we gave our hire car back, ate some lunch, and checked onto our ferry. While my family sat in the cafe to wait until boarding, I decided not to waste any time, and set out to explore a tiny sliver of Holyhead; out along the headland. Obviously I didn't have time to see much, but walking down the monochrome grey streets with the gulls mewling overhead felt so atmospheric.


I passed one man twice, as I was coming and then going, and the second time we had smiled politely at each other, he quirked an eyebrow and asked me whether I was lost - in a beautiful rolling Irish accent. That was when it finally dawned on me that I wasn't just "going to Ireland"... I was "GOING TO IRELAND!!" I've had a distant fascination with the place ever since I was little, and excitement had finally caught up with me.

I scrambled back just in time to catch the ferry. It's an enormous boat, and someone told me (though I have my doubts) that it's the biggest car ferry in the world. The passenger decks certainly seem very high-up when you look out the window...

Just as we pulled out, all the workmen on the dock stopped work to watch us leaving, and to wave up at the huge ship. Seeing me watching this, the man sitting at the lounge-table next to me made some amused remark (again in a broad southern-Irish accent), and he and I got to talking. His name was Nigel, and he explained to me that he lived in Manchester with his wife and young daughters (I relaxed significantly at this point!), but that he was heading home to Offaly for a funeral. Nigel told me at length about his exploits in Northern Ireland as a health insurance salesman; about escaping Orangemen skinheads in pubs, and about how awful the Guinness is in England - he's "trained" his local bartender in Manchester to pour a passable one. He recounted pub brawls he and his friend Mick had gotten into (and then escaped), straight before showing me and mum the photos from his daughter's 2nd birthday party. He teased dad about drinking, and offered us countless suggestions for places to go and see in his home-country. In short, he was a one-man riot, and the 3-hour ferry trip seemed to disappear in minutes.


The ferry pulled up in Dublin port, and we said goodbye to Nigel at the passport-check. By this time it was dark, so we caught a taxi to the city centre to our hotel. We listened spellbound all the way to the rapid-fire accents on Dublin radio, one of whom was advertising a patent hangover cure. Turns out Barry's hotel is "famous" among the city's cab drivers - it's built above "La Petite" lap-dancing club. Tee-hee... take a look, in the light:


Dinner was off one of the main streets in Dublin, at a pub called Madigan's (turns out to be a chain rather than a one-off, which was a smidgen of a disappointment - though we made up for that later). I met my first "real" Guinness there, though, when I took a sip of dad's. And all the fuss is warranted! That drink has subtleties, especially in the aftertaste. I'll quote mum here: "it's rather like drinking gravy browning, but nonetheless it's somehow enjoyable".

Not long after dinner, we fell into our beds back at the hotel.