Ardal O'Hanlon's Ireland - Bonus Destination Special

0:06Hello and welcome back to The Travel Diaries podcast. I'm your host Holly Rubenstein and on today's bonus destination special episode we're heading to Ireland, one of my favourite places in the world. Ireland has this special kind of magic that keeps me coming back. It asks me to take a breath, to slow down, to have that chat with the people behind the bar and to walk, to wander, just sit and soak it all up. Joining me today is someone who knows the country inside and out, the brilliant comedian and actor Ardell O 'Hanlon. You'll know Ardell, of course, from TV's Father Ted, where he stole the show as the endlessly lovable Father Dougal, and from the extremely popular BBC series Death in Paradise, where he swapped the windswept clifftops of Ireland for tropical crime solving in the Caribbean.

1:00He's also an incredible writer, stand-up, and most recently travel presenter in The Emerald Isles, his BBC series which explores Ireland's lesser-known islands, uncovering their culture, music, and wild beauty. It's a gorgeous watch. In this episode, Ardell shares the places in Ireland that have stayed with him, his Irish travel diaries, from childhood summers in Galway and Donegal to his all-time favourite destination, a lunar landscape in County Clare. And my favourite part of the episode, his hidden gems, which really bring to life some of those wild islands off the mainland that he visited making his TV show.

1:39A lot to add to your bucket list. We talk about the joy of slowness, the quirks of island life and his new tour, Not Himself, which he'll be taking across the UK and Ireland soon. So whether you're planning a trip to Ireland coming up, maybe you're dreaming about one, or you're just here for the stories, settle in. This is Ardle O 'Hanlon and his Irish travel diaries.

2:06Ardle O 'Hanlon, welcome to the travel diaries and to this island destination special. It's so great to see you, such an iconic Irish figure of popular culture. It is an honour to meet you. How are you? Oh, you flatter me, Holly. It's fabulous. Yeah, it's great to be here talking about one of my favourite subjects. Well, we're going to go on a journey today, Ardell, through your Irish travel diaries. And we're going to start at the very beginning, chapter one, which is your earliest childhood travel memory in Ireland. If you cast your mind back to your early memories as a child, what sticks with you?

2:45I think it is a family holiday to Galway. So I think my grandparents lived in Galway and we would pile into the car. There were six children and drive cross country from sort of I live sort of close to the East Coast and we drive close to the West Coast, County Galway. And we always really look forward to these holidays. is i mean you know that journey now would take probably about three hours but back then took about seven hours you know the roads were really really terrible yes it was a real adventure and all of you in the car all these siblings yeah and you know one of them would be literally lying across the back window uh somebody else would be lying across people's feet in in in the back seat uh but it was great it was great fun i mean you know we thought this was the greatest adventure of all time.

3:31So I do have a very clear memory of that and going to stay in Galway. It was a town called Crockwell on the main Dublin Galway Road but we just thought it was magical you know there was a monkey puzzle tree in the garden I remember that which was a bit iconic and my grandparents were fabulous people like so we just loved staying with them and hanging out with them. How did the landscape differ from where you grew up? Now where I come from I come from the county of Monaghan, which is, you know, known for its drumlins, its little sort of dome-shaped hills. You know, the eastern part of the country is generally more sort of fertile and more, you know, and there's more of an air of prosperity about it than you would get the further west you go.

4:12Now, I'm talking back in the 1970s here. So, you know, things have changed throughout the country in the meantime. But the main thing you would notice is the walls, the stone walls as you go west. you know they're very much part of the landscape and you know you're getting closer and closer to granny's house you know the more the smaller the fields become and the more stone walls you see yeah and some of those walls would have been there for centuries you know wow so very historic yeah yeah no absolutely absolutely and then the further west you go like so it's my granny and grandfather they were in east galway but the further west you go then you know eventually arrive at the Atlantic Ocean and the the you know the spectacular scenery of Connemara you know so we would have gone on day trips out there as well you know on that holiday it was really incredible yeah but there were so many things like you know and I don't think I'm wearing my rose-tinted glasses or anything when I when I remember you know my grandfather taking us for long walks across the fields and we picked mushrooms which you know we then cooked when we got home and we had these beautiful wild fresh mushrooms in the evening and my grandmother grew strawberries in the back garden they were the kind of things we looked forward to um and the next door neighbors to my grandparents house they had a horse and you know we were able to gallop up and down the field so it was a kind of a I suppose there was a great sense of freedom about it uh we were perhaps sheltered kids back home you know there were there were six of us and um uh you know when when we went on holidays then to Galway there was just this extra level of freedom I suppose.

