A Wild Weekend in Beautiful Donegal
Twenty-seven hardy souls, one glorious county and a shared passion to get one perfect shot while getting battered by the relentless wind sweeping in from the Atlantic. This was the first weekend trip for the club and it didn't disappoint.
RCC Weekend away in Donegal
The morning of Friday 9th March dawned bright and sunny and all over North Dublin members of the club were packing their bags with handwarmers, headlights, hiking boots, warm woolly gloves, hats, scarves and, oh yes cameras and kit too!
Everyone took a different route to Milford, some spending the day around Inishowen and others exploring the area around Milford and the edge of Glenveagh National Park. We all met up in the bar on the Friday evening, with people arriving at different times, all with their own story of their own journey. Ideas and locations were exchanged with the Saturday ahead in mind and it was early to bed for most as we planned for the early morning start – 6am at reception to drive up to Fanad Head to photograph the iconic lighthouse at dawn.
Some of the group had travelled up earlier in the week so were able to share their experience of photographing the lighthouse on the beautiful clear and dry Friday morning – they complained a little of insufficient cloud to make the sky interesting. Lack of cloud was NOT an issue on the Saturday morning, there was also a lot of gusty wind and more than a sprinkling of rainwater, but our intrepid snappers were not to be deterred and some really lovely shots of the lighthouse and surrounding area was the prize for those early risers. Back to the hotel for the Full Irish, and a chance for the less early risers to get some more ideas for locations on the Saturday.
Again everyone took a different journey on the Saturday. There were epic tales of crossing bull-infested fields in order to get to the beautiful hidden beach of Murder Hole, some less epic tales of donkey-infested fields crossed to get to a hidden beach that WASN’T Murder Hole and everyone found something of interest to photograph, from abandoned fishing boats to rolling hills and golden sandy beaches. The weather was not at its kindest and a lot of the group ended up in the lovely Harbour Bar in Downings where a roaring fire allowed us to dry off a bit while we enjoyed a drink and watched Ireland defeat Scotland in the Six Nations. We headed back to the hotel in the late afternoon, happy that we had seen a good chunk of beautiful Donegal and that we were ahead in the rugby!
On the Saturday night we had a lovely dinner in a private room which gave us a chance to mingle a bit and to share accounts of our day’s adventure. Lots of laughs and a group photo, and then an opportunity to participate in the local raffle too! No winners there alas. This was a lovely opportunity to chat to different people in the club, and we all got to know a bit more about each other during the course of the evening.
Sunday dawned bright and sunny again, and even though we were all headed back to Dublin and reality we took advantage of being in one of the most beautiful parts of Ireland and many of the group spent some hours in Glenveagh National Park and travelled on over towards Errigal and the Poison Glen and Dunlewey. Some even got right over to west Donegal to the Sliabh Liag cliffs where more lovely photographs were taken. It was really interesting to see how different snappers took a different perspective on lots of the same subjects.
All in all it was a really successful first trip away for the club, and a big Go Raibh Míle is due to Owen O’Connor for coming up with the idea, organizing the accommodation and dinner, as well as helping us all to plan our various itineraries, with the assistance of the much travelled Dick Burke. Hopefully Dick will be with us on our next outing, we really missed his local knowledge of every corner of Ireland on this weekend.
The weekend was memorable on so many fronts, the burgeoning bromance of Dom and Billy C was a recurring feature, as were Gavin’s feet. Gavin spent three days in a car with three middle-aged women, so it’s fair to say it was a memorable weekend for him too – not many young men are so lucky. For a lot of the group it was the first visit to this beautiful county and everyone wants to go back at some point!
We are all looking forward to the next weekend away, hopefully we will do this at least once a year going forward.
The Happy Snappers
