Walking Along the Wicklow Coast

Not my Irish breakfast, but you get the idea

Yesterday, since it was Paul's first full day in Ireland, I called in sick to work, and Paul and I went to Wicklow. After multiple hitches (I forgot quite literally everything while we were leaving), we made to Connolly Station. However, the train to Rosslare Europort only comes very infrequently. So by the time we got our tickets, we had to wait two and a half hours. So we left the train station and went to a Madigan's, a pub near O'Connell Street for some Irish breakfast. When we got in there at 11:30, it was completely deserted. We ate our breakfasts (mine a mini Irish breakfast--I even tried black and white pudding and they were pretty good--and Paul's a vegetarian breakfast, but he gave me all the mushrooms) and chatted a little with our waiter. However, by noon, the place was packed with a mix of tourists and locals. Apparently, they can't start serving alcohol until 12:30, but they disregard that and start at noon. Everyone in the pub had a beer or Irish coffee (Paul says that's a real Irish breakfast) by that point. Paul was judging them. 

We wandered for a little while after that, and made it back to the train station twenty minutes early. The train down to Rosslare Europort is really beautiful. It heads along the eastern seaboard right along the Irish sea, passing through Greystones and Bray (where I did the cliff walk almost a month ago)  before making its way into the mountainous Co. Wicklow. 

Once we got there, it was raining like crazy (I am talking winds and rain coming in at a 45° angle crazy). We walked along this river nature trail and got soaked pretty quickly. Along the metal bridge on the trail (not very nature-y), there was a bunch of graffiti that went something along the lines of "YES YES YES YES YES DISBAND THE IRA NO" or it read backwards if you came at it from the other way. At the end of the trail, we found a beach with smooth rocks along the coast. We walked along it for a little bit, and then decided to head into the town (Paul insists that Wicklow is a village). 

Once we got into the centre of town, we went into a pharmacy so that Paul could get a plastic old lady hood, which we later found out is called a rain bonnet. He looked absurd, and the teenagers in Wicklow looked at him funny. We walked through the rest of the town and came to the statue that Jackie had told me about. It was dedicated to the rebels of Wicklow who fought against the English. I found Jackie's ancestor Billy Byrne on it and everything (who was on it for leading the Wicklow United Irishmen in the 1798 Rebellion). Paul wasn't amused by the antics of the Irish and started his typical spiel about how the English are going to recolonize the Irish and the Americans. 

We wandered to the Wicklow Gaol for a little bit, but decided against going in because it cost €6 to tour it. Then we made our way to Wicklow's port and coastline area. We started by checking out the cannons all along the coast line. They were pointed towards France and intended to disuade the French from getting any funny ideas and trying to invade. They were never fired in a battle or anything. 

Afterwards, we walked to the ruins of Blackrock Castle. This was a castle owned by the English Fitzgerald family. It was usually under attack by the O'Byrnes and the O'Tooles until it got burned down in the 1600s. The wreckage remains there and people just kind of wander through it to check it out. You can tell it wasn't a huge castle. It was built right along the ocean on a small cliff. The only thing that really remains is a couple of walls. There's a little graffiti on it (something about disbanding the IRA again), but nothing too bad. There's a break in a 6 foot-tall section of the wall where you can go through and stand along the rocky cliff part of it. With the winds and rain, it was a little dangerous, but we stepped out a little bit anyway, just to take a picture or two. 

Then we made our way over to the lighthouse to find a geocache that Paul had found on his phone. After a little searching (most on his part, I went out to explore the lighthouse), we found it, and went to some shelter to sign our names onto it. 

From there, we went along the cliffs again and made our way to a small inlet in between the cliffs. There were stairs, so we were able to get to the small beach. The waves were really high with the wind and such but we stuck our feet in anyway. It was super cold, but now I have walked in the Irish sea. We walked along the rest of the coast afterwards. My feet got super soaked because I was only wearing trainers and I am really good at always unintentionally walking into deep puddles.  Not far from Blackrock Castle, there's a golf course, so we trespassed on that a little bit to walk on some boulders that are only sort of attached to the cliffs. 

Afterwards, we decided to head back to the town. I had cut my hand, and we had two hours until our train came (although I thought I may had misread it, that was it's own little fiasco). We wandered around a large church that overlooks Wicklow and then stopped for a pint to get out of the rain. We then went to Tesco to pick up some things for dinner. 

Eventually we got on a train back, and it took us a good hour to get into Dublin City. It seemed like longer what with the cold and the wet socks and everything. We got back around 9:30, and instead of going to sleep, we decided to go out with my flatmates for a little while but came home a little early. 

And now today, we slept in (for the first time since I can remember), and Paul made the food that we had intended upon having for dinner last night. Sweet and sour fake chicken (imposing his kosher-ness on me) whole-grain rice, and vegetables. It was quite delicious. Now I believe we are going to wander around Dublin and go to the Guinness Factory, which I can't believe I hadn't visited yet.