Two weeks ago, I had the honour of attending my first Irish wedding reception, which was a flamboyant affair with lots of good craic. The reception was held in Carlingford in County Louth, Ireland, which is about a two-hour drive from Belfast. I carpooled with two friends, and we decided to make a weekend out of it—it turned out we had excellent timing, because the weather was magnificent, the sun was out, and everything was green and beautiful and picturesque. And I thought, well, why not make a blog post out of some of the photos I’d taken.
A few facts about Carlingford:
- Carlingford is an Irish coastal town with an urban population of about 1,000 people;
- The town is about 11km south of the border with Northern Ireland, and 90km north of Dublin;
- Carlingford has a castle! King John’s Castle is named after King John, who reigned from 1199–1216, was younger brother of Richard the Lionheart, and has his own Shakespearean history play (surely the highest honour attainable by a British monarch or Roman figure). Unfortunately, work on restoring parts of the castle (it’s pretty darn old!) has been “under construction” for many, many years, and the inner castle remains inaccessible;
- There are remains of a Dominican Friary, which was established in the 14th Century; and
- You can grab a pint of Guinness at Taaffe’s Castle, which is basically a pub in a castle. It’s really all about the Guinness and the castles.
One of the wee Medieval streets in Carlingford. We had a lovely time meandering through these and going into the homely little shops.
The view of Carlingford’s town centre from a road along the coast.