17-Aug-2026
We arrived in Gorey on Thursday after an arduous couple of days' travel. The plan had always been to have the long weekend doing not very much, and then start on Monday doing little bus and rail trips up and down the coast.
Well, it's the end of Monday, and we've still not moved out of Gorey. Because? Well, the throat thing Nigel had been schlepping with him since Tuesday exploded on Saturday into a cold (or something) of epic proportions. Not the sort of thing you want to inflict on fellow-passengers even if you have the energy to do anything. So our days have been spent primarily outdoors where his germs don't bug anyone.
Luckily, Gorey is a really jolly little place to bumble around in. It's busy, but low-key and not touristy, and people are friendly, but not inquisitive or pushy. It has a population of about 12,000, but the number of shops (not to mention the number of cafes), plus the always active stream of traffic, combine to suggest it serves a much bigger hinterland.
This is what we've done so far:
Paced the mixture of unpretentious but attractive streets
Seen Christ Church from the outside
Checked out a few snippets of history
Gorey received its first charter in 1619
This wooden drum was used for drying leather by the Gorey Leather Company
Snaps from back in the day
We visited the very beautiful St Michael's, designed by Augustus Pugin, who was also responsible for various bits of the Palace of Westminster
Found Ramsfort Park, a lovely place for a woodland walk
And at the end of that, you can segue into Gorey District Park, where there's a nice little cafe, The Coffee Pod, that does really good banana bread...
Another interesting walk takes you to the Fr John Redmond Monument. It's a sad story: In June 1798, this curate from Clough "was wrongfully accused of orchestrating an uprising. Despite his efforts to prevent looting during the rebellion, he was tried and executed alongside Patrick Carroll atop Gorey Hill"
On the way there are some prominent but unexplained stones
There's absolutely no shortage of nice food in Gorey. The problem will be not having enough days to try out all the coffee outlets, but we've made a promising beginning:
Coffee from Haddon & Sly. Always a busy place
A pear and almond scone from Meadow Cafe. They have a board outside advertising the scones of the day. My kind of place...
We really like the T&T Bakery and Cafe. This was a great take on a goat's cheese salad, and they also do fantastic sourdough bread
No-one wants to be sick on holiday. But if you have to be, this is the optimal place for it to happen.