5:45And do you go back a lot to that part of Ireland now? I mean I you know I do yeah no I go to Galway you know my son spent four years in college in Galway and you know if I get the chance I will go out to Connemara for a couple of days and you know there's a fabulous place there Connemara National Park which is wonderful I mean you know it's really it's really I think it's some of the most beautiful scenery in the world maybe maybe I'm a little bit biased but uh it it really is uh it really is very unspoiled it's it's it's glorious well we move on to chapter two Ardle and that is the first place that you fell in love with in Ireland which place really connected to you well my parents when I was maybe seven or eight maybe a little bit older they bought a tiny plot of land on the western seaboard in Donegal, so the most northwesterly county in Ireland, which is a spectacularly unspoiled place, Donegal.

6:41To this day, it still isn't developed in the same way as other parts of the Atlantic seaboard. So there's a place called Guidoor, which is in the Irish Gaeltaug, where people still speak the native language, Irish. And I suppose it was always a particularly underdeveloped place. It probably was associated with poverty and emigration in a way that other parts of the country weren't. But it is so, so beautiful. So we're talking this this this kind of place it's called guidor and the little village in guidor is called bunbeg and then the beach in bunbeg is called mahera klahar beach and my parents bought a plot of land on that beach way back in the 1970s and they built a tiny chalet on it and so we we we we regularly went there on our holidays like every summer then i'd say for about 10 years right up through my teens so yeah i really i really did fall in love with that i mean that was freedom But it was, you know, I'd begun to appreciate, you know, scenery by then.

7:37In a way, like when you're a kid, like, oh, not more scenery. You know, we'd go on these family drives and you'd be sick of the scenery. But, you know, as I kind of, I became aware and my sense of aesthetics developed, I began to really, really appreciate the splendor, the grandeur of Donegal. So this this part of Donegal, the northwest corner of it is dominated by a mountain called Erigel. It's like it's like the kind of a mountain a child would draw. You know, it's it's one of those beautiful sugar loaf shapes. It's conical and it's topped with this kind of gray scree. So it's kind of haunting.

8:13But, you know, it was always there looming above you. And, you know, I still see it in my mind's eye all the time. And that's a mountain that I would go back to regularly. And I would it's quite climbable. I mean, it's not easy, but you can do it in a couple of hours, you know. And then when you're on top of that, you can see the whole world, really. It's fabulous. Oh, how magnificent. And I imagine incredible coastal views from the top as well. It's very boggy, that part of the world. You know, there wasn't an awful lot of industry. You know, people, you know, fished for a living, but most people emigrated.

8:46Mainly to Glasgow, so there's a big connection between the west of Scotland and that part of Tunnicall. To this day, very, very close ties. This sounds like I'm making this up or I'm remembering this wrongly, but there was a shipwreck on the beach right in front of us, which was amazing. It was an old trawler, but it was a big, big old trawler and it was there on the beach. So that kind of just added to the whole, I don't know, the romance of it, you know. Yeah, like the fairy tale aspect of it. Yeah, like like like Cornish pirates or something. And there was a tiny little inlet then that that that went to the most picturesque harbour you could ever imagine, a little fishing harbour.

