The Emerald Isle - The sequel

Tuesday 9th June 2026

Today, the rain stopped for 9 whole hours!!! It stopped raining around 12 noon and then started again around 9pm. We were treated to blue skies (with some clouds) and sunshine!!! I must say however, that the inclement weather has returned with vengence this evening and we are back to gusty, howling winds and heavy, horizontal rain. C'est la vie!
Today was also catch-up day. Everybody needs a catch-up day where they take it easy, eat well and don't run around like a whirling dervish. This morning the students roused late-ish and we popped into town for a few supplies. I filmed our return to the cottage and I cooked a late lunch of cheesy beans on toast - an English lunchtime staple - and then decided to visit the local fishing tackle shop to ask advice on where to fish. Video.mov (6.5MB) We went to Charlie Bonners Angling shop; he sells fishing equipment, which according to the students is much cheaper than in France and gifts. I introduced the boys and they were very forthcoming and asked questions about which type of fish they can look out for, where to see them and other fishing related questions. They were not shy at all and of course anything to do with fish and fishing is like cat nip to a tabby for them and they were in their fishing dream world. After leaving the shop we walked up and back down the high street, I counted nine bars which is quite astonishing for a population (in 2022) of 1,247 but unfortunately Lionel and I couldn't realistically do a pub crawl as someone had to drive back to the cottage as the students were desperate to get their fishing rods out.

Following instructions from our cheerful angling expert, we headed off to the lower part of the island, where there is a 9 hole golf course and some absolutely gorgeous beaches. Cruit Island in the sunshine is just incredibly beautiful. It is wild and rugged and totally enchanting.There is virtually nobody here, the population (in 2022) was 92 people. A lot of the houses are holiday homes - I say houses but there are an awful lot of bungalows here - and I guess that not a lot of people come out of season. This adds to it's quinessential charm and makes it seem even more remote. The beaches that we went to are at the north end of the island and face the North Atlantic to the west and the Norwegian Sea to the north; no wonder it's so cold and windy, but today Mother Nature smiled at us whilst the boys fished.

Lionel and I strolled along the beaches picking up the rubbish. I must say however, that there was a lot less that I expected and most of it seemed to have come from the shore rather than brought in by the waves - fishing boat rope and string excepted.
We returned to the cottage around 7.30pm, and for the first time in over 40 years, I cooked sausages! I prepared a sausage casserole with a rainbow of 7 different veg and I chucked a tin of lentils in too, which I made the boys identify and name in English. Everyone said that the sausages were properly cooked - phew! - and they hastily polished off their plates when promised fresh baked flapjacks.

Catch-up days are an important part of a school trip; it's unrealistic to think that the students can be constantly on the go and teachers need a bit of slow-time too. It means that tomorrow we will all have a brilliant day because we have taken the time to take things easy and be kind to ourselves today.


Wednesday 10th June 2026

Today I was sooo excited to be visiting the Giants Causeway. I have seen it on the telly before and it looked amazing. It was a 2 and a half hour drive from Cruit Island to the causeway, which is located in Northern Ireland. From the coastal path, you can actually see County Donegal (Ireland) where we are staying and the island of Isla which is in Scotland. The view from the path was awesome; the rugged landscape with the waves lashing the rocks was just magical; wild and witchy.

The geological history of the causeway is fascinating; it was created by the Earth's plates moving and lava pushed up through the plates creating the amazing muli-sided basalt stones. Most of the stones are hexagonal, although some have six sides, others have seven sides and there is one with nine sides, but as there are around 40,000 of them, I wasn't going to spend months looking for the special nine-sided stone. Some of the stones are 12m high.

The mythical story involves the giant Finn McCool (such a cool name!) who created the causeway by building stepping stones across the sea to reach Scotland so he could have a barney with Benandonner (another giant from Scotland). However, when he saw the size of his opponant, Finn retreated back to Ireland in fear. Benandonner wasn't happy about this and crossed the stepping stones path across the sea to confront Finn but when he arrived, Finn's wife Oonagh said he wasn't at home and introduced him to their baby. The baby, however, wasn't the baby – Oonagh had dressed her husband up in baby's clothes and pretended that he was the baby. Benandonner saw the size of the «baby» and got a bit scared; if the baby was that big (and don't forget that Finn was a giant), how big was the baby's dad? Benandonner fled back to Scotland, breaking up the stepping stone path as he went to stop Finn McCool from following him.

