Daniel_K, Nov. 2023
This review reflects my own experience. You may have a very different experience with a different driver/guide.
Let me start with what went well. The stops on the Paddywagon Tours Giant's Causeway tour were great. Dunluce Castle and the Giant's Causeway were fun. It was windy but not too cold and wet. If you dressed to be outside, you had a great time. The Dark Hedges was disappointing, but they are old trees and seem to be dying. The road was closed, and there was a crew removing several of the trees. We visited in November, so the trees had no leaves. If the Dark Hedges was the thing you wanted to see, you were in for a disappointment. Our final stop was in Belfast, and we parked right across the street from the Christmas Market. It was a great way to end the tour.
The driver was friendly but talked too much and, at times, was inappropriate. Given the early pick-up time (7:20 a.m.) and the length of the day (12+ hours), I wished he talked less and gave us more quiet time. He talked for hours throughout the day. Some of it was interesting, and some of it was unnecessary (the price of sheep, cows, and horses in the various areas we drove through). Some of it was strange, and I’m unsure why he brought it up.
Almost an hour after we departed from Dublin, he played a prank on us by saying that we needed to get our passports out for passport screening at the border with Northern Ireland. There was no mention of needing passports in any of the promotional materials or information sent to us by Paddywagon Tours. Most of the passengers on the bus were foreign tourists, and many became alarmed and thought they would be turned away at the border because they didn’t have their passports with them. After a few minutes, the driver let us know that he was kidding and having “a bit of craic” (a bit of fun) with us. There was no check at the border, and we did not need our passports for a day trip to Northern Ireland.
He then spent the next hour or two telling us stories about terrible things that happened at the border. People were strip-searched at gunpoint by the army, put in jail for not having passports when they traveled in Northern Ireland, as well as stories of the pre-1990s violence between Protestants and Catholics. He passed around a book of photos showing the violence, bombings, and masked gunmen in the towns we were about to visit. He talked about his experiences, including being trained to shoot by U.S. Navy Seals. I couldn’t tell if he supported a particular cause or just telling stories. He let us know that the IRA is alive and well and still active. He pointed out houses where you could tell IRA supporters based on their house decorations, displaying a certain flag, etc. In fairness, he talked much less on the drive back from Belfast, but he decided to play the same inappropriate “get out your passports” prank at the Republic of Ireland border.
I understand that he was trying to give us the larger, recent history of the country. Ireland is not just a place of pretty sights to see but a country with people who experienced significant trauma and tragedy. However, that wasn’t what I expected or felt I paid for. Nearly all of it was unnecessary and turned the trip into something else.
We arrived back in Dublin on one of its most violent nights in decades. There was a demonstration (riot?) near our drop-off point. The police had blocked off streets, and several stores and vehicles (police car, bus, tram) had been set on fire. Traffic was gridlocked, and public transportation had been shut down in central Dublin. The driver wanted to get us as close as possible to the original drop-off point, but some passengers asked to be let out where we were rather than get closer to the conflict. All of the passengers got off the bus at that point. It was a surreal end to a day of stories of conflict and violence in Ireland.