Following the very kind offer by my erstwile employers, Zurich Financial Services, to give me some extra pocket money provided I went away and didn't come back, I found myself with a free summer ahead of me. I had been planning to go back to Oideas Gael in Gleann Cholm Cille to do a bit more Irish anyway, but this was a chance for an extra long holiday. So, on the 20th June I packed my bags, loaded up the car, and hit the road to Holyhead. I had a couple of days in the Boyne Valley 'doing' Newgrange, before going on to Donegal. As too much Irish would probably be rather bad for me, I had booked a week cycling in Clare to break things up a bit. So it was two weeks of Irish, then down for the cycling, before back to Gleann for another two weeks of Irish, the Language and Culture week, and then the Archaeology week, finishing off with a few days in Dublin before heading home on August 13th. A holiday and a half!

With such a long break it's hard to pick out the highlights - the Altan concert, amazing sessions at Teelin, watching the sun set from Glenhead, swimming at Silver Strand, cycling along past Black Head in the sunshine - but I think really the number one memory has to be all the lovely people I met, and the fun we all had.

The big question though, is whether five weeks of Irish lessons did anything for me - I think so, but I'm still far from fluent. The big test will be whether I can keep working on it over the next twelve months.

Once again, I have to thank all the people who were responsible for making the holidays so much fun: Liam, Siobhán, Gearóidín and the others at Oideas Gael, and Faith for her hard work looking after us on the Safari.

Anyway, on to the pictures. I've not included many general shots of the area as they would just duplicate the ones from my hols in 2000.I've divided them into several sections. Each picture is a large-ish thumbnail, with notes, but if you want a larger version, you can click on the thumbnail and see one. The originals were all at 1792x1200 - if you want to print a copy I suggest you download the full size version by clicking on the link. If you want me to print you off a nice copy of the larger ones and post it to you, just let me know.

• Irish Cycling Safaris - Clare and the Burren
• Oideas Gael - Gaeilge and general
• Oideas Gael - Archaeology