The day promised to be wet and windy, like 25 mph windy. But despite the horizontal rain we had in the early morning, it was relatively calm and dry as we checked out of our Airbnb and started our trek to Northern Ireland. We thought we’d squeeze in a sight or two, as long as the weather held. Our first, Horn Head, was only ten miles north, on the northern coast of Ireland, but by the time we got there the wind had picked up again. Or maybe we were just more exposed on this cliff 600 feet above the Atlantic. I was afraid to stand too near the edge, the wind was that strong. And then the rain started. I opted to shift my vantage point to the warmth of the car.
Lough Swilly with Inch Island midstream
An Grianán, one of those cool, circular Stone Age forts on a hill overlooking Lough Swilly, was our second stop, an easy forty miles closer to our destination. Lough Swilly is another one of those Irish fjords [Irish fjords], this one much longer and wider than Killary Harbour.
The wind at the top of the hill was ferocious. Jackets whipped liked sails in a tempest. Hair plastered to faces making it difficult to see. The temperature plummeted. I watched tourists trying to take photos in the elements. I just didn’t have it in me to get out of the car. Marcus found a parking spot overlooking the lough, and that’s where we enjoyed our English picnic. [Going local] One of the best views on a picnic so far, and no chasing sandwich wrappers and napkins across the car park.
As we drove down the hill from the fort, I entered the address of our Derry Airbnb into the SatNav (car navigation system). ETA: 15 minutes. What? That can’t be right. We’re still in Ireland. I looked up and saw a line on the road about fifty feet in front of the car, where the pavement was darker and smoother. I laughed. “I bet that’s the border.” Sure enough. No border control, not so much as a sign, just more cow pasture and white cottages. The few cars we encountered on this little slip of a farm road now had UK plates.
“Welcome to the United Kingdom!” I said to Marcus.
Anti-climatic? Not at all. I hope that’s as much of a border as there will ever be between these two countries. And is it too much to hope that one day there is no border at all, physical or otherwise?
The day before we left Galway, I got my hair cut. That’s always a potentially traumatic experience on the road, but I found someone I liked. She gave me her mobile number so I could text her at home on a Sunday to make an appointment, for crying out loud, what’s not to like? So while we were chatting as she snipped away, she asked me where we were off to next.
“Westport,” I answered.
“Oh, Westport!” she gushed. “That’s where we go when we want to get away from Galway.” Get away from Galway? Why? We love this city. “Be sure to stop at Killary Harbour on your way. The fjord is beautiful.” Fjord? In Ireland???
Yes, Ireland does have fjords, it turns out. Three of them. And one is Killary Harbour. I thought fjord was a Scandinavian word for a long, narrow inlet or bay. According to my research assistant, however, a fjord is not just a foreign word but also a geological phenomenon. During an ice age, as the rapid accumulation of snow and ice compacts and forms a glacier in a river valley, the weight of the glacier eventually causes it to slide down the valley toward the sea. The V-shaped river valley is carved wider and rounder, into more of a U-shape, by the glacier. At the end of the ice age, the warming climate causes the glacier to melt and the ice effectively recedes back up the valley as the glacier gets smaller.
When the glacier starts to recede, moraine—that rocky rubble that the glacier has been chiseling off the valley floor and walls and pushing down the valley—is deposited at the lower end and forms a sill or lip to the basin that it’s carved out. Seas rise as glaciers melt, and eventually they rise higher than the sill and flood the basin, creating a fjord. Non-fjordal inlets are the more V-shaped, river-cut valleys that weren’t rounded out by glaciers and don’t have sills that a glacier would leave behind. And there endeth the lesson, as Sean Connery would say.
We didn’t have time for a boat trip into the fjord, but we did stop at a lay-by to watch the boats go by and absorb the beauty.
Get a load of those rhododendrons! I stood mesmerized in a sea of deep pink. My guess is we passed through at peak bloom. Now that, my friends, is beautiful countryside and another serendipitous moment, all because I needed a haircut.
