Sth East Ireland

Having the luxury of the car we are able to easily visit some smaller villages etc. We headed south through Clonmel (9 km sth of Tina & Jim’s) to Dungarvan. This was my first glimpse of the Irish coast at ground level.
The countryside reminded me a little of Gippsland in Victoria with the beautiful green hills dropping right into the North Atlantic ocean.

Stopped for a quick coffee and headed to the tourist info office for directions to Mahon Falls. We did ask a couple of men chatting on the street but our experience is that even though we mostly speak the same language (if you don’t count Gaelic) they don’t really understand us and much of what they say we are finding hard to understand.
We walked only a block and then a van pulled up with at least 12 guys in camouflage leaping out with rifles at ready and spread out around half a block and on corners. Our initial reaction was concern as we there has been some recent activity by a splinter group of the old IRA... and that a van with a 500lb bomb was found last week or so. (the exact details we don’t have not having kept up with the news each day). As it turned out, the army were there to protect the armed guards moving money into or out of the bank. Apparently this is a regular occurrence every time an armed van delivers at any bank.
By the time we walked a few doors up and got the info we wanted from the tourist office, they were gone. A bit freaky though!


We found Mahon Falls. It was quite different to any falls we are used to seeing. No lush green tropical forest around them... they were streaming lightly down the rocks of the raw mountains.

The lush green hills seem to finish in rock and heather once they reach a certain altitude. I guess the land was just not able to be farmed.

There was a walk from the car park to the falls, probably about 20mins. Well the wind was bitterly cold. We walked about half way and general consensus and self preservation was to turn and go back. We could see the falls from the distance and didn’t believe being closer meant the view would be better.

From there it was a quick stop in Carrick-on-Suir. We were finding the towns felt very quiet and like nothing had changed for about 40 yrs. Ireland is certainly feeling the grip of the Global Financial Crisis. From there it was back to Tina and Jim’s where we planned to spend another night.