We arrived at the Visitors Centre, which is owned by the National Trust. The National Trust is an organisation that maintains places and buildings of special interest; including lighthouses, mills and even whole villages. The Visitors Centre was rather disappointing; the feely boxes for small children (where you put your hand in and feel something inside) were fine but the accompanying text was far too advanced for a small child to read. The book type quizzes were the same ; the text was too advanced for the intended audience. There is a film showing conservationists removing the thousands of coins that have been squished into the crevices of the rocks but although educational from a conservationist point of view, it was rather boring. It was the same for the other displays; they took little time to read and did nothing to keep you entertained. I felt quite sorry for Susan Drury, an Irish artist who painted the causeway in the 18th Century. Her grand achievement of having her artwork published in a truly mysoginistic mans world was remarkable and much more could have been told of her story. Having said that, they staff were welcoming and friendly.

We took the guided tour down to the stones; the guide was very chatty and we all had ear pieces to wear. A word of wisdom – do not stand near somebody wearing a hearing aid with your earpiece in as you get a horrible, screechy, white noise in your ear. The guide pointed out the remarkable features such as the camel and the giants boot (rocks shaped like – yes! you've guessed it - a camel and a boot) and then we arrived at the causeway itself.

The sheer number of balsalt, interlocking stones is incredible. It was declared both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a Nature Reserve by the Northern Ireland Department for the Environment in the 1980's and with good reason. The stones interlock and connect the beach to the sea. The waves crash over the stones making the whole site feel moody and etheral; you can imagine the history of the site and the number of people who have visited and felt something whilst standing and staring in awe.

We spent quite a while admiring and scrambling over the stones and then decided to walk along the path to see the Giant's Organ close up. We then took the red route up along the top of the cliffs, climbing the 161 steps to the top (yes, I did count them) and made our way back to the Visitors Centre to hand in our ear pieces.

Mother Nature smiled on us during the visit; we had a mix of sun and clouds and visibility was good so we could stare out to sea. Of course this all changed on the drive back and we returned to Cruit Island with the rain lashing and the wind howling. I didn't feel too good, so I made myself a cup of hot milk and took myself off to bed at 8.30pm, leaving Lionel and the boys to sort their dinner out.


Thursday 11th June 2026

Going to bed early with a cup of hot milk last night did me the world of good; I woke up this morning with a spring in my step! This morning we left the cottage at 7.35am to go to the oyster farm where we met up with Marc and his co-workers. Marc kitted Lionel and the boys out with waders and jackets and I jumped back in the car and left them on the beach under the grey sky. I returned to the cottage and sorted out my missing blogs, unfortunately I cannot modify the earlier one and it has spelling mistakes in it which really bugs me! The car is really horrible to drive: it was clearly designed by a six foot man for a six foot man and not for a petite woman; the headrest is in the wrong place and does not support either my neck or my head. The seats are too long and I have to sit really forward so my feet aren't left dangling and it doesn't have a proper handbreak, just a button which is just wrong!!! It also has a really annoying screen that bleeps at you if you go anywhere near anything (even clumps of grass). The easiest thing about it is that it is a right-hand drive car which although I haven't driven one for over 20 years, I haven't forgotten that I should be on the left-hand side of the road.

I went into Dungloe and visited the charity shop to find a jumper because I still haven't acclimatised to the cold, wet and windy weather and found a book on juices, which I am looking forward to trying out during the school hols. Whilst I was in the shop, I was looking at the bookshelves, when the woman in the shop said that she had lots of books in the toilet. Hmmmm, who keeps books in the loo? But she was true to her word and beckoned me into the garderobe (see what I did there?) where there were bags and bags of books. There was a really nice copy of George Orwell's 1984 which I will pop back for before we return home.

