Did you know you could do Northern Ireland in 24 hours? Yeah, me neither until I did it! Well at least I did a very rushed ‘just do the highlights’ kind of 24 hours. I would love to go back and take my time seeing things in the north, but I had been dying to go to Giants Causeway, so Paddy took me on a quick trip to the north to see it.
I had actually planned to visit when my friends and I went to Derry for a weekend a couple years ago. We were only there for two nights and we took the bus there which meant it was two long travel days and we only would have one full day there. We thought maybe we could take the train to Giant’s Causeway that day, but ultimately decided to spend the day in Derry because we wanted to fully experience Derry. Often times I think as travelers we get in this mindset of seeing everything we can that we forget to just experience a place and really get to know it.
So why did I do 24 hours for both Giant’s Causeway and Belfast? First off, that’s all the time we had to squeeze in a trip to Giants Causeway, but also because Giant’s Causeway is a sight, vs a city, so you only need a few hours there. As for Belfast, the city wasn’t the point of the trip and rather a point to stay the night in the north while also getting the feel of the city. I will be back to Belfast to truly experience someday. We mostly just wanted to visit the Titanic museum there, which we did! Now on to how we did it all!
Day 1
It was a very early morning for us leaving form Galway. We didn’t even have time for breakfast before we left because we needed to get on the road. We had a big day ahead of us. We were planning to get to Derry by lunch time, so that we could have our lunch stop there. It was a 4 hour drive and we had to make multiple stops due to being so tired. Well, actually I had the luxury of sleeping in the car, but the driver did not. Once we’d get to Derry everything else would be a little bit closer together, Dunluce Castle, Giants Causeway, and then Belfast. That is still a lot to fit in a day though!
Derry: The Claddagh Bar
It was a little before 2pm when we made it to Derry. I was immediately transported back to two years ago when I was there was friends. It was all so familiar that it did not feel like it was that long ago. I knew exactly where we were going as we walked through the city. The trick though was trying to find a good lunch spot. We didn’t really eat lunch when I was there with my friends. We just did brunch and dinner.
One of the places we walked into was more of a deli which was not what we were going for. We wanted more of a sit down restaurant, so we kept walking until we were at the bottom of the hill walking along the street, where I walked quite a few times to get to our B&B when I stayed there previously. We ended up going with a pub, The Claddagh Bar. Here we both were able to order a small dish for lunch, a salad for me, and sandwich and soup for Paddy. It was good, but the American in me couldn’t believe I was spending 9 pounds on a salad that was the size of a cereal bowl. That’s $12 which would get you a salad as big as your head back home.
After lunch we went to the shopping center so that I could visit the Body Shop to get a refill of the perfume that I had got there last time. I got the black musk eau de toilette when we were in Derry before and it became my favorite scent. I like this over the parfum because it is more concentrated so you get a better scent. It is not as overwhelming as other perfumes though, which is really nice, especially for those who get headaches from scents. I wore it everywhere because it was such a nice calming scent and I was starting to run out, so this was perfect timing! You can buy it online to ship to the US, but that is about $20 more than buying it in store in the Northern Ireland. There are only two Body Shops on the entire island of Ireland, in Derry and Belfast. We didn’t know what Belfast was going to look like for us in terms of location and time and Derry was a small enough of a town that it was pretty much on the way to the car and it would be an ‘in and out’. I am now set for another 2 years!
Dunluce Castle
About an hour from Derry is Dunluce Castle. The time this takes depends on which route you take. Google Maps will automatically route you to the quickest way, but this isn’t the scenic route. The scenic route you can find by the signs and this takes you next to the sea to the castle through the area of outstanding beauty (its a British term).
You can pay 6 pounds to visit Dunluce Castle, which allows you to go inside where you can walk around and learn about the history. Due to time and wanting to not get to the Causeway too late, we just drove up to the castle to see the view and snap a photo. I wish we could have had time to go inside, but I also was completely fine with just seeing it. I just wish I could have learned more about it though. What I found in my research online is that it dates back to the 1500s as being built by the MacQuillan clan. It was then taken by their rivals the MacDonnells and became a seat of power in the north. It is well known for its beauty and many stories are told of it, including those with banshees.
