Richard Bannister

This park was known as Barry's Amusements at the time this trip report was written.

Barry's Amusements is a little over three hours by road from Dublin. Our friendly navigation computer ensured a direct journey with no wrong turns, resulting in an arrival time a full hour before the park opened. This was just about long enough to grab a quick bite to eat at a restaurant across the road, an experience that proved complicated due to both George and I having difficulty with the local dialect. Eventually a translator arrived and we were able to get our orders in.

The park itself is mostly indoors, with only a handful of rides on its roster. The three largest, two roller coasters and a KMG Freak Out, are located outside. Everything else can be found indoors in a large rectangular building; a KMG Experience, a Scrambler, a Carousel, a Ghost Train, a Motion Simulator, Dodgems, and a large number of arcade machines. Admission is free, with guests purchasing tokens for whatever they want to ride.

It was snowing outside while we were there, which made the coasters a particularly interesting experience. Barry's Big Dipper (#682) is a bog standard ZL42 but appears to have a redesigned system of restraints, which feel much more secure than is the norm. They do not, however, take away from the fact that the tracking of this coaster model can occasionally be more than a little awkward. The other coaster was the requisite kiddie ride, Big Apple (#683). The only other ride we bothered with was the Ghost Train. From the outside this looked like the average travelling model, and given that we were expecting nothing. In such situations once is never disappointed. In this case, however, I was pleasantly surprised; though not a major league attraction the ride was nevertheless surprisingly good; I've certainly seen far worse!