Richard Hogan: A seven-hour road trip where I saw the two sides of Ireland

An unplanned diversion through the back roads of his home country provided an insight into rundown rural Ireland — but for Richard Hogan, the final destination was paradise

'When we finally landed in Clonakilty, the excitement on the kids' faces as they saw the incredible stretch of turquoise water bending to Inchydoney... they love it there.'

Last Tuesday week, we all headed off for West Cork. Little did we know the odyssey we were in for as we naively set out, thinking it would take a little over three hours.

I caught a glimpse of tractors moving terrifyingly slow on the M1 and raced to get ahead of them. “What was that?” one of the kids asked. I didn’t know. Only to see the trail of cars on the M8 coming into Dublin. It was menacing. Like a zombie apocalypse movie.