Friday 26th August 2005 Dungarvan-Dunbeacon (Durrus, Mizen Head Peninsula)
Mark, Ali and Ciara back to Wexford, us to the Mizen Head peninsula. Via the 12th century Ardmore tower and ogham stones in a ruined church.

We seek out the Whitegate Filling Station to refill my tiny gas canister. Cobbs decides to refill their canister seeing as we're here, although it's not empty yet. The filling station is huge, on the edge of a refinery near Cork harbour. "I'll be with you as soon as I've eaten this meat. Sit! Sit!". Life in this country is at a sloooow pace. "Ah we can fill yer gas now but you'll have to pay Maureen and she's at lunch. She'll be back in 45 minutes. Why don't you take a little walk? It’s lovely just around that corner there" . So off we trot to look at the view over Cork and Cobh – a stunning huge harbour and sea inlet.

Eventually the gas and a receipt arrives. "Ah but don't worry about the little one. The other is €16". Ha! Cobbs isn't happy. "Why doesn't he have to pay? Mine wasn’t even empty!"

At Drumbeg Stone Circle a spring rises in the nearby cooking hut, fills a little crystal-clear pool and gurgles away into the heather. Very Neolithic des res, views out to a green bowl of farms and fields with the sea beyond.

On the road from Drumbeg to Dunbeacon we pass stunning sea inlets, pubs on the waters edge, fishing boats, mud flats. A steel bridge goes over the water and I have to drive over it just because it is there. Woods, trees and fields fall down to the water's edge and it is all so peaceful.

Dunbeacon a great basic campsite where we park the vans next to each other in a little partition in the site, have a barbecue and Cobbs fixes up a tarpaulin between the vans to keep off the rain. Very cosy. And that Devil's Bit cider is damned fine too!

Sunday 28th August 2005 Durrus-Healy Pass (Beara Peninsula)
Misty, we drive to tip of Beara peninsula, a high old cable car to Dursey Island, cattle take priority.

Lunch at a layby with fantastic view over a harbour and a bay, waves and rocks far below. At Allihies, a coppermine walk through low cloud to the mysterious deserted mines, where we chuck rocks over the fence into unseen holes and listen to knocks and crashes as they disappear into the black depths. How deep are they? As usual I have to lug a huge colourful boulder back to thee van.

Campsite in Healy Pass with scabby dogs and caravan-rubbing sheep. We walk to the An Sibin pub, Cobbs meets some Bath builders who say Irish labourers are "only interested in breeze block bungalows". Back in the D A R K and the rain. Thank god Jo remembered a torch!

Monday 29th August 2005 Healy Pass-Gallarus Oratory (Dingle Peninsula)
Uragh stone circle, stunning location in Gleninchquin National Park. The stones are peacefully located at the edge of a black lough, 5000 years of a stunning view. In the distance a high, thin, white foaming waterfall. On the walk back from the stones a bouncing bog, which Cobbs wobbles around on and makes waves.

Cobbs and Jo drive on but Robs and I visit the falls where we experience the strange €4.50 rip-off. "You're being rude trying to turn around on our land!"

Killarney tourist hell tho' lovely views of Ladies Pass. Dingle peninsula an incredible coastal drive "better than Chapman’s peak". Immense beach in Dingle bay, at the far side grey misty peaks fading into the distance. Everywhere we have been in Ireland the bays seem prettier than the last until we have given up mentioning how beautiful they are.

Gallarus campsite, A robin in the van, starlings on the wire. We sit in scorching sun and chill between the vans. In the evening we walk to the pub in Ballydavid harbour, past the sunset over fishing boats in the bay. Pitch-black walk back, looking at the stars and a barn owl in a field.

Tuesday 30th August 2005 Gallarus Oratory (Dingle Peninsula)
Misty again. Slea Head and "Ryan’s Daughter". Down the crazy steep Dunquin pier for a boat trip on Blasket Princess to see Venus. "She usually hangs around between that boat and that buoy" What? There she is! Beautiful bottlenose swimming around the boat around and beneath. We watch her for ages and ages, she seems to love company. Apparently when the German lady swims with her she leaps out of the water in excitement!
Up on the high deck watching seals and cormorants. Boat rounds Blasket island and we see it's immense green back stretching away. Too windy to go round island so we stay round the rocks.
Return to Dunquin pier, crazy steep concrete path up the cliff, we have seen pictures of sheep from the island take this path! A great boat trip.
Jo drives us into Dingle, quite nice when the tourists gone. Irish pub but twee music and no singing.

