Your Accommodation

20 & 21-Jun	Dublin -Marble Hall Donnybrook
22	Grange Lodge, Omagh
23& 24	Woodhill House Ardrara
25 & 26	Knockranny, Westport
27	Ballynahinch Castle, Connemara
28 & 29	Ballinalacken Castle, The Burren

Day 1 Transfer from Airport to your hotel – your BHT representative will be waiting for you outside the customs hall.

Day 2 A tour of Dublin visiting St Patrick’s Cathedral, a microcosm of Irish history, Trinity College with its 8^th Century manuscript bible, The Book of Kells, The National Museum, The National Gallery of Ireland, The Georgian Squares, Powerscourt Townhouse which is an 18^th Century nobleman’s house now a shopping mall, and the literary sites associated with James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and other Irish writers.

Day 3 North towards Donegal. This is a long journey and there is much to see on the way. Visit Newgrange and The Boyne Valley, a remarkable prehistoric centre of power. On through the Cooley Mountains to Armagh, ecclesiastical capital of Ireland In the city visit the two Cathedrals and the Bishop's Palace in Armagh . Outside the city visit Navan Fort, iron age seat of the Kings of Ulster. Overnight at Grange Lodge.

Day 4 Visit Castle Coole House, the seat of the Earl of Belmore.. Follow the banks of Lough Erne to Donegal. Visit Boa Island , St Patrick's Purgatory, & the porcelain factory at Beleek, founded nearly 200 years ago. Overnight Donegal

This area is inextricably linked, as the name suggests, with the memory of Donegal’s greatest saint, Colm Cille or Columba. There is a local folk tradition that St. Patrick came to South West Donegal in the fifth century, on his mission to convert the people of the northern half of the island. He was prevented from entering the Glen, however, by demons who made the Glen River into a stream of fire, and caused a permanent fog to descend over the entire area. Patrick accepted defeat, but forecast that a better man than he would finish the job. Some 100 years later Colm Cille, who was born near Lough Gartan in the north of the county, approached the glen with his followers. The demons killed one of them - Cearc - thus giving rise to the placename Srath na Circe. Colm Cille was not a man to take this lying down so he chased the demons into the sea at a place called Screig na nDeamhan (the demons’ rocky shore). Of interset is Táipéis Gael, a group of weavers who make tapestries, wall hangings and other high quality crafts based on local traditions.

Crashing 2,000 feet into the sea, Slieve League are the tallest cliffs in Europe.

At Studio Donegal in Kilcar, Tristan Donaghy is following in the footsteps of his parents, Kevin and Wendy Donaghy, an innovative designer-weaver/spinner team which works with hand weavers in the Gaelic-speaking area on Donegal's southwest coast. Studio Donegal is known for its handwoven designs in distinctive colors. "If you were being very traditional, you'd be limited to black and white, going back to the beginning when the colors were limited to the colors of your sheep's wool and whatever you could make from that," young Donaghy explained. "If the farmer had black-faced sheep, he could weave black and white herringbone or black and gray herringbone." That black and white mix is what most Americans still think is "Donegal Tweed." Studio Donegal designers try to capture the colors they see out their mill windows.The result is a rich palette of seasonal hues that show up in everything from tweed casual jackets and hats to throws and bedspreads.
"Handwoven tweed doesn't wear out, so we have to rely on making something different to get the customer back," Donaghy continued. "People were asking could we make a king-size blanket, so we decided to build a king-size loom. It takes quite a man to do it. It's triple width -- the only hand loom its size in all Ireland."

Day 6 By way of W B Yeats' tomb at Drumcliffe, to Sligo with its prehistoric burial grounds, though the Ox Mountains and visit the museum of country life at Turlough Park on the way to Westport.

Day 7 Explore Westport town and House, a stately mansion still home of the Marquis of Sligo, and then head along the coast of Clew Bay to Newport and Grace O'Malley country, visiting one of the 16th Century pirate queen's castles.

Day 8 Along Killary Harbour , a glacial fjord, to Kylemore Abbey, a Victorian mansion with wonderful restored gardens, that is now a girls' school. On to Clifden, Capital of Connemara on the way to Ballynahinch Castle. Connemara is one of the most scenic areas of Ireland, in a wild and lonely way. As with most of Galway, Connemara's history goes back thousands of years. Connemara's coast is very convoluted and it has a wealth of lovely beaches, little islands and harbours. The area around Clifden, the main town in Connemara, is rich with megalithic tombs. The famous green/white Connemara Marble was a trade treasure used by the inhabitants of the time and it continues to be of great value today. Ballynahinch Castle in Recess nestles quietly in the heart of Connemara, protected by mountains and surrounded by lakes and rivers. Its surroundings are beauty beyond compare and the spectacular views for the visitor as they roam around the estate are just magnificent. .

The sites include Eyre Square with the city wall, the medieval Lynch's Castle, The Lynch Window, the Church of St. Nicholas where Columbus worshipped, the shops around Kirwan's Lane, The Mediaeval Spanish Arch and Galway Cathedral.

Day 10 Explore the sulphur spa at Lisdoonvarna, St Bridget's Well at the Cliffs of Moher, the Doolin Craft Gallery, the internationally renowned karst limestone habitat of the Burren, with its orchids, gentians and ragged robin, and subject to time constraints visit to Bunratty Castle and Village.


Grafton Street	St Pat's	Trinity College


Ben Bulben	Turlough Park Museum	Yeats' Grave


Galway City	Athenry	Kinvara