People in no rush, buildings of unknown purpose

It would be strange to go to Ireland for the first time without visiting Dublin, and it would be unusual to visit Dublin for the first time and not act like an embodiment of a guide book, which is exactly what my friends and I did. We learned to pour a pint in the Guinness Storehouse, we had a go at hurling in the Croke Park museum, we drank in The Temple Bar in Temple Bar, we had a great time and ticked off all the items on any Top Ten Things to do in Dublin list you’d care to find.

But it was the time we spent in the west of Ireland, hanging out in sun-kissed surfing towns, winding our way up the coast and enjoying the breathtaking scenery that provided the more fulfilling experience. The drive across the country from Dublin to Lahinch, a small town south of Galway, felt like pulling your eyes away from the attention-demanding histrionics of a Buzzfeed article and relaxing into a novel. The whole tone of the trip changed as we headed west, symbolised by a chance find of a historic landmark along the way: the round tower.

As we drove along the back lanes of Ireland, with the sort of sunset that moves people to write bad poetry lighting up countryside, my friend spotted a tall building stabbing towards the orange sky at an almost unrealistically jaunty angle. In no rush to get anywhere in particular beyond “west”, and in the mood for a little exploration, we turned off the road and went to take a look.

What we’d found was Kilmacduagh Monastery, a ruined stone abbey dating back as far as the 7th century, and at a full 34.5 meters the tallest ancient round tower in Ireland. The purpose of the round towers is unknown, with theories ranging from defensive positions to fend off Vikings to belfries, and there are only about 20 in Ireland as well preserved as the one we’d been lucky enough to stumble across.

We sat and enjoyed the Tim Burton aesthetic of leaning tower, ruins, graveyard and tangerine sky, until thoughts of dinner, a pint of Guinness and impatient hostel receptionists became urgent enough to drag us away. We headed off for days of surfing, exploring the Cliffs of Moher and cheering on Country Clare under 21s hurling team with the locals in a Lahinch pub.

Our time in Dublin was a boozy city break replicated by hundreds of thousands of other people, but the round tower pointed the way to a more personal experience and punctuated our removal from guide book conformity into something unique.