Where to start, trying to explain how magical our time in the Emerald Island has been? We’ve been so taken by the scenery, the friendly locals, the pubs (which inevitably includes the lively music), the “Wild Atlantic Way” and the food. But the thing that has ‘wowed’ us the most has been the beaches, so that must be the place to start. Living in the Algarve and being fortunate enough to visit beautiful shores through work and on holiday, I’ve enjoyed time on various different stunning beaches, so I’ll admit to being completely dumbfounded by the enormous long stretches of talcum-powder white sandy “strands” as they’re called in Ireland, often edged by crystal-clear, aquamarine water. And the thing that sets them apart from other parts of the world? Almost all of them are either completely empty or with just a handful of dogwalkers or families, so there’s always a quiet spot to be found, even in the height of the summer. Admittedly, a lot of these beaches have been walked whilst kitted out in jeans, sweatshirts and sometimes even waterproof jackets; perhaps, therein lies the clue to their desertedness?! Now that the decision has been made to describe Ireland through her shores, it’s hard to know where to start in describing them, as our first attempt at choosing our Top Ten beaches failed when we got to 15! But all our favourite beaches sit on the “Wild Atlantic Way” (WAW), a journey that is described as “the wildest, most captivating, coastal touring route in the world” (admittedly by their own Tourist Board!); we joined this epic road right where the last blog finished, at Fahan beach on the banks of Lough Swilly, west of Londonderry. Situated at the base of a small hill with views across the Lough to the other shores, hills and islands, this beach will forever be etched into our memories as our first one on the WAW, the first our parking ‘pitch’ was right beside the water, the first where the low tide unexpectedly revealed a huge stretch of sand, yet another great sunset and, most importantly, the fishing village that connects our ancestors (see last blogpost), a coincidence we will always cherish.

1: Fahan Beach, County Donegal

Dunfanaghy Beach, County Donegal

Dunfanaghy stands out as we saw its huge white stretch as we were driving back down from Horn Head after a long hike; we had spent the preceding night there and were not intending to go back until we were greeted with this vista…..thank goodness for the flexibility of a road trip, as it had been raining the day before and we had spent the afternoon in an atmospheric pub watching the finals of the men’s GAA hurling. These two comments from the Irish paper summed up that experience; “BBC 2 is showing hurling and I don’t think I’ve ever been so invested in a game I know nothing about” (@itcould_beworse) and “Hurling appears to be a mix of UFC, rugby, hockey, football, baseball, the egg and spoon race all whilst hitting a snooker ball as hard as you can as high into the sky as possible towards goal with what looks like the bones of a tomahawk steak. 10/10. Would recommend #hurling” (@bathewmateman). So, it was wonderful that the sun shone the following day and we didn’t miss this…..

3: Carrickfinn Beach, County Donegal

Carrickfinn beach was recommended by an Irish pilot, explaining that it was just next to Donegal “International” airport – at that time, there had been no plan to fly out for my next trip, but things change in aviation almost as often as they do on a roadtrip, so we found ourselves on this beach, the night before my big ‘commute’ from the beach, across the end of the runway to the airport terminal. We’d seen the beach throughout a spectacular sunset which set me up nicely for an early flight out over the gorgeous coastline that you can’t quite get to in a motorhome. Arriving back a few days later to yet another lovely sunset, I was welcomed back with a supper to remember; my amazing support team had bought lobster and crab from a local fisherman, caught fresh that day!

4: Portnoo Beach, County Donegal

Portnoo had been talked about for a while, as Giles had holidayed there as a child (he spent his early childhood being brought up in Donegal), but I was simply astonished by my first view of it; a huge stretch of white sand, turquoise water and a path out to an island that would be uncovered at low tide. We covered the long mile of sand quickly on our bikes, picnicking at the far end before rockpooling (a must-do trip down memory lane for Giles!) and finally wading out to the island. This gave our avoid-water-at-all-costs furry friend the chance to practice her swimming as she was out of her depth – her doggy-paddle paw rehearsal just before swimming paid off, as she swam so well (and it still makes me giggle, thinking about her doggy-paddle warm-up!).

