Who Wants to Go to Ireland?

I have being dreaming of this my entire life.

Going to Ireland.

Okay, maybe not my ENTIRE life. I doubt my toddler self knew where the damn bathroom was, let alone the Emerald Isle, but don't be so damn literal.

The point is, the dream is closer than becoming reality than ever before. It's not set in stone yet, due to  health considerations I can't yet predict, but it is sneaking closer and closer. Spring Break, April 2015.

Shannon Airport. Oh please, oh please.

Why Ireland? Let me count the ways, lol.

The accent. Celtic punk. Green. The myths. Castles. The accent. Blue eyes. Horses. Irish tin whistles. Mist. Poetry. Guinness. Fairy rings. Jameson's.

Did I mention I am rather fond of the accent?

I think this all may have started for real when I starting reading Morgan Llywelyn's books. Lion of Ireland and the Pendragon Cycle series, then the phenomenal story of Cuchulainn, Red Branch. I'd already had a serious thing for the Arthurian cycle and myth, and thanks to her,  I became obsessed with Celtic myth as well.

Then there was the whole horses phase. I was, like about every girl child born in the 70s, seriously horse-mad. It didn't help my mother at the time was breaking horses and working at a horse ranch. I have a clear memory of a book about an Irish breeder with these amazing pictures, all that green, like velvet, with these white rocks spilling down.

This isn't it, but you get the idea.

Oh, and we can't forget the Eddie Rabbit song. Anyone even remember him? My mom loved him. I spent hours listening to this song

I also love Celtic music, most particularly Celtic punk. And then there's Dylan Moran, Liam Neeson and all those delicious Irish exports. 

You may wonder, after all this gushing, do I have any actually Irish lineage? Actually yes, though not nearly as much as I'd like, lol. My great-grandfather on my mother's side, William Aldrich, was born in Ireland and immigrated here as a teenager. Supposedly anyway. You never know about those old family tales. The geneology of that side of the family has never been thoroughly dug into, so hard to say for sure. 

I am more Scot and Swedish than anything else, and while I have a definite thing for Scotland, it is Ireland that calls to me more than anywhere else. 

Now I am not a total prat. I don't expect the Ireland of the Llywelyn books, or movies such as The Secret of Roan Inish, or even The Commitments. I am quite familar with what to expect of the Ireland of today and I know it's no fairytale. I don't care.

I just want to go. I want to drink a pint of Guinness in a Dublin pub, walk on the Giant's Causeway, stare down the Cliffs of Moher and listen to real Irish music. I want to go to all the places I've written about in my own books and put my fingers in the dirt and smell the grass.

My itinerary will be short, and unfornutately I just can't fit everything I want to in 9 days, but I am going to give it a whirl. My main places to hit are Lough Gur, Donegal, the afore-mentioned Cliffs of Moher and the Giant's Causeway. Then onto Dublin and a quick flight to the Isle of Man for a couple days to do research on my upcoming book(last of the Celtic Elementals series) Lightning In Sea.

What would be your can't miss places to visit in Ireland? 

Where would you go if you could pick anywhere in the world?