Ireland 2015: Northern Road Trip - Overview

After doing quite a thorough job touring around the Southern part of Ireland, our second road trip would involve a 4 day trek across Northern Ireland.  We planned to visit the politically and religiously divisive city of Londonderry (or Derry depending on who you ask - more on this later) and then explore the scenic beauty of northern coastline, highlighted by a visit to the natural phenomenon known as the Giant's Causeway.  On the way back to Dublin, we would stop in Newgrange in County Meath where prehistoric monuments are located.  We decided to visit Londonderry instead of Belfast, because it was a smaller city and therefore easier to drive around in, but still had the same historical significance and would provide a similar experience.

Initially our plan was to travel counterclockwise, as we did throughout our trip in Southern Ireland, since this would put us in the lane away from the cliffs as we drove along the coast.  This would take us to Giant's Causeway at the beginning of the trip and Londonderry at the end.  But a greater concern caused us to change our plans, and that was the long-term weather forecast for our road trip which was calling for rain for most of the days.  While it would be less pleasant to have rain for any part of our drive, the one stop where we really wanted to have good weather was at the Giant's Causeway, since this involved climbing over steep rock formations that could get quite slippery when wet.  So we decided to reverse our trip and visit Londonderry first, in hopes that the rainy weather would subside by the time we reached Giant's Causeway.

There were some logistic details that we had to plan for, since despite its name, Northern Ireland is actually part of the United Kingdom, which uses a different currency.  So in addition to purchasing Euros for the Amsterdam and Ireland portions of our trip, we also bought some Pounds that we would use for this excursion.  At least there were no passport or border requirements when crossing between Ireland and Northern Ireland.  But we knew we were in a different country from the first time we spoke to someone after entering Northern Ireland.  The accents were definitely different from those in Ireland, but were also not the same as the traditional British accents that we were used to hearing in London, England.  To our ears, it sounded more like a strong Liverpool accent and made it very difficult for us to understand what was being said to us at first.

Another issue was related to the data plan which we bought for our IPAD.  We find it really useful to buy a data plan for each new country that we visit, since we have been saved from getting lost multiple times in the past by having access to Google Maps while we were driving or walking around in a city or even once when we were lost in the deep woods in the South of France.  We bought a Netherlands data plan for our 2 weeks in Amsterdam and another data plan for our 4 week stay Ireland.  Our dilemma was whether or not it was worthwhile to buy a U.K. data plan for the 4 day trip, and if so, where could we get one?

We decided that we did want to have Internet access on this road trip, and researched the nearest city after crossing the U.K. border where we could buy a SIM card for our IPAD.  We always try to go to the major telecommunications distributor for each country in order to buy our data plan, even if it might cost us a bit more than getting one from a discount reseller.  This is because just about every time that we have purchased our SIM card in a new country, there have been issues installing it.  So now we insist that the provider install and test the connection for us before we leave the store.  In both Ireland and the U.K., the major provider seems to be Vodafone.  We found a Vodafone store in the city of Newry, U.K. which was just a few kilometres after crossing the border and directly on the path of our final destination for the day.  For 10 pounds, we could get a data plan of 1Gig that would last for 30 days.  This plan provided much more access than we needed, but was a minor expense relative to the cost of our trip and well worth it for our peace of mind in terms of finding our way around in Northern Ireland.  It is so great that the European countries offer these short-term phone and data plans that are perfect for travelers.  I wish we had the same options in Canada.

Once our data access was all set up and ready to go, I asked a question that had been nagging at me since we initially planned for this trip. What is the correct name of the city that we were headed for?  The question was relevant since this city seemed to be called by different names depending on the source.  Google Maps called it "Londonderry" and changed my search criteria to this name when I entered "Derry".  On the other hand, my paper road map called it "Derry" with "Londonderry" in small bracketed text.  Depending on which websites we searched, we would find one name or the other.  Even different road signs seem to have conflicting uses of the name.  I told the Vodafone clerk where we were headed next and asked him, "So, is it Londonderry or Derry?".  He replied, "Well, it depends on who you ask ...".   This seemingly innocuous name dispute succinctly epitomizes the longstanding conflicts between the Roman Catholic Irish Nationalists who still dream of uniting North and South Ireland, and the Protestant British Loyalists who want to keep things as they are.  Derry was the original Irish name of the city meaning "oak grove".  The name was legally renamed to Londonderry in the 1600s in honour of the London businessmen and investors who brought their money into the city.  For anyone who thinks this dispute is over, you just have to look at the vandalized road signs where the word "London" has been scratched out, leaving only "Derry".  We headed towards Derry/Londonderry with anticipation, ready to learn more about the "Troubles", as the height of this conflict was called.