9:22And then there were islands in front of you. And then it was just the wide, the Atlantic Sea. It was really great. And there were sand dunes to play in, like really massive dunes that you could kind of jump into this big, big sand pit. So, you know, it was just this natural playground that we that we exploited for all it was worth. Oh, and just in front of the house. So there was the first little island was one of those, what do you call them, tidal islands. So every day the tide would come in around the island and you couldn't you couldn't reach it. so you know our job as kids was to try and be stranded on that island that was a big ambition we would hide food on the island earlier in the day and maybe a blanket or something and then just as the tide was coming in we would we would run out to the island and stay on the island so we'd be stranded there for the night that's so great because you again it just really evokes such a sense of freedom like that um i think just is almost like enid blighton-esque yeah an adventure you know and we kind of there were a few other holiday makers not many like it wasn't you know the most popular uh tourist spot in ireland by any means so you know we befriended other kids who whose families also had places there and then some of the local kids as well so we kind of ran around with you know there was five or six people that we ran around with for the summer and we were you know given free reign in a way that we weren't at home you know so like all day long we were just out on these adventures and the local people knew all the kind of really cool places to go and caves and you know the the rocks and the dunes and the harbor and and there was a great music scene there as well anyone familiar with the music of Enya or Clannad you know again this hauntingly eerily eerily beautiful music that transcends traditional Irish music you know it's got a worldwide appeal you know so they come from that part of the part of the world and it's no surprise and it's no surprise to me that they do you know because there's something in the landscape and in the mountain in Erregel and in the sea.

11:17Oh, if I think of Enya's music and what you've described, I can almost, you're like, it's like a soundtrack of the environment. Yeah, exactly, exactly. So they would have been hugely inspired by the environment and the mythology as well, you know, the old ghost stories and the fairy tales and everything. So, yeah, it's a very special place. And, you know, objectively speaking, it's very special. I mean, anyone who's ever visited Northwest Donegal will tell you that. Like it's it's ridiculously beautiful and unspoilt and kind of raw. You know, it's got this rawness that maybe even Connemara doesn't have, you know, that it's a it's a more kind of a, I don't know, softer lyrical landscape, if you like, where Donegal is harsh.

11:58Like it's like the highlands of Scotland or somewhere, you know, it's. Dramatic. It's dramatic. Yeah. And did you kind of, speaking of falling in love, did you fall in love with performing? At kind of what age did you get a taste for performing and for making people laugh? I suppose I was at school and I remember like, you know, you'd always, I don't know, I kind of always felt that I was able to make my friends laugh. at home I think as well like you know I would tell stories to my aunts when they'd come around and my granny she'd listen to my stories very few people would listen to my stories but you know I think I had a vivid imagination and I and I would you know I'd be making up a lot of stories at home about my imaginary friends and so on and I could I could command an audience from a fairly early age I always felt but I was a fairly shy kid like outside the house and it wasn't until my last year at school secondary school that I uncharacteristically entered a school debate and I just put myself up there I don't know why to this day and I kind of made fun of the motion so I guess it was an attention-seeking ruse but it went down very well and I remember like really getting you know getting a big kick out of the reaction you know to to be stuff that I had written down and then delivered in my shy bumbling way but that kind of evoked laughter you know and um a genuine a genuinely visceral reaction so like that was kind of oh that's interesting so I took that in when I went to university then I kind of um I kind of dabbled in that in in debating there and again you know it kind of generally went pretty well you know and I I got a little following um and uh it seemed a a very natural step to take that into stand-up then afterwards.

13:59And then your kind of rise to real fame, of course, came through Father Ted, which became a cultural institution both in Ireland and here. So what did playing Dougal teach you about the charm of Irishness, would you say? That was a sort of a synthesis of a great Irish comic sensibility. The writers, Arthur and Graham, you know, were able to bring that. but it had the know-how of British television you know like there's a great tradition of sitcom in Britain obviously you know and we were hugely inspired by shows like Fawlty Towers and Blackadder and so on and I think it was a breath of fresh air on British TV you had this kind of like slightly surreal comedy it was kind of there was an innocence about it I thought there was you know a surreal quality which again I think you know it's not uniquely Irish by any means but it's certainly something that Irish people are very comfortable with you know the surreal um and it was quite slapstick in ways it was visual as well as verbal you know it was clever as well as stupid you know so but like you know I wouldn't I wouldn't you know it's a it's just a great sitcom you know and um you know I don't know how Irish it is or isn't it's you know I guess because of the personnel involved the writers and the actors like it is yeah it class it can be classified as Irish, but it's very much in the British comedy sitcom tradition.

