The Beauty of a vacation in Ireland
While we look at at the uncharacteristically heavy rain this August, I came across this youtube clip that reminds us just why an Ireland Vacation is just so popular:
Add comment August 21st, 2008
Author Archive
The Yachting world gathers in Ireland
Cork Week, the biennial regatta hosted by the Royal Cork Yacht Club and Ireland’s largest sailing event, kicks off tomorrow in Crosshaven, County Cork.
This time around Cork Week has a new title sponsor in ACCBank, the first in almost a decade since the long-term sponsorship was relinquished by the Ford Motor Company. Today many still refer to the festival as Ford week, though the brand “Cork Week” has been well established in the intervening years.
While the event is built around the regatta with over 400 entrants competing on 5 different courses, Cork Week is not just about sailing! The tented village has become a permanent feature at Cork Week since 1986 and hosts live music, bands and clubbing available in four different marquees.
Each night there will be live music in four different marquees, with a new main stage playing host to the following acts:
Saturday 12th July - Revenge
Sunday 13th July - Aslan
Monday 14th July - The Walls
Tuesday 15th July - Bagatelle
Wednesday 16th July - Paddy Casey
Thursday 17th July - J-90
Friday 18th July - Bluemoose
I’ve attended the opening night on 3 occasions and believe me, with thousands of revellers attending it is much more like a music festival than a yachting festival.
For the serious yachtsman/woman, the festival really begins on Monday (August 14th) when the sailing begins competitively.
Over 400 boats with over 5000 sailors will take to the water throughout the week on 5 courses, 1 within the harbour and 4 outside the mouth of the harbour.
One of the event’s most prominent patrons is Roy Disney, former senior executive for The Walt Disney Company, who has competed 3 times at Cork week (1992, 2002 & 2004), coming 1st overall in 2 of his visits.
Add comment July 11th, 2008
Cork Airport announces Transatlantic connection
Cork Airport has announced that passengers can now book flights between Cork and the USA in one single transaction.
In a deal between Aer Arann and Aer Lingus, passengers will now be able to book flights from USA airports to Cork with a stopover in Dublin. Checked luggage will be transferred au
tomatically to the connecting flight and boarding passes will be issued for the Dublin-Cork leg in the USA.
This deal will benefit both inbound and outbound travel through Cork Airport as Irish passengers will be also be able to book flights from Cork to eg JFK via Dublin in one transaction.
4 comments June 25th, 2008
New Routes for cheap flights to Ireland
Cheap flight access to Ireland has been given a further boost as Ryanair has announced 4 new routes to Ireland
The airline is commencing 3 new routes into Shannon from October 2008. All originating in Poland they will link the midwestern Airport with Katowice, Gdansk and Lodz. These will bring to 33 the number of routes into Shannon operated by the Irish low fares airline.
Ryanair also today announced that they will start a service to Knock Airport from John Lennon Airport in Liverpool. This will also commence in October 2008.
These new routes will further increase accessibility for travel to Ireland.
Add comment June 19th, 2008
North of Ireland strives for supremacy in Golf
Ballyliffin and Royal Portrush Golf clubs have joined forces in a united cross-border bid to bring Golf’s Irish Open to Ireland’s North Coast.
Details of this exciting initiative were revealed at a media briefing for the Seniors Irish Open which will be staged on Ballyliffin’s classic ‘Old Course’ from June 20-22 of this year.
This year’s Seniors Open will attract a very high profile field that includes Eamonn D’Arcy, Des Smyth, Sandy Lyle and Sam Torrance among others to Ballyliffin’s world famous links in Inishowen in North County Donegal.
Not satisfied with this, the very progressive Inishowen club sees this as a mere “stepping stone” in their effort to bring the Irish Open to the north coast in conjunction with Royal Portrush in 2010 and 2011.
Add comment June 6th, 2008
New route to Cork Airport from Geneva
Aer Lingus has just announced its new winter schedule for 2008/09 to Cork Airport with the addition of a new service from Cork to Geneva that will commence early December 2008.
Commenting on the news, Kevin Cullinane, Marketing Manager Cork Airport said, “We are delighted to welcome the addition of Geneva with Aer Lingus to the growing number of destinations served from Cork Airport. As Munster’s principal international gateway to the South of Ireland, Cork Airport continues to expand its network of destinations and growth into Europe which, in recent years has been led by Aer Lingus.”
Add comment May 27th, 2008
Knock Airport passenger numbers up 25%
Knock Airport has announced that passenger numbers were more than 177,000 in the first four months of 2008 up 25% on the previous year .
The Airport had it’s busiest Easter on record with 30,000 passengers passing through it’s doors.
Recent additions of new routes to London Gatwick with XL.com, Bristol with Ryanair and Glasgow International with bmibaby have been a significant factor in the growth.
They also announced today that CityJet has been awarded a contract to operate a daily return service between Knock and Dublin Airport, starting 22 July 2008.
This is all very encoutraging news for the County Mayo Airport as it continues efforts to replace the transatlantic service that ran from May to October of last year. 25% growth on other traffic will certainly help to counter the loss of the transatlantic traffic over the coming months.
Add comment May 26th, 2008
Aer Arann and Aer Lingus commence new routes to Ireland
Two new routes commenced in the past week at Cork Airport.
Flights between Brest and Cork operate twice-weekly on Wednesday and Saturday.
Ireland becomes the second destination outside of France available to passengers from Brest airport. The UK is already served by Flybe and Ryanair.
Add comment May 23rd, 2008
Dingle named in top 20 destinations in the World
Tripadvisor, the expedia owned travel review website, have just named their best destinations for 2008.
Dingle, or “An Daingean” as it is officially named, has been listed at number 18, the 6th European destination to be listed.
Dingle, which is in the extreme South West of Ireland, is part of the Irish Speaking Gaeltacht and is the most westerly town in Europe. Dingle is a popular tourist attraction for people who travel to Ireland as it retains the old world charm of an Irish fishing village.
One of the many tourist attractions in Dingle is Ireland’s most famous Dolphin, Fungie. Fungie is a mature male bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops Truncatus) and was first sighted in Dingle Harbour in early 1984. He is reputed to be the longest standing friendly solitary dolphin in the world.
An aquarium, Mara Beo (meaning ‘living sea’) overlooking the beautiful harbour is another of the many attractions in Dingle….
Add comment April 30th, 2008
Easing concerns about the strength of the Euro
There has been a lot of talk about fuel prices, a weak dollar and even impending recessions this year.
The strenght of the Euro is undoubtedly a factor in this discussion. For travellers to “Euro-zone” countries, this has certainly been on their minds but a close look at prices suggests there is a lot of value in vacations to Ireland. 
Add comment April 21st, 2008