West of Ireland Trip

Our second big group trip was this past weekend. I can’t believe the semester is almost over. It went by so fast but when I think of all of the things I’ve done here, it makes sense that its over. I’ve written more papers this semester than any other, which is quite the challenge with all the distractions of Dublin.

The trip to the west of Ireland felt much less rushed and more relaxed than the Northern Ireland trip. We had a lot of time to just explore by ourselves rather than scheduled tourist attractions to go see. Our first stop was Galway, which is a college town a little bit bigger than Burlington. It was really nice to go see what a college town in Ireland looked like. We were free for the night in Galway and ended up going to an American bar called “Coyotes” that had karaoke, mechanical bull riding, and table dancers. So this must be what the Irish think of America. Some people in our group did karaoke and rode the bull (it was free for Americans only) but in general the place was not very fun, so we left and found a band playing at another bar.

The next day we stopped at many places on the way to the quaint town of Doolin. The most memorable place we stopped at was the Cliffs of Moher. These are a main tourist attraction in Ireland and we saw a lot of Americans there. The cliffs are 600 feet high and have a wall along the edge so that you don’t fall. Many people pass over this wall to have a look straight down to ocean but it seemed extremely dangerous to do so. The cliffs were the most picturesque attraction in Ireland; it seemed impossible to take a bad photo.


That afternoon we arrived in Doolin and checked into our homey hostel. A bunch of us decided to go to the rocky beach down the road since Doolin was a coastal town. There wasn’t much to Doolin (a lot of farms, a few pubs, some hills) but it was my favorite place I had visited in Ireland. It felt so untouched by tourists and untouched by any sort of globalization. We sat on a grassy cliff next to the ocean and watched the waves crash against the rocks. I’m going to try to convince my family to move here =).