I then went to the supermarket to buy some English food to cook for Lionel and the boys. I want to introduce them to as many English/Irish meals as possible and so for dinner this evening I bought a steak and vegetable pie, to be eaten alongside roast potatoes and some carrots and green beans. I found some gravy - which is a type of meaty sauce that is eaten with pies or mashed potatoes – some people even put it on their chips, but I am stictly salt and vinegar in that respect.

I rather luckily found some gluten free spicy falafel for me; true falafel is only made with chickpea flour but I have to check otherwise I get «glutened» and that can literally confine me to the house for days on end. I then collected Lionel and the boys and we returned to the cottage with them munching on some sandwiches that I had also picked up as I imagined that they would be absolutely starving after shifting bags of oysters for 6 hours.
We did get some sunshine today, and a touch of blue sky at around 7.30pm when we were eating dinner. The wind is still howling around the cottage and now the clouds have covered the sky again. I checked the weather report for the next week or so, nothing is going to change. Maybe I need to go back to the charity shop for more jumpers...


Friday 12th June 2026

More than once, I was woken up in the night by the upstairs loo flushing. It turned out this morning that Maël had been vomiting in the night – nothing to do with my cooking as everybody else survived the steak and veg pie, and he didn't actually eat much at dinnertime. Complaining of a stomach ache and still feeling rough, he returned to bed with a large glass of water, under orders to sip it, accompanied by a dose of paracetamol. It meant that I was confined to the cottage, keeping an eye on the patient. I pottered around a bit, had a shower, checked school emails and popped some washing in the machine. I was glad to find some super strong pegs to hang the washing up with as I am a little concerned that our clothes will fly off the washing line and head across the Atlantic. The weather is still grey, wet and windy and the forecast for next week is downright gloomy.

About one o'clock I cooked some hard boiled eggs and plain, boring rice for Maël and waited for Lionel and Ilann to return at about half past two. Lionel returned with a huge smile on his face and a bag of freshly harvested oysters which he promptly prepared and tucked into. As oysters go, on a plate they looked rather impressive (but don't take a vegetarian's word for it), so I took a photo and sent it to my dad.

Ilann, tried one and I asked him to describe it, but he said that it wasn't his favourite. This didn't put Lionel off though and he polished them off in no time. They looked quite large and although their carbon footprint from the sea to home is very short as they are locally reared, they actually came originally from France (as baby oysters) and will eventually go back there to be sold.
I cooked sausage and mash for dinner (the equivalent of aligot-saucisse); the potatoes were mashed with milk, butter and cheddar cheese although Maël didn't get the full mash experience as I didn't want him throwing up everywhere and I then settled down to watch a film on the TV. Hopefully everyone will be full of beans tomorrow and Lionel and the boys will all enjoy their shift on the oyster farm.


Saturday 13th June 2026

Today Mother Nature smiled upon us and treated us to beautiful sunshine. There was no rain, but the wind was still biting and gusting around the house. Looking from the kitchen window, you can just make out the ocean and the Atlantic waves crashing upon the shore; it feels revitalising to watch even from a distance and makes me broody for Finistere.

Lionel and the students left for the oyster farm in the morning and I stayed at the cottage and did boring and menial but necessary tasks like clearing the kitchen up. I decided to make a cake for the hard-working oyster farm interns and knocked up a sultana sponge cake. This is not the first cake I have baked for them; I had already made one on Sunday that was demolished by Tuesday evening, on Wednesday I made flapjacks that nobody apart from Lionel was too keen on and that he has enjoyed for his breakfast most mornings and today I thought that I needed some more armour in case of any future vegetable conflagrations.