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16:52We move on now to chapter three, the big one, which is your all-time favourite destination in Ireland. Out of everywhere you've been, you've made some fantastic travel programmes about Ireland. And obviously, I know that you've travelled a lot in your own free time. Where has been your all-time favourite destination? Well, by coincidence, given what we were just talking about, it is possibly the Burren in County Clare, which is also on the west coast of Ireland. And the Burren is where an awful lot of Father Ted was shot. It's barren. It's it's it's very hard to describe if you haven't seen it.

17:28I guess lunar is a word that springs to mind. It's just rock. It's kind of and, you know, it's it's kind of limestone. I think some people call it limestone pavement or whatever but it's it's it's it's amazing like it's it's mind-bending you know when you're when you're actually in the middle of the burn usually in the mist or the or a howling atlantic gale and so you know at a glance there's not much to look at just just just miles and miles and miles of sheer rock but like there's a tremendous uh like there's there's great flora and fauna uh you know you know from from a botany uh point of view you know you've got all these kind of rare orchids you've got lichen you've got alpine plants mediterranean plants so so once you know what you're looking for then and you know for me that would be with the help of a guide it's it's really it's really amazing when you look closely there's also great history there's great archaeology lots of dolmens some of the oldest structures in ireland you'll find in the Burren you'll find lots of little tombs passage tombs you'll find holy wells which are you know dotted all over Ireland but there's there's about 50 of them in the Burren alone and they're usually dedicated to a particular saint or to like a particular ailment and I remember like this fantastic guy I think his name is Shane Connolly if anyone's ever in the Burren look this guy up he's amazing and he'll bring you you know across these bleak landscapes for hours and hours and he'll tell you all about the history and the geology and the you know the botany and everything but he brought us to this holy well that's dedicated to teeth so if you've ever got a problem with your teeth or your mouth you'd go to this holy well and you'd leave a little gift usually a toothbrush so in the middle of nowhere miles from any house never mind a tree even you will find a little holy well with lots of toothbrushes all around oh that's brilliant but it's a great part of the world like I didn't you know when I was when I was doing Father Ted like I I was barely aware of the landscape except as a very, very harsh filming environment.

19:24So I hated it at that time because normally we film down there in the depths of winter and it was very uncomfortable. But, you know, it was actually during COVID I really discovered it. You know, I passed through it and I'd been in the county of Clare before. But the Burren itself is a micro kind of location or a microclimate even within Clare. and so we when we were allowed to travel you know and you're only allowed to travel within the country like we just decided to go down to the Burren for a few days and it was just you know there were so many just great things about it you know the food particularly um you know the seafood the the oysters the mussels uh you know the prawns all of that kind of stuff like like Ireland has just come on so much in the last 20, 30 years, kind of since the invention of the Wild Atlantic Way, which is this marketing idea, you know, which basically is a route, a kind of a loose enough route from north to south along the western coast.

20:28And it's just brought on Irish tourism enormously. You know, you can't go wrong in the Wild Atlantic Way. You're going to come across some of the greatest scenery in the world and you're going to come across some of the greatest food in the world. some of the greatest chowders and so on. So it's amazing. And Clare is right in the middle of that, County Clare. You've got the Cliffs of Moher there, which are known worldwide and rightly so. They're just absolutely spectacular. And so we would have visited the Cliffs of Moher. I remember we went to see some sheepdog trials, just fun stuff. I love that, just totally quintessential essence of Ireland.

21:10Yeah. local experiences just local experiences local food local produce you know just wonderful produce honey you know um and uh so you know that combination of landscape botany history you know archaeology um and food which is probably my main priority uh so all of those things combined in the burn i kind of at the moment that's my that's my favorite place in ireland But, you know, that could change. It could change next week. Of course. Oh, I love that recommendation. But I would I would I would highly recommend if you if you're ever in the Burren is to get one of these guides. Oh, that's fantastic.

21:48Well, our penultimate chapter, Adel, is one that I'm really interested to ask you about. chapter four your hidden gem in ireland because you have uncovered some fantastic hidden gems over the years and in particular in your series that i have really enjoyed watching on iplayer going back uh the emerald isles um so is is there a a place i mean that whole series is basically about uh hidden hidden gems as far as i'm concerned but was is there a particular place that you would recommend that maybe my listeners wouldn't have heard much about? Yeah, there are so, so many. I mean, so that series, The Emerald Isles, it was a three-part series and it's on the BBC iPlayer as far as I know.

