Really love the easy drive from Sligo to this waterfall. Very easy to walk off the road and to see…read moreit the goats everywhere make it so charmed also easy to get an Uber from Sligo to here. And a cute café makes it easy trip. The café makes it nice for a coffee and snack . If just going here I'll plan only an hour to see the sites not much else to do unless you walk to the devil's chimney then plan three hours for everything.

I'd thought, wrongly, that this waterfall was in county Sligo; nope, wrong again matey, the sign…read moresays it's inside county Leitrim and only just. It's a beautiful place and designed for walks and picnics. It has toilets and you can potter around the lake area to the coffee bar, but you'll need a fair level of fitness to go to the top of the waterfall as it's quite steep. The water is so clean with a peaty hue given Ireland has wonderful peat bogs - an incredible eco system of its own. Now it ain't the falls of Angel, it ain't Niagara nor Dunn's River; this waterfall reaches 50ft high and is situated at Glencar Lough, and it inspired perhaps Ireland's greatest poet William Butler Yeats who put it much better than me in his poem 'The Stolen Child' 'Where the wandering water gushes From the hills above Glen-Car, In pools among the rushes That scarce could bathe a star' Glad we went, once. Paradise Ireland style.

The City of Drumshanbo and the surrounding County Leitrim area, is a beautiful conversion of what…read moreuse to be Ireland's coal mining area. Today there are many lakes now used for water sports and the nearby Carrick on Shannon is a major Stags & Hens destination. My extended family has lived in this area for centuries and it was fun visiting, "where it all began, so to speak".

There are two big reasons to like Bundoran. One is the annual Ballyshannon Folk Music Festival…read morenearby (http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=ballyshannon%20folk%20festival&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CFEQtwIwBA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DD01N-5YGhuo&ei=ZjdzUczwApCvigKF-oFA&usg=AFQjCNHB6wJILw1qcAQGCzzO4RDncfleIw&sig2=4Y6_BtrjTLSAn5J52BEOaw&bvm=bv.45512109,d.cGE) and two, the surf. We missed the fest* but hoped to score some waves. Bundoran plays host to several surf locations that draw surf travelers, pros and wannabes that don't mind a little cold water. This is because the pubs always have a warm seat and a tall pint or hair-of-the-dog to chase off the chill and they are always close. Donegal is my favorite area of Ireland and is about as far away from crowded Dublin as the island can offer. It is a small beach town chock full of friendly faces, unreal views and tasty waves, like The Peak* where the pub is within a stone's throw of the infamous break. And when the waves are small, there are the most scenic expanses of castles and redoubts, cottages and cliffs, farms and rock-strewn fields. You know, "Lord of the Rings" country, Middle-earth. Drink enough and you'll see Frodo and Samwise. If Orcs lived in Cork, they'd be "CorkOrcs", okay, I'll stop. This is my style of Ireland and what I'll always remember about it. Erin go Bragh. (I pray my surf brothers and sisters from across the pond don't send over a hit-team on me for "publishing" this wave and effing it up for all and ever. I say not to worry. This beach is about as far away from the Malibu look as one could imagine. You will never see a bikini here. Ever. And no one reads Yelp anyway.) *We come in September, the fest is in August.