When we first went to the supermarket in Dungloe, I rediscovered self-raising flour. I stopped looking for it in France decades ago after months of fruitless searching, but I was pleasantly reminded just how good it is for baking. The supermarket didn't have any 1kg bags, so I had to buy a 2kg bag or go to another shop; the problem is that I loathe supermarkets and every second I spend in them is yet another second of my life that I will never get back. I feel the same about airports. So with 2kg of self raising flour, I am at least fully prepared in any forthcoming veg wars (I am exaggerating here, the boys really are as good as gold and are no trouble at all).
I waited in for the housekeeper to come and collect the rubbish as I need to talk to her about recycling. There are no recycling bins anywhere and I haven't seen any bottle banks either (not that we have much glass to dispose of but we did bring some back when we were cleaning the beach earlier in the week). We recycle everything at home and I find it strange that there aren't any collective bins; I will have to try and look for a recycling centre next week. I also need her to sign a bill confirming that we will have (at the end of the stay) paid for the electricity we will have used; every centime has to be scrupiously accounted for as Erasmus+ are paying for the intenship - public money needs to be fully accountable, and rightly so. She didn't show up.

This evening we went to a McCafferty's pub & restaurant in Dungloe for fish and chips and they had live music on. https://dungloe.mccaffertysbars.com/ I was excited to go because I wanted to experience live Irish music in an authentic Irish pub but also to get away from the cottage for a bit and mingle with the locals. I am enjoying being away from all the hurly-burly of real life but I am starting to miss home and the warm sunshine and the birdsong. The birds do not sing much here, or they probably do but I just can't hear it because of the howling wind. There are seagulls here but you can't call their screeching a «song» by any stretch of the imagination and I have one bird outside the cottage, and a few flying past, but birdsong has been akin to the background music to my life for as long as I can remember and I now realise just how much I take it for granted.

We booked a table in the restaurant for half past 8 and I can't say that I got dressed up for dinner as I didn't bring anything remotely smart or dressy with me and I was hardly going to wear the jumper that I bought in the second hand shop in town for fear that someone would come up to me and say that they used to have one just like that...

The meal was quite lovely, and despite all the bravado and fighting talk of fish and chips, only Lionel ordered it; the boys opted for a burger and chips (I must admit that the chips did look really good) and I had a delicious goats cheese salad. The deserts flowed too; Lionel had ordered a garlic bread starter so skipped a desert and the boys each had a triple chocolate cookie ice cream sandwich served with squirty cream. I treated myself to a trio of ice cream; strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. We spent the whole time chatting and had a really good meal. Whilst we were polishing off the deserts, the live music began in the bar next door. I had been rather romantically expecting an Irish band (think a Pogues bootleg band) but after the third song we realised that it was a lone American Country singer and after a quick poll, decided to quit while we were ahead.

Maël took the selfie of us all as I tried three times and managed to cut his head in half each time. It was a delightful evening and the interns deserved a treat after working hard flipping oyster bags on the farm.

Sunday 14th June 2026

Today the sun shone, the wind dropped and the birds sung! The rain was nowhere to be seen and I woke up this morning to a wonderful dawn chorus. The wind did pick up at around lunchtime, but it wasn't the howling gale force one thousand that we have been subjected to all week!

Lionel and the students left to go to the oyster farm and I pottered around the cottage, did my expenditure accounts for the trip, chatted to my daughter and listened to the radio until they returned just after lunchtime; today was a «job and knock» day for them – you finish the job for the day and knock off (to knock off is to go home after your shift) and they were quite happy to be back early. Lionel came back with a washing up bowl full of freshly harvested oysters – he's not addicted, he can give them up anytime – and the boys shot upstairs to grab their fishing rods before disappearing off down to the beach.

After a while, I put my boots on and went for a walk along the shore, popping two pieces of cake in my pocket just in case I came across a pair of hungry boys.

I spent a while walking over the dunes, scrambling over the rocks, finding shells and breathing in the bracing sea breeze.

I bumped into the boys who had no luck with catching any fish and handed them some cake before continuing my solitary wander.
Cruit Island is stunning. The views from every angle are breathtaking and I spent quite a while taking photos on my phone of the landscape, the seascape and some of the flowers growing on the dunes. The island has a wild feel to it, it is remote and unspoilt and it is a pleasure to be able to spend some time here.

