No matter how long the journey, the last 15 minutes is always the longest…. Livonne

What a day today. It’s been such a long trip but so worthwhile. We crossed a few things off our bucket list. We woke up in Belfast. I had one of those sudden starts when I heard a loud bang at 6.30ish. There was none.. It must have been a dream. I occasionally get up to answer my door only to find no one there. I’ve dreamed the doorbell. Me and my dumb sleep and dreams. Anyway, once I was awake, there was no point going back to sleep as we knew we had a long day ahead of us.

Up, dressed bright and early and we headed down for breakfast. Unfortunately we came down at the same time as a tour bus who were having their breakfast before taking off on their tour of who knows where in Ireland. The dining room was very crowded but we got a booth and had a nice breakfast. I think the tiredness was catching up with us a bit as Cecile felt a bit off and I was a bit dizzy. After breakfast we both settled down a bit, so finished packing our stuff and set off for the great unknown. First stop Dark Hedges.

For those of you who haven’t kept up with any popular culture in a while, the Dark Hedges was where a lot of Game of Thrones was filmed. FYI, I didn’t watch GOT. I watched the start of one episode and was so traumatised by the amount of violence in it that I turned it straight off. But you’d have to have never watched any social media or tv not to know that the Dark Hedges is an important part of the filming.

The row of beech trees along a small country lane were planted in the eighteenth century by the Stuart family and up until the phenomena that was Game of Thrones, it was just that, a small country lane. Along came a film crew with a massive success on their hands and the interlocking canopy of bare trees was just the perfect amount of moody spookiness for the viewing public to love. Now it has visitors non stop. Today we joined that throng.

You pay 5 pound for parking in the nearby hotel car park or if you order in the restaurant you get free parking. Then it’s a short walk (unless you go the long way accidentally like we did) to the lane. There was a tractor in the paddock abutting the lane who made you realise this really is just working territory for the men and women who have probably worked that land all their lives before the show took off and their little slice of heaven was inundated with idiots (like us) wanting to see the trees.

I believe a number of the trees have fallen down over the last few years from storms in the area. But, seriously, don’t get me started on the morons who think it is romantic to carve their names into these majestic beauties. If you are one of the morons, go into your bathroom now and take a long hard look at yourself. It isn’t funny. It isn’t clever. And it certainly isn’t romantic just because you put a heart around someones name. It is disgusting and you should hang your head in shame. Anyway, rant over there.

From there we headed to the Giant’s Causeway. I had the privilege of seeing the Scottish side of the myth in 2017 when I went with Kirsty to the Isle of Staffa and Fingal’s Cave. For those who don’t know the story of the Giants at the Causeway, Google it. It’s worth a read. Anyway, at the Causeway, we drove in and it was going to cost us 30 pounds to park the car and go to the causeway and through the exhibit there. There was also a carpark further down the road which was 10 pound to park and all was free. We decided to do that one as, honestly, from where we stood after walking back up from where we parked, the view was beautiful and we didn’t feel like fighting all the crowds down there. We had a good look around and then walked back to the car and headed off yet again.

Cecile wanted to see Derry where of course, The Derry Girls was filmed. It is Ireland’s only intact walled city and has been a place of great unrest over the years. We were going to head there, have a chip butty for lunch and continue on our way. Well that drive was never ending. We had a few of those today. It also seemed that everytime we went past a ‘chippie’, it was closed. Perhaps because it was a Monday but anyway, we missed out on that experience. We drove through the gate and had a look around then once again, got in the car for another long (and I do mean long) drive. Next destination, Cong.

Since the chippies all seemed to be closed, we were going to stop along the way for lunch so we pulled in to a roadhouse pub type thing but when we got there it was closed. There was a coffee place in their carpark so we went in there and the guy who we assume was serving, walked in after us, took something and walked back out, regardless of the fact that we were all waiting to be served. We kept going till we came to another place with food.. It wasn’t what we wanted to be honest, but it was all we were going to find in a hurry. After we’d eaten lunch, we were STILL driving when a car coming in the opposite direction pulled out to pass a car regardless of the fact that we were coming the other way. Thankfully I pulled off to one side and he pulled back onto this side of the road before catastrophe struck.

But back to Cong.. You might not know the town of Cong by it’s real name but in the movie The Quiet Man, John Wayne’s character, Sean ‘Trooper’ Thornton returns to his home town of Inisfree to settle down after leaving his boxing profession. Cong was the setting for the fictional Inisfree. There is an island called the Isle of Innisfree which Yeats wrote about but in the movie, the town was fictional. It was, I believe based on the Taming of the Shrew and Mary Kate Danaher was played by the beautiful Maureen O’Hara.

This is one of my favourite movies of all time. It is such a classic. Yes it can feel very chauvanistic if we were to judge it by today’s standards, but this was set in about the 1920’s when things were very different. Mary Kate’s character was never a push over or someone who would have made life easy for any man, regardless of societies norm at the time. She was feisty, fiery and funny. While I’ve never been a John Wayne fan, he was the perfect foil for Maureen O’Hara’s spirited Mary Kate. It must have created such a buzz in the small town when it was filmed with such huge stars being in town. I must watch it again as soon as I return home. And pardon my pun in the title.. I know John Wayne was The Duke.. but the Duke of Cong doesn’t sound as good as the King of Cong..

Even without the movie setting, Cong is a village out of a romantic dream. The town sits nestled in between two loughs and is so picturesque. I saw a statue of John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, so I turned the corner and was greeted by the imposing ruins of Cong Abbey. Oh what a delight it was. I can only imagine how incredible it would have been in it’s day. I could have stayed there forever but it was already 7.30pm and we still had to move onto Galway, so we got back into the car and did a few laps of the town where I got to see Pat Cohan’s pub. I saw it from one way and didn’t recognise it but when I went down the side, it was all so familiar. The pub was the setting for the famous fight scene between Sean Thornton and Will Danaher, as well as half the town who joined in the fisticuffs.

As we drove out of town, we pulled into Ashford Castle and went a bit up the driveway but it obviously has a golf course attached and we didn’t want to have golf balls whizzing by us so we turned around and drove back out. Just a sidenote, the castle was where the cast of The Quiet Man stayed during filming. As much as it took us ages to get here, for me, it was totally worth it. I felt very emotional there. I will certainly return there again sometime to stay for a few days to fully explore. It won’t be this visit but it gives me an excuse to have to come back again.

From Cong, it was now starting to get a bit darker and we had to head onto Galway, our destination for the next two nights. Two nights in one place, what a treat. Tomorrow we are going to head over to the Aran Isles and the Cliffs of Moher. Oh this trip has been so fantastic. So many things we’ve seen that we feel humbled and privileged to have witnessed. Life is good.

For now.. Happy feeling grateful…. Livvy xxx