An Irish Walkabout

I've been discussing this a bit in the gear forum, but thought I should bring it over here too. First, it's kind of odd that there's a Europe supercategory, an Ireland supercategory, and a London supercategory. Is the rest of Great Britain part of Europe but not London?

Anyway, that aside, I'm finally going to do something I've wanted to do for about ten years, which is hit the road and walk around Ireland, focusing especially on spending some time in the Gaeltachtaí (Irish-speaking regions). I am still figuring out the route, but generally speaking I plan to head south from Dublin, probably along the Wicklow Way, down to Ring and then just meander along the coast west and north until it comes time to go home. Ideally I'd like to make it all the way to Donegal, but if I can get to Galway I'll be happy. I'll be finding accomodation in a mix of hostels and campgrounds along the way. Ireland seems to have a wonderful concentration of campgrounds. I know they are all really caravan parks, but they all seem to have a cheap hiker rate. I have adapted the map found on http://www.camping-ireland.ie to be an actual, importable Google map along with correcting a few mistakes that jumped out at me. I hope they don't mind!

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=208 ... 0e2d&msa=0

Some questions: has anyone had trouble with these sites that I might might not anticipate? Has anyone here done any serious long-distance walking trips in Ireland? Also, what's that called? Every time I call it something (backpacking, hiking, trekking, etc) it turns out that word is already used with a different meaning to most people. In The World Awaits Paul Otteson calls it "threading" but I don't think that really caught on. Does anyone know of any sites that offer a Google Earth file of the Irish trails? The site http://www.irishtrails.ie (referenced in another thread here, thanks!) has some lovely static maps of the trails, but the interactive maps (Bing?!) only have start and end points. GE has full pathing capabilities, but it looks like it would take months to replicate the work of mapping them, which I'd like to avoid if anyone's already done it.

Mods remove this if linking to other forums isn't allowed.

I'd ask for advice about the route here as its probably the busiest Irish (in general, not sure about this forum in particular) Message board and I'm sure you'l catch somebody thats done some long hiking/walking tours in ireland.

Good luck and watch out for bad drivers on small country roads.

Mods remove this if linking to other forums isn't allowed.

I'd ask for advice about the route here as its probably the busiest Irish (in general, not sure about this forum in particular) Message board and I'm sure you'l catch somebody thats done some long hiking/walking tours in ireland.

Good luck and watch out for bad drivers on small country roads.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=430

Thank you for the link! I'll definitely check it out. Believe me, I know roads are a problem. What can one do though? It's either take the chance or abandon all walking-based travel. Hopefully the world runs out of petroleum sooner than later and we can abandon the stinking nasty cars that destroy quality of life for everyone, everywhere.