I spent time gazing into rockpools, I spent hours looking for a circular stone with a hole in it (no luck with that as yet) and I looked down at the waves crashing over rocks whilst perched only just above them.

It was a real treat to be completely alone with only Mother Nature to keep me company and I now feel totally revitalised.

Monday 15th June 2026

This morning I dropped the interns off at the oyster farm and had a nice chat with Marc; we need to get some paperwork signed and agreed that we would do it all on Thursday afternoon once the shift at the oyster farm was over. I then ventured into Dungloe to post some letters and have a good look around.

The sky was grey and the light was flat which made the whole town seem sightly gloomy; I imagine that it looks lovely and quaint when the sun is shining, but I didn't feel it today. I visited the graveyard, drawn by a huge bell that it stood next to some of the graves.

The bell was erected in memory of John O'Donnell, who may have been the famous 1930's footballer who was from Dungloe, although the bell didn't mention his achievements. I noticed in the graveyard that there were a lot of families with the same name, which is not suprising as this part of Ireland is scantily populated and people used to have large families. The graves often said the name of where the deceased originated from in an effort not to confuse people, which I thought was a good idea. Some of the graves mentioned people that were not actually in the graveyard but had been married to somebody that was, a prime example was a woman who had married a man from Texas and despite having his name on the gravestone, it also said that he was actually buried in Texas. Initially, I thought that this was just too confusing but if genealogy is your thing, then I think it is a brilliant idea.


Dungloe, according to the Irish Times consisted of just five wooden houses until the late 1700s and the only way into the town before the bridge was built was to walk on the huge grey stones that had fallen into the river. That gave the town its Irish name - An Clochán Liath – ‘grey stones’. The source of the river seems to be at Dungloe Lough and it flows across the town to the sea. There is one tributary, where according to the map, has it's source up by the Garda station.

The town centre itself is one high street, with various shops and, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, 9 bars. There are a couple of supermarkets, a phone shop, a chemist, a jewellers, an angling shop and some craft and gift shops. The post office is situated just off the main road, about halfway up – the main road leads up from the river to the church at the top - and that is about it, apart from the a couple of fast food outlets and cafés.
The high street configuration reminds me of old Western films, where there is one road entering and leaving a town and all the commerces are on either side of the road, generally without any buildings really behind. Of course Dungloe has buildings behind the high street, it has grown and developed outwards over the past three centuries but, to me, it has that old Western vibe, but without the cowboys.


There is a statue of Paddy The Cope Gallagher, born 1871, died 1966, who was the founder of the Templecrone Co-operative Agricultural Socity Ltd in 1906. It's a remarkably uninteresting statue of a bloke just standing around like he's waiting for a bus. Paddy The Cope, started his working career as a farm hand and also worked as a potato picker – back breaking work – and subsequently founded the Co-op in 1906 to the chagrin of local businessmen.

I was quite taken by the old telephone box that has been converted to hold a defibribulator. To use it in an emergency, you have to dial 999 and I think that it is a great way of ensuring that the old telephone boxes are not removed and are repurposed.

I came across a shop hat has a wonderful story on the window called The Land of Magic. It tells the story of a Norwegian troll that visited Dungloe and decided to stay as the heather was sweet and the locals were great story tellers. He was in search of Braisl, a magical island that appears off the coast of Ireland for one day every seven years and as it is enveloped in mist, only those with magical eyes can see it. Apparently, the troll didn't get to see Braisl as the fog was too thick and by the time it had cleared, the day had passed. It is written in English on one side of the shop and in Irish on the other wndow. It's really rather enchanting.

This evening we had new neighbours arrive; five gorgeous ladies mooved (a clue!) into the field next door. They are very quiet, extremely nosy and eat constantly. They spend a lot of time hanging over the garden fence and stop and stare whenever I venture into the garden. They are really sweet, gentle creatures.

We had chilli for dinner, although I didn't put too much spice in as the students requested a mild level of spice, but Lionel and I added chilli powder to our meal at the table, just enough to make your lips sting. Delicious!

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