22:32So it's about the islands of Ireland. So we visited 12 islands on that trip. Now, I'd been to some of them before, but not all of them. It really surprised me. I had no, I knew that there were some really picturesque islands, but I didn't realize that there were so many. Yeah, there's just so much to visit. And we only scratched the surface. Yeah, we only scratched the surface. You know, there were another 10 that we had on our list of places that we'd like to go on our wish list. Now, the ones like the really amazing ones, the ones that maybe some of your listeners might be familiar with, like there's one called Skellig Michael, which is which was featured in Star Wars as a location.

23:05I think it was Luke Skywalker's island sanctuary. But long before Luke Skywalker came along, there was a monastery there in the sixth century. So Skellig Michael is such an unusual rock. It's in the middle of the Atlantic. It's really spectacular. It's very jagged. It's very remote. It's about 10 miles, 15 miles offshore. It's very hard to get to. Where do you depart from to get to it? You depart from Kerry. So it's off the coast of County Kerry down in the south. And it's like it's not so much that it's hard to get to. Like lots of boats go out during the summer months, but it's very hard to land.

23:40So, you know, you pay for like a trip to the Skelligs. There are two Skelligs. There's a little Skellig and a big Skellig. Skellig Michael is the big one. and then there's a little skellig beside it which is equally jagged and equally beautiful but that's a bird sanctuary so that's that's incredible there's gannets there there's i think one of the biggest populations of gannets in the world um and it stinks it like it really stinks that island like it's it's uh but you're not allowed land on it it's protected uh as a bird so you kind of take the boat around it and you take the boat around that and then you but then you arrive at big skellig skellig michael which is just i mean it is stunningly beautiful like it's amazing like it's it's it's amazing and it's also and and if you are lucky enough to land and um you know i my sister has tried to get to skellig for years and years and years and years eventually on her third or fourth trip they did land and it's just because you know even on a clear day and even when the seas are calm it's still quite tricky to land so you know for health and safety reasons they won't land unless they get permission from the state you know it's uh It's a funny old standoff between the boatmen and the state.

24:44Like, you know, most of the passengers would be quite prepared to brave the little jump from the boat to the pier. But, you know, the regulations don't allow it. But anyway, I was lucky enough while making that documentary film about the islands. We got a whole half day on Skellig Michael to ourselves, which was incredible. incredible like it's you know it's it just defies logic how the monks of the sixth century managed to build this monastery with their little beehive huts on top of this rock and they they made a some sort of a path up to the up to the monastery like through the rock i don't know what they lived on it's just you know they wouldn't have seen anyone for years at a time even the vikings avoided Skellig Michael I think you know so it was very remote and I guess it was a it was a place to get nearer to God I guess that would have been the idea at the time and then you know after it became unsustainable to live there it became a pilgrimage site for years and years and years and I suppose in a way it is a you know you're still making a pilgrimage to to um to skellings I've tried and failed to get there uh with my daughter a couple of years ago even on beautiful clear day we just didn't land so it was kind of disappointing so then when I got the opportunity to make the film I thought, yes, as long as we get Skellig Michael, that would be that would be great.

26:05So it was definitely an ambition of mine to get there and to tick that particular box. But, you know, there are other islands equally brilliant. So in Kerry as well, off the coast of Kerry, there's the Blasket Islands. There's one called Great Blasket. Some of your listeners might be familiar with this because there's a nice kind of a very cute sort of a story every year. No one lives on the Blaskets. You know, it was depopulated in the 1950s because it became impossible to live there. but they're really spectacular islands about 10 miles off the coast of kerry as well and there are two caretakers on the island so every year they uh interview thousands and thousands of people who want to be caretakers on the island so it's quite a yeah it's a it's a story that pops up in newspapers in the uk and elsewhere um and so i interviewed the caretakers who were on blasket and they spend six months of the year there.

