Hey folks, I’m back from my holidays and I’ve had the most wonderful time. We spent the first couple of weeks visiting friends and family over Christmas in England before we headed to Ireland for the very first time. And all I can say is, Ireland has well and truly captured my heart.
The Emerald Isle
I’d been wanting to visit the Emerald Isle for years. In fact, I bought the Lonely Planet Guide to Ireland twenty years ago and can’t believe it’s taken us so long to get there! As soon as we arrived, I just knew I was going to fall in love with the place. I got such a warm and wonderful feeling just being in Ireland, that my heart broke a little when we had to leave last week.
We’ve been home for a week and I still can’t get it out of my head lol. Have you ever been? Did it have the same effect on you? We spent two weeks mostly travelling around seeing as much of southern Ireland as we could. We stayed in some beautiful hotels and locations which I hope to revisit some time soon. One of the things I loved was how green it is over there. It really is called the Emerald Isle for the right reason! It was utterly beautiful.
Killarney National Park 
The most beautiful beach at Derrynane 
Derrynane beach 
Ice cream in Dingle 
A cow on a cliff edge (not really!) 
More beauty 
Utterly captivating
Our Ireland itinerary
Our first night was spent in Kilmore Quay, which is in the south east of the country. Sadly, we’d landed in Dublin mid afternoon so it was already getting dark by the time we got on the road. So we didn’t see much of the countryside down the east coast. Kilmore Quay was a very pretty place though and had some gorgeous little cottages.
After that, we headed to Cork, staying twenty minutes outside of the city, in a fabulous hotel called The Oriel. We were there for New Year’s Eve which was kind of weird because the dinner that night seemed extremely rushed – we were done by 9pm. I did enjoy watching the fireworks out the hotel window though.
The other thing we did whilst here was visit Blarney Castle, which had been on my must-do list for ages. And yes, I kissed the Blarney Stone!
Next, we spent a couple of nights at the Breaffy House Hotel in Castlebar much further north (we did a LOT of driving over the course of the holiday!) before heading down to Westport where we splashed out on two nights at the Ballynahinch Castle Hotel which had particularly superb breakfasts.
A week in a cottage
Following on from that, we spent a week in a little cottage on the outskirts of Tralee. It was the most perfect location to fully take advantage of the south western regions of Ireland. Seriously guys, this is where I truly fell in love. This part of the world is simply spectacular – but it’s not just the beauty of the place that impressed me so much. It was also how wonderful the people are. I just loved everything about it. We spent our final two nights at the Portmarnock Hotel (which was absolutely wonderful, by the way) just north of Dublin which only gave us one full day to see the city, but needles to say, we loved it.
Particular favourite locations include Killarney and it’s stunning Natural Park and Lakes and Kenmare. But on the whole, I loved almost everywhere that we visited. I can’t wait to return to Ireland, and see it at other times of year! I’ll keep you posted. I’m sure I’ll tell you more about our trip over the next few weeks (if I haven’t bored you already lol!)
I should add here that we didn’t take a great deal of photos whilst in Ireland, just a few with our phones. I decided against taking my camera because I really just wanted to immerse myself in everything and not get carried away with having to take good shots all the time. Hubby’s photos are a bit more artsy than mine so I might share a few of those with you later. In the meantime, have a wonderful week, my lovely friends!
LINK-UPS
Shelbee on the Edge
Not Dressed as Lamb
