I was last in Ireland in 2019, mostly hanging out in Sligo. I had a fun trip on both the music and surf fronts so I decided to head back for round two.
I didn't have a scale at home, so I rolled the dice on my luggage weight. Due to bringing extra clothes and such for the winter, It was a close one!
I was also concerned about my surfboard bag being too long for British Airways, but they didn't give it a second glance thankfully.
I landed in Shannon on late Saturday afternoon, stayed near the airport, then made an early 2.5 hour drive up to Sligo the next morning. After dropping off my stuff, I hightailed it back 20 minutes west to Easkey to check out the surf. It was looking great, so I tried to shake off the jet lag as best I could and paddled out at the left (there are two breaks right next to each other, a left and a right).
My ride:
Looking good!
Monday turned out to be a bluebird day, and the surf was still good! I opted to try the right as it looked like they were forming up a bit better than the lefts:
Coast road near the right
I Monday night I made the drive in to Gurteen, a small village south of Sligo town for a session. The music was fantastic, and it was a pretty laid back scene there with just 4 other musicians and maybe 5 or 6 bar patrons. I met back up with Seamus who I'd met on my last trip, one of the best flute players in the area, and Rodney who plays a mean concertina.
Tuesday was a recovery day, but managed to get some more surf in on Wednesday morning, and then headed to another session at the Strand Bar in Strandhill. It was a large session with about 10 or so people and got pretty raucous. Some girls visiting from Derry got a bit over eager and were scolded by the publican for being too loud. The music was again excellent. Here's a bad picture of Dan on the box, but it does kind of fit the vibe of the night:
I checked the surf today, but it was looking fairly mediocre so I opted to recover a bit. I think I'm finally over the jet lag and finally don't feel like sleeping all afternoon! The next few days will likely be fairly mellow.