27:00During the summer months, there's a trickle of visitors from the mainland and there are two Airbnbs which they look after. So you can get an Airbnb in this island. There's no electricity. There are generators. You bring your own food. You bring your own booze. You leave nothing behind and then you go again. So it's an amazing place. So any of your listeners who want isolation, just themselves and the sheep and crucially a seal colony all to yourself. that's the place for you the Blaskets so I mean it really is it's just a I spent a half day there as well and it was just like it's just great and that's a place I want to go back to.

27:37So how did you spend your time on your half day like what were you what were you doing if you were to stay in one of the Airbnbs there have one of those very unique little opportunities of spending spending some time there how would you spend your days would you say? Well I guess you you go walk And I mean, you'd obviously be very respectful of the seal colony. You can't get too close. But you could you could watch them for, you know, hours and seals at play is a wonderful sight. The sheep like there's like I remember talking to the caretakers and while I was trying to interview them, there was a little sheep that had adopted them.

28:12So this little sheep would come and wake them every morning for his breakfast because he'd obviously been abandoned by his mother. And he thought that they were his parents. so he would um he would come down every morning for his breakfast and again he'd come for his lunch and he'd come for his tea so charming it was very charming so um and i just think it's like again kerry and the islands off kerry like they're associated with myths and legends uh i am i didn't stay overnight there uh to my regret and it's something i really really do plan on doing like i imagine it would just be very it'd be quite spooky i think you know with nothing but the wind for company at night um i imagine it'll be a place to find yourself if that's what you need to do and there's no guarantee you'll get home the next day because it can be a very choppy crossing that one they're really enjoying it though that couple aren't they they've they've adjusted really happily to it i think yeah and and the people i spoke to um like there were people who were working in london they were like really busy they they would you know admit that they were kind of very much trapped in the rat race and uh you know you couldn't get a more different change of pace anywhere in the world i would i would argue yes start then somewhere like great blasket island so uh so that's that's a hidden gem like but that that brings me on to tori island which is in the northwest off the coast of dunygal and like that is you know that has a character all of its own because that's still populated there are about 120 people living on that island and they are, I don't want to use the word strange because that sounds disparaging.

29:50I'm a great admirer of the Tory Islanders. They're very resilient people. They're very hardy, but they're, you know, they are different and they want to be different. So I don't think I'm doing them a disservice. They pride themselves on being very different, having almost developed separately to the Irish mainland. So they've got very much their own ways and, you know, their own humor, their own stories, their own dialect, you know, their own songs. like they're they're they're you know that that's that's and that is like one of the most beautiful places on earth so if you ever get a chance to go to tory island you've got to go again probably only during the summer months probably only on very in very good weather because you may never be allowed home from there the tory islanders are clever as well as everything else so they will keep you there until you've spent your last penny so just watch out for that bring lots of cash so you can stay there though yeah you can stay there but uh there's a very different pace of life there like the local pub which is kind of doubles up as a community center it doesn't really open till about midnight so it's everything is flipped on tori island uh i imagine it just also offers a glimpse into kind of how ireland used to be i mean to see kind of traditions being kept alive and not just remembered yeah that's that's quite special yeah and i think that's fair enough I mean you know I think you'd I'd hesitate to over romanticize it because I think island life is probably very harsh um and I think you know islanders you know very proud people and you know they don't want to be overly romanticized themselves but like for a day trip or like myself or you know for someone who wanted to stay there for a few days um that would be just like it would be just an amazing mind-opening experience you know definitely you would get a sense of how life was lived hundreds of years ago I don't think it's it's changed that much when I when I was watching it I also really want I added Rathlin to my bucket list after watching I thought that was beautiful Rathlin is amazing as well that's off the sort of east coast northeast coast it's the it's an island that sort of um it's between northern Ireland and Scotland so it's very much a linchpin in the in the history of Ireland you know and in the migrations of people uh to and to and fro ireland and uh and the uk it would have been a viking settlement at one time it's got an amazing bird colony as well like like you know it's i think it's an absolutely essential stop for for any ornithologists out there yeah yeah was that the island where there was that amazing archaeological discovery um that that suggested that the history of irish people wasn't as huge originally thought.

