August–September 2026
After four weeks travelling around Ireland in Tasman, we returned home with a much better understanding of the country’s turbulent history and its beautiful landscape.
We started and ended our journey at Newgrange and Knowth, where people built enormous stone burial mounds (passage tombs) more than 5,000 years ago. The large stones are covered with geometric patterns, and at Newgrange the winter solstice sunlight shines through the narrow passage into the burial chamber.
Ireland’s early Christian history starts with the arrival of St. Patrick in 431 from Roman Britain. We visited many monastery ruins like Clonmacnoise and Monasterboice, but the highlight was undoubtedly Skellig Michael. Climbing more than 600 steep stone steps to the beehive-shaped dwellings, built by monks some 1,400 years ago, was quite an experience. The monks managed to live on this isolated rocky island, surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean.
During the following centuries, Ireland was repeatedly invaded and fought over. We visited many castles, cathedrals and ruined monasteries, including Kilkenny, Cashel, Donegal and Carrickfergus. The English conquest and the Plantation of Ulster changed the country considerably. At the Battle of the Boyne site, we learned more about William III of Orange and his victory over James II in 1690.
The darker side of this history became clear at the Strokestown Famine Museum and the abandoned village on Achill Island. The potato famine of 1845-1852 and the unequal landownership caused mass emigration and left deep scars. You still do not see many fields with potatoes. In Derry, the murals remembering Bloody Sunday (1972) and the Troubles showed that these conflicts continued well into modern times.
Belfast presented another side of Ireland. Its shipyards and linen factories once employed thousands of people. The Titanic Experience gave us a good impression of the enormous undertaking of building such a ship and the tragedy of its sinking.
And then there was the landscape. We drove along many small, winding roads, through green countryside, over mountains covered with bog and heather, and along the rugged Atlantic coast. The Ring of Beara, Ring of Kerry, Connemara, Donegal and the Causeway Coast offered magnificent views. The Cliffs of Moher and Sliabh Liag were spectacular, while the basalt columns of the Giant’s Causeway reminded us of similar formations we had seen in Iceland.
The weather was very Irish: rain, wind, fog and occasionally sunshine. Sometimes the mist prevented us from seeing the scenery, only to lift suddenly and reveal beautiful bays, mountains and valleys. Here and there sheep were roaming freely, and in some areas, peat was still being cut and dried for local use.
We enjoyed meeting old friends in Kingscourt and Cork, the many evenings in pubs with live Irish music, and the freedom of travelling in Tasman. We often found lovely overnight places along a river, lake, harbour or beach.
Looking back, Ireland was not just a trip through beautiful countryside. It was also a journey through more than 5,000 years of history, from Neolithic burial mounds and early Christian monasteries to medieval castles, the famine, the struggle for independence and the Troubles.
It is this combination of history, landscape and friendly people that made our Irish journey so memorable.
