Ireland early summer
 

Doing a bit of an off road meet in Wales at the end of May so figured that I might as well pop across to the Isle of Ireland. There seem to be plenty of thread about travelling from Ireland to somewhere else. Anywhere else. But nothing about visiting.

Only giving myself about two weeks, and will need to stop by Cork and then Cookstown in the North.

Other than that, anyone got any advice, tips, suggestions.

Ireland early summer
 

Do a Google search on (the wild Atlantic way) it's a route that runs. From south to north along the west coast and you will see all the best parts if you did this route .
People say the south of the route is the best , if you don't have enough time .


89 Africa Twin RD03

Ferry to Rosslare from South Wales. Alternatively Dublin to Holyhead. Coastal areas are the most interesting, particularly all of the southern & western coastline, heading clockwise to Ulster, perhaps via the Lough Foyle ferry into County Antrim (avoiding Derry). Do the Inishowen 100 while you are in the republic.
The previously mentioned (Wild) West Atlantic Way is signposted, really easy to follow, with lots of optional extra loops, an absolute must do.
The tiny roads to the furthestmost points are delightfully scenic and mostly quiet. Famous places were busy with tourists & coaches, it pays to get off the beaten track, or approach from odd directions.
Near the Skelligs in County Kerry is a chocolate factory, good for a warming hot chocolate in a clean, dry environment (admission free).
Far inland we sometimes found the atmosphere rather depressing, with few tourist attractions, hotels or facilities and generally worse weather.
West of Lough Neagh towards Cookstown was not our favourite area.
Tarmac is in better condition in Ulster, but everywhere is much busier and more built up than the republic.
If you are in Tipperary overnight the Central B&B at 44 Main Street is recommended. Jerry was delighted to have motorbikes; gave us a warm welcome and a huge secure parking garage tucked away on a side street. Jerry & Dorothy supplied the only really good overnight parking place that we ever found in Ireland.
We toured Ireland in high summer of 2013 & 2015.
In 2013 we found places to stay at the end of each day, but in 2015 we mostly booked ahead, which wasted less time and got better quality accommodation.
I was pleased to have comfortable goretex boots. Tourist attractions often involved a long walk in full bike kit.
If you visit the the cliffs of Moher in County Clare or the Carrick a rede bridge & Giants Causeway in Antrim expect huge crowds and a long walk.
Sleive League cliffs west of Killybegs in Donegal are a bit quieter, but try to ride beyond the car park on the gated road to avoid another long walk, this time on tarmac.

Ireland early summer
 

The west coast is unreal - especially Kerry. If you can park the bike and make it out to the Skelligs islands themselves it's well worth the day trip from Port McGee. Bring some waterproofs! Other highlights include (in Kerry);

Valencia Island (great Guinness and food at the hotel there).

Derrynan national park

A pint of Guinness at MikeMurtz pub in Caharciveen ;)

I took inspiration from this video and did a trip around Ireland about a year ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJrj...ature=youtu.be

I travelled clockwise starting in the north, sticking mainly to the coast, visiting most of the places seen in the video (and a few more).

I didn't have anything booked. I just pulled into the nearest B&B at approx 8pm every evening, although it was slightly out of season.

Locals all advised me to avoid the ring of Kerry (due to the amount of shamrocks, leprechauns and tourist coaches) and ride the Beara peninsula instead. I followed this advice and was rewarded with a tourist free ride around this much more rural, unspoiled area. At the bottom of this peninsula is Dursey island. Access to the island is via Ireland’s only cable car, and apparently the only cable car in Europe that goes over open water.

As mentioned above, the ‘wild atlantic way’ is the well signposted coast road that runs north to south on the west coast with more scenery than you can shake a stick at.

Although I decided to give the ring of Kerry a miss, my journey unavoidably took me along part of it’s route. I was in the mountains somewhere and a bit lost, so I stopped at a huge gift shop (in the middle of nowhere) to ask for directions. The car park was full of coaches, and the place was rammed. As I walked through the door, the first thing I spotted was a large sign that read ‘Orders over $200 ship free’!

