GO IRELAND: A cycling weekend on the North West Trail gave reluctant cyclist SARAH GERAGHTYone of the best weekends of her life
MY PROACTIVE, organised French friend doesn’t give up easily. “So what are your plans for St Patrick’s weekend?” she asks, sensing my resistance to hers. Of course, I have no plans. Even if I had, her notion of cycling the North West Trail through Sligo, Donegal and Leitrim definitely isn’t one of them.
Rain, sleet, hail. That’s where the “hail” in the Hail Glorious St Patrick hymn comes from, I tell her. After about 45 lengthy email threads, involving detailed discussions about padded leggings and whether disco gear is required for our night in Bundoran, we are wobbling off on rented bikes from the Railway Hostel in Sligo town on a miraculously sunny St Patrick’s Day.
Four Irish 20-somethings plus an Italian and the organised Frenchwoman, each with varying degrees of fitness and very little beyond-the-Pale geography. At least the trusty Italian can map-read, says someone reassuringly, as bare Ben Bulben’s head looms in the distance.
The decision not to attempt the entire 326km trail turns out to be a sound one. Less than 20 minutes after take-off, we realise that if your trusty two-wheeler is not a Dublin bike with an armchair-sized saddle, you shouldn’t laugh at padded leggings. But our 250km itinerary is ambitious enough, mainly taking traffic-free back roads and country lanes, up the coast from Sligo to Bundoran, Co Donegal (50km), Bundoran to Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim (40km) and back to Sligo (30km) in time for the 5pm train back east on Monday. Right now, Dublin seems very far away.
We’re not long out of Sligo, cruising around Ben Bulben when there’s a ripple of excitement. “The sea” yells an Irish person as Rosses Point comes into view. We “baa” at the lambs, give the traditional raised-index-finger salute to passersby, and get into the routine of one-by-one yelling “car” or “tractor” to warn the others on the rare occasion when one comes along.
The Trail is well signposted, which for some reason surprises the French and Italian. The weather is warm and sunny, which is even more surprising to the French and Italian.
We stop by Yeats’ grave at Drumcliffe with its inscription, “Cast a cold eye on life, on death . . .”, and sit on the wall in the sunshine eating our staple weekend snack of Kit-Kats and bananas.
About halfway to Bundoran we come to the small town of Grange, Co Sligo, and with exquisite timing, find ourselves arriving just in time for the St Patrick’s Day Parade. We line up with kids to have shamrocks painted on our faces, find a spot outside Lang’s Pub and Restaurant for lunch, and cheer on the Sligo Pipe Band, the beaming junior infants from the local primary school who are dressed in green with little painted green faces and the lads from Moran’s Bar waving from the back of a Massey Ferguson tractor.
Watching it through the eyes of our foreign friends, we surprise ourselves by feeling a touch emotional and not a little proud of this unexpectedly sweet and wholesome face of rural Ireland, one that is not a contrivance for tourists but for the people of Grange.
That’s before the man in Grange tells us that it’s all downhill from here to Bundoran. He’s probably still dining out on the yarn he sold to the dopes from Dublin. Downhill? It is seriously, relentlessly uphill. Silence descends as each of us engages in a personal, hellish endurance test. A fair bit of time is spent getting off the bike, trudging upward, then climbing back on the bike and struggling upward some more. But the beauty of cycling is that the uphill struggle is eventually balanced by a downhill and the joy of freewheeling down those lovely, empty, winding daffodil-lined backroads whooping like seven-year-olds, never wears off.
The coastline crossing from Sligo to Donegal is dramatic and beautiful but the “Welcome to Bundoran” sign is a blessed relief. We’re half expecting cheering crowds, possibly led by the joker from Grange, to applaud us into the town. What we get are gangs of wild teens who have taken over for the weekend in noisy pimped-out cars. They definitely create a buzz in the town, not an entirely welcoming or happy one though.
Arriving at Killavil House BB just outside the town, we couldn’t have asked for anything more comfortable or welcoming. We resist the urge to go to bed. Ireland are playing France for one thing plus, we have to remind ourselves and our sore bits, we’re young and it’s still bright outside.
Padraig Davey, in a scene reminiscent of the fear an tí from summers in the Gaeltacht, loads us all into his jeep and drops us off at The Bridge Bar, a lively and popular surfers’ hangout where we have a reasonably priced and tasty meal.
After the match, we try our luck on the slot machines in some of the many arcades on Bundoran’s chaotic main street and call it a night at 10pm, dodging had-one-too-many bodies and overturned bins on the way back. Didn’t need that disco gear, after all.
After a giant, full Irish breakfast and a fond farewell from the Daveys, we make our way along the spectacular Cliff Walk, in the direction of Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, about 30km away.
Leitrim’s loveliness takes us completely by surprise, even with the hills. The route takes us along the shores of Lough Melvin, on the border of Leitrim and Fermanagh.
After one hill too many, we take a break for Guinness and more Kit-Kats over the border at Garrison, Co Fermanagh.
Rolling down the driveway into Bluebell House BB, once again we’re enveloped by the warmth of the hosts. Aiden and Kathleen Meehan welcome us into their bright and spacious house, with its views of Benbo Mountain and O’Donnell’s Rock.
They ask our favourite question of the weekend: “What would you like for your breakfast tomorrow?” We learn, from reliable sources this time, that the route from here to Sligo is mostly downhill – “Think of Sligo as at the bottom of the bowl”. We stop for lunch at the Riverbank Restaurant in Dromahair, about 10km from Manorhamilton, and from there make the final 17km, winding around the shoreline forest of Lough Gill, then back to Sligo, and urban reality, on the cycle track along the town’s Garavogue River.
Only then does it start to rain. And boy does it rain. Cowering in the doorway of the bike shop, we agree that it would probably have been a different kind of weekend if the sun hadn’t been shining. But it did shine and that wasn’t the only surprising thing. Some of us had forgotten that the friendliness and hospitality of the Irish is more than a hoary old tourist board slogan. And that in rural Ireland, we have something to be truly proud of.
There are a few things we might have done differently, a few places we should have seen that we didn’t; and a few that we did see but shouldn’t have and won’t be troubling again. But all the best times are like that. It was, quite simply, one of the best weekends we’ve ever had.
We board the train where we promptly fall asleep and stay like that until the train pulls into Connolly Station.
How to: Bike it
BIKE RENTAL
Chain Driven Cycles, 23 High Street, Sligo, tel: 071-912 9008, chaindrivencycles.com
ACCOMMODATION
The Railway Hostel, 1 Union Place, Sligo, tel: 071-914 4530, therailway.ie;
Killavil House BB, Finner Road, Bundoran, Co Donegal, tel: 071-984 1556, killavilhouse.com
Bluebell House BB, Clooneen, Manorhamilton, Co Leitrim, tel: 071-985 5384, bluebellbb.com
FOOD
Riverbank Restaurant, Dromahair, Co Leitrim, tel: 071-916 4934, riverbankrestaurant.ie
Drumcliffe Tea House, Drumcliffe, Co Sligo, tel: 071-914 4956, drumcliffeteahouse.com