5: St John’s Point, County Donegal

St John’s Point stands out due to a potentially disastrous and unexpected reason; we broke down 😳😳 Of course, it would have to have been at the end of a long tiny peninsular, a 5 mile strip of land, when it became apparent that our clutch pedal was just swinging freely……HELP! Fortunately, we had been to see a local weaver on the way down this remote finger of land – and even more fortunately, we had chatted to her dad who owned a motorhome and Giles had bought a beautiful woven scarf for his father’s birthday, so we didn’t feel too bad in contacting her and asking if her dad knew of a mechanic. In under an hour, with typical Irish helpfulness, her husband had his head under the bonnet and confirmed the unwelcome news that it was a big garage job, but could he recommend one to us? And so it was that the following morning, Giles and I were sitting in Skye, loaded on top of a low-loader and flying through the tiny country lanes with unsecured spaghetti hurtling around the cabin as we took yet another corner at breakneck pace……another moment for a severe case of the giggles! Turns out that Garage-man was a frustrated speedy-gonzalez and the proud father to a 12 year old budding racing driver who thought nothing of moving cars and vans around the garage when he could barely see over the steering wheel. Mr Speedy was also extremely kind in moving other work to get Skye on the ramp to get us back on the road as soon as possible whilst also lending us an old “Jaloppy” van so we could still get around. It’s only with hindsight and knowing that was only a 3 day hold-up, that I can genuinely say that this was one of the best places to break down and have an enforced travelling pause; the beaches of Donegal are by far and away the best in Ireland and we also got to play golf! The clubs had been squeezed into Skye by the world’s best man-cave packer, but we were in danger of never using them, so thanks to our (rather expensive) clutch repair, we got to play on two stunning links courses, both of which were situated beside yet more astonishing beaches. It’s been hard enough to whittle the beaches down to 10, so the fairy bridges by Bundoran and Cruit Island’s Caribbean-esque ones didn’t make the cut, but it was a close-run thing as you’ll see in the photos.

6: Dunmoran Strand, County Sligo

Once back on the move and after a night of pub music in Sligo, our next beach, Dunmoron, was memorable mainly for a wonderful morning of surfing – well, we call it surfing, but we’re not that advanced, so it’s actually boogie-boarding, but still oodles of fun! Our water-averse doggy was very perplexed by the whole thing and wouldn’t come near us with our boards in case she was made to go on one!

7: Silver Strand, County Galway

Our next beach was recommended to us by lovely friends we had stayed with for a couple of nights in Westport who had fed us delicious food, climbed with us up Crough Patrick in filthy weather (with the descent in what can only be described as sideways rain 🌧️ ) and taken us to an atmospheric pub in this charming seaside town – without doubt, our favourite town in Ireland (and also done loads of washing and generally looked after us…….thank you 🙏🙏). On their recommendation, we took a detour to Silver Strand and thank goodness we did, as it would have been a crime to have missed it! Yet another huge expanse of white sand with not another soul there; Donegal clearly doesn’t have the exclusive rights to these kind of beaches, as this one is a very good contender for County Mayo. Not only is it beautiful, but it was full of bounty too, as we foraged for wild mushrooms and snails and made ourselves an unusual, garlic-heavy lunch on the shores of Ireland’s only “fjord”!

8: Dog’s Bay, Roundstone, County Galway

Now into County Galway, we headed to another recommendation of the quaint village of Roundstone; quickly added to our list of favourite towns AND favourite pubs – help, I can see another Top Ten coming! We stopped off at Dog’s Bay which had caught our eye due to its double horseshoe-shaped beaches on a mile-long spit of land that lead out to the “knuckle” of the dog bone 🦴 Having our now-regular pre-dinner Guinness in the great local pub, a Dubliner who has been holidaying there for 30 years told me about the “Tour de Bog” cycle ride the following day; 500 people of all ages cycling 40km along the coast road and then back through the ‘bog’ road with drinks afterwards. What was not to like?……so I signed us – Giles had only left me alone for 10 minutes, he was going to have a shock! In the interests of brevity, suffice to say that it was a most memorable day out and Sandie won the prize for the first dog to ever take part!

