A Swiss family's Irish holiday: going outside the Pale

The Stoy family are spending two weeks in Ireland. They have now left Dublin, and have become acquainted with our major tourist attractions, drivers and rural roadsigns

ON DRIVING

Guido:On Thursday we rented a Peugeot minivan. At the beginning I might drift on to the righthand side of the road, but Maria would direct me back and I got used to it quite quickly. Driving in Ireland has turned out to be not very difficult.

There are some risky drivers who drive quite fast and overtake even on narrow streets. There are also drivers who drive extremely slowly for no obvious reason and create a traffic jam behind them.

There is one thing we have noticed: The names of places are sometimes in Irish and sometimes in English, and sometimes have different spellings. They might also be written differently on different maps, and my navigation system didn’t know some of them either. There are many new roads, some of them not even known by my navigation system. So this caused us to have a little diversion but it wasn’t too bad.

We have noticed that the price of fuel varies quite significantly, sometimes 10c between one station and the next, even if they are quite close by. I don’t understand why this could be.

ON IRISH HERITAGE

Guido:On Thursday we visited Glendalough in Co Wicklow. There was a video and a multimedia show. It was very good quality, we thought.

There was also a very good offer for a family ticket. This is supposed to be for two adults and two kids under 12, but they allowed us to use the same ticket for our kids, although there are three of them and they are all over 12. This was a good gesture and made the visit not too expensive.

Bea:On Thursday I liked very much the landscape and nature in Glendalough. It was like I expected Ireland.

The next day I liked the restored historical sites at the Brú na Bóinne Visitor Centre. The guided tours were very informative, with some humour and in easy language.

On Saturday we visited a castle in Kilkenny, which was renovated very well. We got a German information paper that was interesting and easy to understand. I didn’t like the guided tour at the Hill of Tara because it was too long and the explanations were complicated.

Maria: With almost all the ancient sites we have seen in these last few days there were old graveyards and tombs of all kinds. It made me aware of how far back people have lived here in Ireland and that even thousands of years back they were able to create amazing buildings that still exist today, like the tombs in Newgrange that are older than the pyramids.

There have been so many different people here in Ireland, and now it’s our time to enjoy this beautiful land.

Enya:At Newgrange and Knowth, the tours were very interesting and, although some were long, I never had problems following them until the end. The tour guides and busdrivers were very friendly. A lot of exhibitions (at Newgrange and Knowth but also at Glendalough) seemed to be new and were nicely made and interesting for children.

Guido:I also visited the Dublin Writers Museum. I read Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw at school and liked them. I also tried James Joyce, and didn't have much luck with Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, but I liked Dubliners a lot.

Here I learned a little about other writers I didn’t know. But you could see that it was an old museum, and quite small. I found it okay, but there was very little multimedia, for example, and if I had brought the rest of the family here they would have found it quite boring, I think.

ON RURAL IRELAND

Enya:The nature we've seen during our drive to Cork was beautiful. So far I haven't seen any nice beaches though. I miss that.

Guido: We have now seen the Wicklow mountains. These are not really high mountains like in Switzerland, but they are real mountains. The land here is what we would have expected to see in Ireland and we were not at all disappointed.

We also got a very nice view from the Hill of Tara: very green, lots of agriculture and sheep.

ON THE WEATHER

Guido:In general the weather is better than we expected. The forecast might say that it is going to be all the time rain, but actually if there is rain it is usually gone after just a few minutes or half an hour. On Friday we had perfect weather all day.

One evening when it was raining in Dublin, we went to the cinema and saw Ice Age 4. We noticed that it was very good value compared with Switzerland.

BEA

Has enjoyed in recent days: I was positively surprised about the very nice and big cottage we got for the next week. The landlady was very nice to us.

Has not enjoyed: The beach at Ahakista is not very nice and very small.

ANDREJ

Has enjoyed in recent days: The beautiful, lonely landscape of Ireland. There are very few villages compared with Switzerland. It is pure nature. The villages are mostly beautiful with small houses in many different colours.

ENYA

Has enjoyed in recent days: I liked the tombs at Newgrange and Knowth. They made me feel connected to history.

Has not enjoyed: After one week I’m starting to miss Swiss food. Irish food mostly contains a lot of potatoes and meat.

MARIA

Has enjoyed in recent days: I really enjoy the quietness of the countryside. We all love the beautiful house on Hillcrest Farm. We had a very warm welcome here by Agnes, the most lovely landlady you can imagine.

GUIDO

Has enjoyed in recent days: Glendalough for me was one of the highlights of Ireland so far.

Has not enjoyed: Fast drivers who overtake on narrow streets. Also drivers who drive extremely slowly, for no obvious reason.

In conversation with CONOR GOODMAN