Wednesday 31st August 2005 Gallarus Oratory-Cashel
Misty start, rain. Too cloudy for Conor Pass so we zip straight through to the Rock of Cashel, across dull midlands. The campsite sits in the shadow of the rock.

We walk to the Rock and search for Sheelas... the first one is easy but where is the second? Finally Robs asks and the staff tell us where - during the 70s reconstruction the Sheila was placed in the wall of the visitors centre, mounted sideways. Plain as day when you know, but you wouldn't see it otherwise.

I briefly chat to the pretty young lady on the cash desk about the Sheila and fiddle with the brim of my hat Benny Hill-style. Especially when she tells me that the Sheila on the wall "definitely has it all going on". ... you'd think I fancied her or something.

Great curry in Cashel and the helpful waitress brings out the 3 different types of flour for Robs. Gram, self-raising and soya.

Robs bloats out in the van while me Cobbs and Jo go to the pub. Then just as we are leaving the meat goes down and Robs gets “second wind”. She scurries into town and so we stay until late, walking home through the deserted town in the rain, the castle lights off as all are asleep.

Thursday 1st September 2005 Cashel-Slane
Cobbs and Jo off to Rosslare, we drive again up through the dull bit. Slane a fairly pretty town... Coyningham Arms old-fashioned hotel, with a four-poster bed! We sleep for a while, then off to Dublin Airport to pick up Ma. On the way back to Slane the bridge over the Boyne is very pretty, simple, blue-lit.

At the hotel, thousands of cawing crows mill around the twilit trees. Never seen so many, chattering, gliding, landing.

Friday 2nd September 2005 Slane-Rathdrum (Wicklow Mountains)
Newgrange. The visitor's centre covered in grass, tastefully built, clean, clear. Pretty walk over the Boyne to wait for the bus.

At Newgrange the rebuild has been well done but a little bit shiny. No-one knows how true the restructuring was but it gives a good feel for how it must have looked 5000 years ago. Sinead our young guide was clear and animated and had a feeling for the subject. Like at Gavrinnis, a walk deep into the mound, chambers on both side, mysterious carvings and a solstice alignment. Sinead turns off the lights and in hushed tones describes the changing of the light as the sun rises at the midwinter solstice. But for me this is a birthing ritual... the pregnant mound yields the sun at the birth of the year.

Onward - traffic traffic traffic around Dublin until suddenly we're in the Wicklow Mountains and it's all wild. Heather, moorland, bog, roads with no signs sneaking off to nowhere. Quick stroll near a bridge at Sally Gap to look at the rusty red stream. Then Lough Tay and the Luggala Estate, Guinness poured into the mountains and then a beautiful house and grounds with immaculate lawns grazed by a herd of deer! Who lives here? One of the Guinnesses actually...

Finally we stop at a wooden chalet next to a little lake at Rathdrum, it's so nice we will stay for 2 nights. Swallows scooping insects off the water sweep the dark lake. Ducks inquiring about food. Ma teaches us “Black Bess”. And squeaky doors and creaky floors...

Saturday 3rd September 2005 Rathdrum (Wicklow Mountains)
Lazy day, faffing about. Then a trip to Glendalough, a dramatic pair of lakes deep in the mountains. The home of St. Kevin in the 5th Century and you can see why, it's beautiful, rugged and isolated. The black lough is surrounded on all sides by high glacial mountains. We walk up the valley to the old mines.

Near the Upper Lake, the scenery is Alpine, pine forest down the steep slopes to a deep black lough. We walk along the lough shore twisting our way over roots, finding shiny stones and admiring the view.

Beyond the beach the head of the valley has immense scree boulders spilling down from all sides, mountain goats on the upper slopes, a waterfall pouring down from the distance. There is an abandoned mining village and mounds of white quartz spoil heaps. A huge contrast with the greenery around the lough.
Back along and what is that huge mat of material up in the tree?

The carpark has filled up with Italians. Why Italians? Lots of families picnicking and enjoying themselves. A wedding video!

Back to the restaurant in Laragh and MEAT all round.

Sunday 4th September 2005 Rathdrum (Wicklow Mountains)-Dungarvan.
Misty and low, but we head out over the Wicklow gap. The countryside changes quickly from soft green hills to big bleak moorland. Up high, it's colder.

