FRIDAY/SATURDAY 04-05/06
Driving around Donegal it became apparent that I wasn't going to make it any further down the coast as there was too much to see here. In fact in the whole of today I only travelled 20-odd miles. The best place I saw was the Bunglas Cliffs in front of Slieve League mountain. These are the highest sea cliffs in Europe at over 1900 feet sheer drop to the Atlantic. You can drive to a point about 1/3 the way up but from then it's on foot. I didn't feel too energetic or fancy getting wet and/or struck by lightning on the summit where the fast wind from the ocean is forced up the sheer cliffs and propelled thousands of feet into the sky where it instantly forms black clouds that drop both rain and hail on the summit and the watershed slope behind. If you stay and watch for a while (Ireland encourages you to stay and watch things a while…) you see a whole train of black cloud form and drift away into the distance to rain down elsewhere, like some monstrous smoke stack.

I forwent the B+B in order to drive through the night to get to a region called Gweedore, the Gaeltackt area (Gaelic speaking enclave). Apart from more stunning scenery, this is also the home region for the Brennan family, better known to the world as Clannad, and Enya. They began singing and collecting Irish songs many years ago, performed in competitions and at their father's pub, called Leo's. While there a now many artists who perform material written in Gaelic, it was the Brennans who were instrumental in bringing the language back into contemporary music. The bar and Leo are still there and while it is still the same pub as before, it's is now decorated with gold and platinum disks from various members of the family.

The final stint was a dash across the mountains towards Northern Ireland and on to Dublin to get ready for the boat tomorrow morning. The land over this region is very poor in general and one of the main industries is still the cutting of bog peat into bricks for fuel. Although the guide book said that, apart from the known trouble areas, Northern Ireland is safe, I didn't fancy stopping anywhere as only last night a series of pipe bomb attacks were made against several people in their homes. Driving through Strabane didn't inspire confidence with it's placards in the shape of AK-47s, proclaiming "no decommissioning". As soon as you cross into the North, the accents take on that hard Belfast aspect that is completely at odds with the soft tones of the Republicans.

Despite these reservations, the countryside was pleasant enough in the Omagh area and I was surprised NOT to see any check-points or soldiers anywhere - or in fact anything to indicate the tension or  heightened security reported on the news and I slipped back into Eire without incident.