Giants Causeway
Both Dunluce Castle and Giant’s Causeway are located in Bushmills, the town known for being the birthplace of the oldest whiskey distillery in the world, named after the town itself. There is a lot you can do in this area from exploring the distillery to all the scenic spots along the Antrim coast. The Causeway is only a 13 minute drive from the castle, so everything is quite close together via car.
Getting to Giant’s Causeway was a bit confusing though. Where you are supposed to go with the car, does not make sense as Google maps says you have arrived. We ended up in the bus parking so then we looped back around and then found the main parking where they told us it was closed and we had to continue further up to another parking lot. It wasn’t quite clear why the actual parking was closed. So we went to the other parking and then we couldn’t figure out how to pay for parking, so we just didn’t.
From here it was a short walk to the visitor center. We were going to try to go to the visitor center even though it costs money to visit because it would have been nice to learn about the area and how the rocks were formed. We tried going in and then the woman at the door asked us if we had a ticket, which we didn’t because we were intending to buy one inside, so however you buy tickets to the visitor experience is very unclear. She then told us they were closing soon, so I think that is why she wouldn’t let us purchase tickets as it was nearing the 5 pm closing time. We did use this opportunity to ask about parking which was awkward because she insisted we pay online, but I didn’t get service for in the north, and Paddy didn’t have service in general, so we took the risk of not paying and it worked out for us. So while it wasn’t the most convenient visit to the Causeway, it ended up costing us nothing, which is a win!
From this point it was about a 15 minute walk down to where the causeways are. Its a really nice walk. I stopped along the way to take a picture of the cows on the beautiful Antrim coast. Its all downhill, which is nice when you are going down, but it make for a little bit harder of a walk back, but it was good exercise for us honestly. As we approached the causeways, I was starting to see how good we timed our visit because this wasn’t peak visiting time with the visitor centre closing, so all the tour groups were gone and it was just a few adventurers and photographers coming to take in rocks at golden hour.
There are three main causeways. The Grand Causeway is the biggest. You can walk down to the water (which I would not recommend) or to the highest point of the causeways, which has a lovely view of the surroundings. Then there is the Middle Causeway which is where everyone takes their pictures, so this spot had the most visitors, especially the ones with cameras and a tripod. This is also where the Wishing Chair is located. Then what is actually the first one when walking to it, but we missed at first, is the Little Causeway. This one was actually my favorite. It made the best pictures and there was no one here. I am glad we didn’t skip it as we began our walk back. The sun was at the exact right spot in the sky at this point and you had beautiful imagines of the cliffs in the background. These were my favorite pictures by far. Even my phone took good ones here!
So what is Giant’s Causeway? It is the coolest rock formation I have ever seen, because it is an example of how extraordinary science is. Its made up of over 40,000 basalt pillars, but what makes it so unique is the hexagonal shape of them. They were formed by volcanic activity millions of years ago, but of course because it is Ireland, the formation also has a myth to it. Finn McCool, the star of Irish legends, was a giant who used the Antrim coast as a walkway to get to Scotland. I like this idea of how it was formed. Its pretty magical, just like Ireland. Just look at this sunset.
Belfast: Dirty Onion, Yardbird, and Duke of York
From the Causeway we had about a hour and a half drive to our B&B in Belfast. We had been driving all day and it was really starting to hit, but we were so close. Well, at least we thought we were close. Belfast ended up being one of the hardest cities to drive in. I think we spent at least an extra half hour just driving around Belfast. Google maps, while usually the most reliable app for directions, was not on its A-game. Belfast has a lot of quick exists and turns, so you need to make sure you are in the correct lane or suddenly you’ll be heading in the wrong direction. Google maps tells you what lane to be in, but it was always wrong. It also switches over to miles when you are in the north, which is not helpful for a driver used to the metric system. We agreed we’d never drive in Belfast again. Next time we go to Belfast, it will be via public transportation.