Today is mostly driving, though we stop at The Pipers, a circle mentioned in Julian's book. A good one, isolated stones with a deep groove and several "cups". A big outlier - the Piper, some way from the Dancers of the circle, who were turned to stone for dancing on the Sabbath! There is a line of worn stones in a low ditch on the way to the circle, what else is hidden here? Have they ever excavated?

We decide to stop over in Dungarvan. Two rooms at the Moorings Bar, the same pub we went to on our first day. Outside the bedroom corridor window, we can see the immense stone wall of Dungarvan castle forms part of the wall for the beer garden and smokers' corner.

Shopping trip to the "crap mall", then food and a search for the craic. First two bars are very quiet, typical brown Irish bars with the Guinness all lined up in front of old men. Then in The Local we find a heaving place with a band sitting at the back. They set off in rollicking style and it's great. Guitar, flute, fiddle, bodhran and up to 3 accordions all weaving in and out and creating marvellous, toe-tapping tunes. It's perfect, and the best atmosphere we have experienced in a pub for the whole holiday.

Monday 5th September 2005 Dungarvan-Cork-Swansea
Health-free breakfast - no fruit, tomatoes, mushrooms just pure MEAT and BREAD.

Misty South East coast drive. Views across Dungarvan Bay are spectacular, river, harbour and long spit of sand. Youghal and its river, which Robs and her Ma both think are prettier than Knysna in South Africa.

The drive south is fairly uneventful until we try to find a Sheela-na-gig near Killeagh, mentioned in my new book. Our small-scale roadmap doesn't help, so we start by driving around all the roads leading north from Killeagh looking for farmhouses with a bit of ruined wall. In Ireland, that’s most of them.

Eventually we return to Killeagh and ask the keeper of the Post Office. “Ah, the Sheela-na-gig! It’s at the old Aghadoe house. You go up that road there, turn left after a mile and ask at the new bungalow. It’s on their private land you know. I think the owner is away at the moment”

We find the bungalow and ring but it’s empty. In the farm next door, two local lads are playing with their dog. I talk to them about the Sheela and they are friendly, interested and helpful. They know of the Sheela and had both seen it themselves many years ago. They tell me how to find it down a long track and a path, next to the bungalow. Robs, Ma and I walk down, past a huge dark empty farmhouse that is in good condition but completely deserted. We look everywhere around the grounds of the house but can’t find the Sheela, so Robs and her Mum go back. I can’t help returning for one last look… down a different track I find a yard with many beehives that force me back. And then in the trees I notice an ancient, overgrown dovecote. It is about 75% covered in ivy and I can’t see the Sheela on the outside. I scramble through trees and bushes to look inside - it is so ruinous that I am genuinely worried that this 500 year-old structure is about to fall on my head. Where’s the sheela? I give up.

Back at the road, Robs is keen for me to chat again to the two strapping Irish lads... One goes off in a car and returns minutes later with a “slasher” – a sharp metal hook on a long wooden pole. They give us both a lift back down the track and show us where the Sheela is – I had looked right past it! It’s on the wall as plain as day. There’s a branch in Robs' way, so with one quick SLASH it’s chopped it clean off with the slasher. **Gulp** I hope these two aren’t country psychopaths … images of Friday the 13th go through our minds. They scrape the ivy off with the slasher and there she is, exactly as described in the book, about 60-cm tall and clear. Excellent! It is a magical feeling to have tracked down this ancient, isolated and hidden Sheela, and to finally have been shown her by two local lads. I tell them that they should clean up the dovecote and start charging visitors. “Ay, and set up a shuttle bus from the town” says one. I think he was being a bit sarcastic – he told me they haven’t known anyone search out the Sheela in years.

We take photographs but unfortunately the sun is head on, so there are no shadows to sharpen the details. Others have photographed her far better.

From Killeagh we drive through Cobh which looks Norwegian with it’s solid grey granite church above the town, arcing up into a clear blue sky alongside the glittering waters of the harbour. The individually painted shop fronts gleam, brightly coloured paint on each building.

We have a great Chinese meal (how come these tiny Irish towns have such great foreign food?) then it’s off to the MV Superferry. A grand, panoramic exit from Cork harbour as the sun sets, the lights from Cobh now reflecting in the black water. What a dramatic way to leave!