9: Rossbeigh Strand, County Kerry

Now into County Kerry or the “Kingdom” as it is also known, thanks to its spectacular scenery with lakes, mountains, islands, coastal roads along cliffs and yes, you’ve guessed, astonishing beaches. It has 3 peninsulas, the most famous one being the ‘Ring of Kerry’, but the northerly Dingle peninsula was once voted by National Geographic to be ‘the most beautiful place on earth’…..and perhaps it is! Thank goodness that a last-minute change to my work schedule had meant that we’d opted for an anti-clockwise route rather than our planned clockwise one, otherwise we might have spent far too much of our 5 weeks in Kerry and missed some of the above experiences. After driving the jaw-dropping ‘Slea Head’ route with its sheer cliffs and islands made famous by Star Wars filming, visiting another atmospheric pub, overnighting on Inch beach and surfing there the following morning, this one was a dead cert for our Top Ten……until we drove around to the beach we could see on the next peninsula. Inadvertently, we had stumbled on what is known as the best beach in Kerry; the sands of Rossbeigh beach stretch for 7km beneath the highest mountain in Ireland and overlook the magnificent Dingle scenery. Needless to say, once we’d walked the first km, we were almost the only people there and reaching the enormous expanse of sand at the tip was almost other-worldly.

10: Derrynane Beach, County Kerry

The penultimate beach on our Top Ten was spotted while driving the exquisitely beautiful ‘Ring of Kerry’ as a perfect place to (finally!) get our paddleboard out due to the rocks and islands sheltering a bay. Our aqua-phobic dog had no choice this time, as she was coming with us on this adventure – once she realised that there was no requirement to actually enter that horrible wet stuff, she almost seemed to enjoy it! A terrific day rounded off by a visit to another of our favourite pubs, teeming with Cork townies who’ve been holidaying here for over 30 years – a definite theme of the seaside towns of Ireland.

Bonus beach! Barleycove, County Cork

Our final beach (yes, narrowing it down to ten was impossible, so here’s the bonus one!) was the happy result of a bit of bad weather that saw us change plans and end up in the tiny village of Crookhaven, towards the end of one of County Cork’s peninsulas (also stunningly beautiful; now I understand the justification for the great rivalry between and pride in all of Ireland’s counties). After a night in possibly our favourite pub of the trip, with a talented band getting us all up dancing, we set off on our bikes the following morning to visit Mizen Head, an old lighthouse and signal centre, reached by crossing a magnificent arched bridge with wonderful views of the Fastnet rock. On our return, we stopped at the famous Barleycove beach; nestled between green hills and dunes, the white sand and Caribbean-blue water almost stopped us in our tracks – but the (chilly!) water beckoned us after our long ride. Wow, what a beach with which to finish!

However, these are just the beaches that made it onto our TopTen list, there were SO many more to choose from; from the windswept Maghara, the deserted Stradbally Bay, the cows on Mullaghmore, the dunes of Tramore, the gorgeous Inchydoney, the surf of Spanish Point, driving our Jaloppy onto Tullen Strand and Skye onto Tra Fhormaoileach for possibly the best coffee stop of the trip……. there are hundreds, possibly thousands of glorious beaches in the Emerald Isle and these ten(-ish!) have only been chosen to allow for a small glimpse into our adventure. So many of the beaches we visited boasted a ‘horse box coffee bar’ and/or a wooden, portable, wood-fired sauna which were a fun addition. Sadly, there was often a surplus of jellyfish, but the deficit of other people more than made up for that! And if anyone is reading this thinking that we had sunshine all the way, believe me when I say that it rained…..A LOT – it IS the West of Ireland after all! However, we just planned around it, made the most of the sun when it came out and came to the conclusion that it’s thanks to all that wet stuff that Ireland’s unbelievable beaches are so undiscovered, unknown and, above all, uncrowded. Never did I think I would be so thankful for precipitation!

Thank you Ireland for a magical few weeks. Your pubs, music, beaches, mountains, great food, ‘black gold’ and, above all, friendly people have given us an adventure and experience to remember.

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