Eventually we got to the B&B which is in the west side of Belfast. It made sense when booking, because that is where the Titanic museum is, so it would be really close. What we didn’t know was that this was the Protestant side of Belfast. Now I won’t take a side, because religion and identity is a complex issue in the North, but I will say we are both Catholic and Paddy is from the Republic. We were not exactly comfortable on this side of the city, especially with the heated tension lately due to Garvaghy road. The uncomfortableness was more a feeling of “we don’t belong here,” then, “we fear for our safety”. Of course in the end everything worked out, but it was a struggle to find taxis.
We wanted to go out to dinner and then to some pubs, so it just made much more sense to taxi in instead of driving, especially with how complicated driving there was. I wanted to go to the Dirty Onion because I follow a few musicians on TikTok that are always playing there. I know they wouldn’t be there that night, but I just wanted to check out this place. It worked out that there happened to be a restaurant connected to it that looked really good, so that made plans for the evening easier. Paddy spent forever trying to get an Uber to pick us up to take us into the Cathedral district. They just wouldn’t get accepted or would get unaccepeted. Eventually I decided there had to be a local taxi service so I googled what was used in Belfast and ended up downloading fonaCAB. On here we finally found a driver to take us into the city. We discovered pretty quickly though that only Protestant taxi drivers drive to this side of the city.
Our driver was really nice though and decided the best place to drop us off to see Belfast’s night life was the Common Market. From here we walked down towards his suggestion, Duke of York, where you see the iconic light up umbrellas. We would come back here later for a pint though. We were getting really hungry, so we headed to Yardbird, the Dirty Onion’s restaurant serving up fried chicken specialties. It felt like it took forever to get our food here because we were so hungry, but it was so worth it. We shared some buffalo wings and some gravy and onion loaded fries. It was actually probably the best meal we had the whole time I was over in Ireland this trip. And of course we got sticky toffee pudding for dessert, which also was one of the best sticky toffee puddings we had as well.
We had a late dinner, as it was after 10 pm by the time we left the restaurant. At this point the Dirty Onion was filling up with students on a Thursday night out (that’s the big day for college students to go out) and we no longer thought the Dirty Onion would be a nice place to hang out, since it was looking more like a college bar at this point. Instead we went back to Duke of York where the older crowd was hanging out and we could actually walk around or sit down in the place.
There was some live music going on that was really good. They played some classic songs including Tell Me Ma. Then I completed geeked out when one guy pulled out the low D whistle. It was so cool! We definitely stayed out longer than we planned to because we were enjoying this place so much. It was a good suggestion by our taxi driver.
The time came for us to leave though and we did struggle to find a taxi now that all the college students were out keeping them busy. After being told by one driver that he wouldn’t go to that part of town, we had to walk a bit to try to find someone who would, which we eventually did. Little did we know finding a taxi in Belfast would be so difficult.
Titanic Museum
The next morning our plan was to stop at a cafe quick for breakfast before heading to the Titanic Museum for our 10 am entrance time. The place we had planned to go ended up being impossible to find parking for so we thought we’d just grab something at the cafe in the museum quickly. I got a scone and a coffee, but I didn’t even get to finish it because drinks weren’t allowed in. It was not the best start to the morning, but of course everything worked out. We got the tickets with the audio guides, because we wanted the full experience, but as it turned out, we didn’t really need them. Nobody else had them and all the information was on the signs. It was just nice to have some of it read to you I suppose. It began with learning about the economy in Northern Ireland which led into the nation’s shipbuilding industry. Here we learned about the construction of the Titanic as well as its sister ship the Olympic.
I had visited the Titanic Museum in Cobh and learned a lot about the ship already, but it was a very different experience I’d say. The one in Cobh was much more centered around its history of being one of the ports of departure, but also focused highly on the experience of passengers on the ship (you can read about it in my Cobh post). The museum in Belfast was centered on the history and construction of the ship. Of course it also had some information about passengers and life on the ship, but there was much more information about its connection to Belfast due to it being built there of course. There was a ton of information here so it was nice that a lot of it was broken up by simulations, rides, and other models.