32:31Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, you know, obviously everyone clings to their myths and the myths are very important. You know, origin myths are very important to Irish people and particularly when, you know, particularly in that corner of Ireland where there are two very distinct traditions, you know, so people will very much cling to their own origin myths. And I think, you know, there was a discovery there, an archaeological discovery of human remains that kind of blows all the myths out of the water and like that there were people on this island like, thousands and thousands of years ago so so that so that's kind of like fascinating very interesting it's a discussion point yeah yeah no it's it's it's it's really interesting i mean you'll find that in the burren as well in places you know evidence of human remains come back centuries like not centuries thousands of years um four thousand years you know bc and stuff like that you'll find evidence of human civilization and stuff so yeah no i mean like but like you know the myths are always more interesting than the truth i find yes yeah but another another hidden gem just that um you know since we're on the subject of hidden gems and this this one is in plain sight and it's not an island it's it's the town of sligo the fairly conventional town of sligo in the west coast on the west coast of ireland as well i i filmed there um for five weeks earlier year this year um feature film and uh so i'd passed through sligo before but i i had the had the pleasure of staying there for about five weeks and that is just an amazing place it's like an undersung galway you know it's it's uh it's it's just great you know it's got the poet yates kind of grew up around there and he's buried there and you've got wonderful landscape you've got great history and a fantastic music scene and the irish music is just something that you should go to ireland to experience in itself yeah yeah no absolutely and you'll get it everywhere in ireland in sligo you've got this really interesting you've got the great traditional irish music stuff but you've also got this kind of world music stuff going on in sligo like i was in a pub one night there the pub is called shoot the crows and it's a brilliant brilliant uh old school pub in the middle of Sligo town and I went there on a Wednesday night an ordinary Wednesday night there weren't there weren't even that many people in the pub but there was like a um there was a guy on Spanish guitar there was a great Russian guitar player there was um a fiddle player there was a double bass player and uh and there was an opera singer as well in the middle of it all uh there was about 20 people watching it and it was just this incredible kind of world music with a sort of a jazz bent with a bit of trad in the mix as well.

35:09Like just phenomenal, you know, like I don't know where else in the world you'd get that on an ordinary Wednesday night. Yeah, it just shows the kind of like put the kind of melting pot and performance culture of Ireland as well. And so hence, you know, you've got this great little art scene, you know, in places like Slytherin. And so you've got this huge tour coming up in the autumn and through into next year, the Not Himself tour, which is a very typically Irish phrase. Yeah. What does that mean in the context of this show? And what can your audiences expect from it? Well, I mean, you know, I'd be lying if I said it's not.

35:50It's a collection of jokes and musings and stories. basically it's my latest set of gripes I suppose but I guess there is a theme and the theme is my identity hence the title Not Himself so I am exploring sort of my identity what shaped me you know how I ended up the way I am so I do touch a little bit on my Irish roots a little bit on you know my Catholic upbringing you know a little bit on my relationship with technology and how that is shaping me and us you know today talk a little bit about aging and how I'm coping with that. So I suppose you cover a very wide range of topics, like whatever's on your mind, really.

36:36But yeah, I think the theme does sort of unify it. It's always coming back to this question of who am I? What am I? Why am I the way I am? Do you still get that same buzz from it? Are you excited in the same way that you got that kick out of people reacting back then when you were doing your debating you know do you still get that adrenaline rush that you got back then yeah I think so I would I I I love it more than ever like I I suppose I'm you know when I started out I was probably you know a little bit of a nervous performer you know as you would be because it's a weird thing to do but I think I've just really I kind of really embraced it in a way that I didn't always when I was younger you know and I guess that comes with experience and you know confidence or whatever and age maybe but yeah no I enjoy it a lot I enjoy that connection with people I enjoy saying things that you know resonate with people and you know I always feel that a comedian's job is to sort of try and have their finger on the pulse in a way as well you know so you're so you're really talking about universal stuff that most people can identify with and you know so we're providing a very valuable public service is the way i see it um where we're kind of articulating everyone else's feelings for them and your play dates in um the uk and ireland yeah it's pretty much uh all over the uk in the months of september october november of this year and and there's a little kind of a tour extension next march as well so any places that we didn't manage to hit in the autumn of this year it's gonna be busy it is gonna be busy yeah but it's enjoyable you know I've been building up to it for a few years now I've been kind of you know road testing it and doing festivals and so on and you know I'm really really happy with with how it's uh how it's shaped up so yeah really looking forward to getting it out there oh so exciting well it has been absolutely wonderful chatting to you Ardell and hearing all about your beautiful country we are on to the final chapter chapter five and that is the destination that is at the top of your travel bucket list in Ireland.

