Ireland Off The Beaten Path Tips by swesn

CARLINGFORD : COUNTRYWALKS

Carlingford is located at Cooley Peninsula, facing the Carlingford Lough. The low mountains behind the pretty village are part of Northern Ireland’s Mourne Mountains.

The narrow meandering country-roads, forest paths and undulating hills and valleys make for very pleasant walks. You will come across lovingly-painted cottages and immaculate gardens and get to say ‘Hiya’ to many ruddy-cheeked farmers and hunky construction workers. The view from the top of the walks extend to the Lough and the land opposite.

In a pub called PJ's in the Carlingford village, they have a notice informing us that they are apparently missing a LEPRECHAUN - a tiny elf-like creature.

Perhaps, you have spotted it on one of your walks around the Carlingford hills?

Website: http://www.carlingford.ie

BRU’ BOINNE : NEWGRANGE, KNOWTH

Newgrange is a grass-covered mound which holds a Stone-Age passage tomb. This dates from around 3200BC, which is even earlier than the Great Pyramids of Egypt.

There is a slit above the entrance which allows the sun’s rays to shine right in through the long passage for 17 minutes during the winter solstice (19 to 23 December). For the rest of the year, there is a simulated winter solstice for tourists to experience how it is like. The builders seemed capable of complex mathematical calculations and were likely to have sophisticated measuring instruments to construct these tombs but little remained for archaeologists to discover.

Knowth is another burial mound with a passage tomb as well but this is not open to public. Instead, the passage-grave art on the rocks surrounding the mound is huge and interesting.

If you visit one or the other (passage tomb or passage-grave art), you might be a little disappointed. I recommend visiting both to have a better experience.

By bus, try to get to Drogheda as early as you can, by 10am. There are regular buses from Drogheda to the Bru' Boinne Centre, but they do not leave too frequently.

Once at the centre, they stick stickers to you, telling you the time of your tours. So, if you do both tours, you have to catch a bus to the first site, do the tour, return on the bus back to the centre to wait the next bus to the other site. It is all VERY organised but all these can take up a few hours.

You will want to be back at Drogheda in time to catch the last bus back (which may be as early as evening time) to where you are staying.

Website: http://www.knowth.com