Carl if you pass Caharciveen in Kerry in June email me as might be there and we'll go for a pint, possibly place for you to sleep too. Cheers! Ross

Cool, will let you know.

I've been considering riding Gap of Dunloe instead of following the coast around to Caharciveen but we'll see.

Gap of Dunloe is best approached from the south otherwise the signage indicates no way out. Very touristy at the northern end with pony & trap rides from Kate's Cottage area. Picturesque.

Right, I'm leaving at the end of next week.

I'm probably not going to ride the whole 2,500 miles of the Wild Atlantic Way as I've got people to visit, and other things to do, but will still cover a great portion of it.

I imagine that I'll ride more of the south of it than the north.

Starting from Cork, what are the key highlights? Looking for cliffs, abandoned places, and dramatic scenery.

Interesting place, Ireland, but kind of strange.

I recall seeing one sign that read In the past 5 years, 116 people have been killed on this stretch of road", and thinking "Well, why don't you fix up the friggin' road, then, instead of putting up a sign?"

They also tend to throw down pea gravel on top of hot tar on roads, even on curves in the roads. My motorcycle has ABS and a traction control system, the instrument panel looked like Las Vegas at night with the warning lights for activation of these systems frequently flashing on and off.

The highways department doesn't spend much time trimming the vegetation at the side of the roadways... hedges often encroach onto the road, making it very narrow. Maybe that's to bounce the motorcycles back onto the road after they hit the pea gravel in the corners.

People in the northeast corner of the island appear to be very patriotic, everyone has a flag of some kind hanging off the front of their building. But the flags are all different. Maybe they just like bright colours.

I got lost in a big city in the north, and stopped into a pub on the main street (Shankhill Road) to ask for directions. Someone asked me "What foot do you kick with?" I told them that the Honda PanEuropean I was riding had electric start, and no kickstarter, and they all laughed. I guess they don't have many modern motorcycles there... I didn't see very many. Lots of pretty tall fences, though.

Nice island, but like I said, kind of strange.

Michael

Michael, that's a rather naiive description indeed. It has humour and total inaccuracy in equal measure!:clap:

Planning Irish trip around mid September
 

plan is to arrive Dublin and do clockwise journey, to the South then North - have done a good part of Wild Atlantic Way a few years ago in a motorhome, but will now be on Motorcycle.
Travelling round to Larne - ferry to Scotland - then north across to East coast and then plan route back to North Wales
Thats the plan anyway
Looking forward to it

Ok, so Ireland so far for me...

Anything worth seeing and not a tourist trap will be behind a fence or a gate and possibly accompanied by signposts with wording along the lines of "EXTREME DANGER" or "CLOSED". This is, I gather, because people here are terrified of liability. Up to you what to do.

There's plenty of hidden places (often requiring a degree of walking to reach) and roads that are pretty decent and twisty. Motorways and National roads are usually boring, regional ones of wildly varying standards will take you through places instead. But you will need to expect anything on the blind side of the curve. Deer are plentiful, so are random branches, loose chippings, the occasional sheep, walkers, horses, bicyclists. Anywhere.

Don't trust other drivers speed. Here speed limits are routinely ignored by people, and a good bunch do drive as if they have xray vision to see around curves.

Maybe not now (maybe!) but you can have days that will have sun, rain, hail, and snow, more than once.

People are very nice here, specially in rural areas away from Dublin. (frankly, I'd stay away from it altogether). People will want to talk with you about anything just because you are both in the same place. A couple of times I stopped by the road to check the gps, and people went outside their house or garden just to check if I was all ok. Stopped to take a picture on a lonely road? Someone will stop, or slow down and ask.

I was walking through some place, it clearly said something along the lines of "private property stay away". I asked some locals in front of the gate that I couldn't go there, could I? They say "oh go ahead, you're ok"

The west has possibly the prettiest sights and the most published ones. For the east they have started to promote "Ancient East". I hope they fix the goddamn uneven surfaces...

The Road Safety Authority saying the loose road chippings are someone else's problem while at the same time running safety campaigns regarding level crossings is pretty accurate.