38:46Is there still a place or an experience in Ireland that you are yet to experience that you'd love to? Yes, there is. And this summer I have a couple of places on my list. One of them is another island that we didn't manage to do on the documentary. So it's the Salties. The Salties are islands off the coast of Wexford. and they're privately owned. I don't know who owns them, but you can go on day trips to the salties and they would be best known for their puffin population. Yeah, and I'm a big fan of the puffin, I have to say. I love a puffin. And my daughter as well, my eldest daughter, she's quite interested in this type of thing too.

39:29So we had a few plans this summer. One was to see the puffins on the salties. So I've kind of booked a day trip in August to see them. so hopefully that'll work out. To have the opportunity to see this incredible wildlife all around the country it just goes to show what you know an abundant island island is when it comes to if you're passionate about nature it's one of the best places in the world that you can travel to. Yeah I really think so and and if you can get out to any of those islands at all like you know they're very unspoiled they're quite well protected and they've got great wildlife I mean, you know, particularly the birds, you know, because it's on the it's on the path of, you know, so all the migratory birds, you know, they land in Ireland, they refuel their pit stops in Ireland, you know, service stations basically on the way to other parts of Europe and Africa.

40:21Yeah, fantastic. Oh, thank you so much. Adler Hanlon, those for your Irish travel diaries. It was an honor and a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks a million, Holly. Cheers. All the best.

40:34Oh, huge thank you to Ardell for joining me on the podcast. What an ambassador for everything that makes Ireland so special. I just love discovering so many destinations that weren't really on my radar yet with him. And another thing that I also really took away from the episode is that a trip to Ireland really isn't about rushing around and ticking things off. It's about taking your time, you know, walking that clifftop trail with a local guide, sitting in a local pub, sipping a Guinness, listening to Irish music, maybe taking a day to kayak off the coast with a group of friends or spending a night stargazing in a dark sky reserve.

41:17These are the kind of moments that certainly from my experience, they stay with you. And because Ireland reveals itself slowly through its stories, through conversations, through its landscapes. The joy of traveling in Ireland isn't necessarily in how much you cover, but how deeply you experience it. And I feel like Ardell really brought that sentiment to life. If you'd like to see him live, and I highly recommend that you do, Ardell is heading back on tour this autumn, as we discussed with his brand new stand-up show, Not Himself. And you can find all the tour dates and ticket info at ardalohanlon.com thanks so much for listening today everyone don't forget that all the destinations mentioned in today's episode are included in the episode show notes on your podcast app and also on my website thetraveldiariespodcast.com i will be back in a couple of weeks with a brand new season season 15 and if you want updates on that head over to my instagram at Holly Rubenstein where I share updates.

42:23In the meantime, take care everyone and wishing you all safe travels.

42:38Today's episode is brought to you in partnership with Airbnb. As you guys all know, I spend a lot of time traveling and we've listed our home on Airbnb in the past while we've been away. One particularly memorable time was when we set off on a seven-week road trip across the US. We lived in central London at the time and our flat would otherwise have been sitting empty for all that time. So we listed it on Airbnb during the trip. That journey became even more special because it was also when my husband and I decided to get married on a beach in Santa Barbara. And we used some of the extra money from hosting on Airbnb to help pay for some really personal touches for the wedding.

43:14like the flowers from the market that morning and a local photographer who we booked last minute. So in a small but very real way, hosting became part of one of the most memorable trips of our lives. It wasn't about becoming a full-time host. It was simply a practical way to make use of our home while we weren't there. If you have a trip coming up, it might be worth exploring whether listing your space on Airbnb could work for you too. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.co.uk forward slash host. Thank you to Airbnb.