The thing I found to be the most interesting here at this museum, was the end. After you learn about its sinking and reflect on the lives lost, there are a few exhibits about modern day research around it. You learn about what went wrong and what we now do to avoid similar accidents. Some of these things included the number of life boats on board, the fact that they couldn’t access the binoculars, and weather predictions. After this it came into an exhibit dedicated to a more recent discovery which was the finding of the Titanic. You really learn about every aspect of the Titanic here at the museum.
We finished up at the museum around 12:30pm, so we ended up spending about 2.5 hours here which is the perfect amount of time. I can’t spend more than 3 hours at a museum. We did stop into the gift shop, where I bought a poster for my dad for Christmas (shh… don’t tell him). Overall it was a well worth stop to spend our day in Belfast at the Titanic Museum.
Our plan was to leave Belfast after the museum, because we were heading to Kells in Co. Meath to stay with Paddy’s family and were going to stop at Newgrange, the famous ancient mound in Meath, but we didn’t book tickets ahead of time. It turns out it is important to book those ahead of time because they were sold out for weeks in advance. That put a damper on things, so we could have spent more time in Belfast, but I think we were eager to get out of that city since driving around it was so stressful. Instead we stopped for lunch at the Common Market and then we would make a stop to see Carlingford in Co. Louth, which is listed as one of the most beautiful towns in Ireland by Tourism Ireland.
Lunch: The Common Market
The Common Market is located in the Cathedral district with the other pubs we had visited the night before. We were trying to figure out where we wanted to stop for lunch and had the hardest time deciding where we wanted to stop, so we thought maybe the market we walked by the night before would be a good option!
It was! I’m sure its a really cool place at night because it is essentially a beer hall with a bar and then food stalls. It wasn’t very busy at 1pm on a Friday, but there were still other people hanging out getting lunch just like us. There were a lot of great options for food from chicken to chips, Asian food to Mexican food, and Italian and pizza. We both decided on Mexican food. I got a bowl with chicken and Paddy got something similar but he had beef and potato wedges in it. It really was a neat place!
Carlingford
We left Belfast around 2pm and had about a 1.5 hour drive to Carlingford. Well, it should have been a little less than that except we got caught in the pouring rain driving down into Carlingford. It was crazy rain! I had never seen anything like it in Ireland! I know the place in notorious for rain, but usually it just kind of spits all day, not come down in a torrential downpour. When we were finally able to pull off to the side to wait it out, we did, so It ended up being closer to 4pm by the time we actually got to walk around town. Luckily there isn’t too much to the town.
We just walked down a couple of the cute streets until we found a nice cafe to pop into for a coffee and sweet treat. We had an apple muffin that was probably more like a cake. I am not sure what it was, but it was good. It was still raining a bit after our coffee, so we didn’t spend too much more time in town, but we did walk over to the castle. The interior was closed to visitors that day, but we still could walk around the outside of it. The castle is called King James’s Castle and it was built in 1190 during the Norman invasion by Hugh de Lacy, Lord of Meath. For a good portion of its early years it was under the control of the English. Today is a symbol of Louth and via water lets you know you are on the side of the Republic and not the North.
Carlingford is such a beautiful area and it is known for its outdoor activities on the water and land. They have hiking, kayaking, and cycling. I would love to go back on a nicer day and experience some of these adventures.
Despite spending not even a total 24 hours across the border, I feel that I am starting to grasp what makes the north the north. While the beautiful landscapes feel like an extension of the green of Ireland, the way of life is a whole new world. From the cool accents, to the roads that just don’t make sense, their own take on Irish and British food, and its claim to fame with the Titanic, Ireland’s north is its own unique place with its own history and identity. I would love to go back and experience more of the north, but I am not going to lie, there’s not much that compares to the feeling of crossing over the border back into Ireland.
That’s a wrap on the Northern Ireland portion of our trip. Stay tuned to read about a day in Dublin and an excursion to Wicklow. As always, check out my Ireland page to read more about Ireland!
