I was so excited for Ireland. We found cheap flights to Dublin and planned to go on the castle hopping adventure of my dreams. I packed my camera, which I hadn’t used in months and even dug out my tripod. It was going to be the trip that was going to ignite my love of photography again and could not wait.

Our original planned route was ambitious to say the least and it looked a little something like this:

It included an impressive array of Irish and Northern Irish sights including; the Cliffs of Moher, Galway, the Giant’s Causeway, the Titanic Museum and Belfast before finishing back in Dublin.

And it all started off so well. We picked our rental car up from Dublin airport with no fuss. We used NewWay car rental which had all insurances included (including the cross border fee and M50 toll) with 0 excess and we were on our way to Trim Castle all before lunch time.

We chose Trim Castle as our first castle stop as it was a filming location for one of Rob’s favourite films: Braveheart. It was a lovely little drive, taking us through the countryside and allowing us to stop off at petrol station for some much needed road trip snacks.

We arrived in Trim, a quaint little town and parked our car just outside. Even though it has such an interesting history, it was smaller than I expected and took us little more than about 15mins to walk around.

Just outside the castle was a fish and chip shop and I am not going to lie, we had to have some. It was the perfect lunch on our perfect first day.

After our detour to Trim Castle, we decided to head south to our first overnight stop, Kilkea Castle Lodges. It is a resort set on the grounds of Kilkea Castle but you can access the castle bar or restaurant as part of your stay.

It was everything I wanted my castle stay to be. Set in idyllic castle grounds but sleeping in a modern, bright accommodation that felt more fresh and peaceful.

We had a delicious meal in the restaurant and decided to have a drink in the castle bar where a couple got engaged and bought champagne for everyone. It was such a lovely evening until… it wasn’t. As we were leaving the castle, I started to feel unwell which then turned into an evening of vomiting. I barely slept and could not face any food so Rob was the only one who went to breakfast the next morning.

Debating whether this was a virus or just some food poisoning, we decided to continue with our plan and head down to Cork. We hopped over the Rock of Cashel as I was feeling so unwell but decided to stop at small costal town of Cobh before checking into our hotel.

Unfortunately the Storm of David had arrived making Cobh a very, very windy stop. We looked around the cathedral before deciding it was best to move on and check into the Maryborough Hotel and Spa in Cork around mid-afternoon.

Set in an old Manor house the Maryborough hotel is beautiful and we were very lucky that the staff here were so incredible because on the second day of our stay, Rob started to display the same symptoms. It was clearly not food poisoning and we began to realise that this was something more serious as I still wasn’t able to eat anything other than bananas and crackers.

We decided at this point that we needed to abandon our entire plan. We extended our stay at the Maryborough then instead of heading north up to Northern Ireland, we decided to head back to Dublin for the remainder of our trip.

Luckily the room at the Maryborough was quiet, comfortable and had a beautiful view of the grounds gardens giving us the most relaxing way to recover and recuperate.

Once we both were feeling better, we headed back up to Dublin aiming for a hotel just outside the city. By this point the Easter weekend was over and there were protests beginning all over the country. Lorry drivers and farmworkers protesting over the rising fuel prices, were temporarily blocking major roads across the country, which luckily did not affect us, too much.

In fact, one particular blockade forced us to detour through Cashel which gave us the perfect opportunity to go to the Rock of Cashel which we missed on the way down. It is in a beautiful little town and the castle complex itself has plenty of parking. I am so pleased we were given a second chance to visit because it was definitely worth the visit.

Even the views from here are impressive:

On the way back we were very lucky that most of the traffic was going in the opposite direction. We arrived at our first Dublin hotel called Louis Fitzgerald Hotel just outside the M50. It was a pleasant hotel which we chose because it was on route but also because it was located next to a park and ride, allowing us to get into the centre of Dublin without having to drive.

Our day trip into Dublin was easy. The park and ride on the Luas red line took us straight into the centre and even stopped at the museums we wanted to visit. We started in the centre along O’Connell street which was completely blocked off with lorries and tractors for the protest.

We headed across the river to Trinity College which was covered in construction, preparing for some sort of festival so no photos could be taken. We had a lovely wander around the city and grabbed some lunch before heading to the National Museum.

The National Museum has two locations depending on what you want to learn. We opted for the one at Collins Barracks covering the military history of Ireland.

It was then that we decided to head back to the car and move onto a new hotel near the airport before handing the car back the next day. Due to the increasing protest blockages, we decided moving closer was a smart decision so we would have enough time in the morning and less of the M50 to travel.

It turned out to be the best decision locating ourselves at the Crowne Plaza in Blanchardstown, Dublin which is located next to a shopping mall and restaurant area.

This meant we could take all that money we had saved on food and do a little bit of shopping before heading home.

So our trip to Ireland ended up looking like nothing like the original plan and I am not going to lie and say that I wasn’t just a little bit annoyed having spent so many hours researching and planning this trip before we left. In the end our actual route looked like this:

With sickness (which turned out to be some sort of Norovirus), fuel protests and Storm David, big changes need to be made and our journey home was bittersweet. We were grateful that we were feeling better and that we had not lost any money due to all the changes but we were gutted that we missed so much of Ireland that I desperately wanted to see and we never even made it to Northern Ireland at all.

For the time we did spend there, Ireland felt like home in many ways, with the rolling fields, similar roads and a customary trip to M&S but that is where the comparison ends. In every other way Ireland is completely different with a sense of peace and calm that Britain does not have anymore and the people of Ireland are incredibly friendly. We Brits are sociable and experts at small talk but the Irish are genuine in their interactions, no matter how small, and it was lovely to experience that each day of our trip.

I cannot recommend Ireland enough and I cannot wait until I get to go back and finish the trip we should have done exploring the west and north coast of Ireland and finally making it into Northern Ireland. Until then we have some big changes heading our way…

SP x