Two Stupid Americans Attempt to Pronounce [Cú Chulainn], Ponder the Significance of [Fianna Force], and Hit Some Milestones at [Emerald Park] in Ireland!
I am but a stupid American.
It's not that I don't care about things outside of my country, but I only have so much bandwidth to take them all in, ya know?
But when Tayto Park (?) in Ireland (??) opened up the new Gravity Group coaster, Cú Chulainn in 2015, that perked me up.
Gravity Group, designers of some of my favorite coasters ever like Hades, Voyage, Ravine Flyer II and Boardwalk Bullet?
Gravity Group, keeping large scale, airtime focused wooden coasters alive and progressing into the future?
Gravity Group, formed from the ashes of my original favorite wooden coaster manufacturer, Custom Coasters International?
You have my attention.
But when would I ever be in Ireland?
~~Record Scratch~~
Cut to 2026, and me and my wife are planning an extensive trip to England. It seemed like a no brainer to add a day or two in Ireland even if it added time and money to an already lengthy and expensive trip. As we close in on finishing all the wooden coasters on the North American continent Cú Chulainn is actually the next closest adult wooden coaster we didn't have. How could we not go?? (Sorry PNE Playland, we'll get you one day)
After two amazing, but also tiring weeks in England, on a day I'd much rather have slept in, we instead woke up at 3 AM for our Heathrow flight to Dublin at 6 AM. We landed at 7:30 AM and with Emerald Park not opening til 10 I was concerned that we would have too much time to kill and would end up getting sidetracked doing something else and waste what precious little Emerald Park time we had. This ended up not being an issue...
Perhaps (definitely) we are dumb, but we rented a car at the Dublin Airport. This would pretty much only be used to drive to Emerald Park and then park the car in a garage in Dublin. We had a small panic attack when we learned the standard hold charge for a rental car after declining coverage was over 2000 dollars! After a bit of quabbling with our credit-cards we were off in a quite beaten up Renault Clio. (The hold charge was taken off after the return, no problems, but incoming travelers beware) We did visit some other areas of Ireland after Emerald Park, so maybe the car wasn't a complete bonehead decision.
We had been awake for around 5 or more hours without anything to eat bigger than an airplane biscuit, so we went off to the nearest McDonalds to the airport (and thankfully there was one). We got some hashbrown egg wrap thing with brown sauce. Uhhh.. what's brown sauce?
Enough nonsense.
We drive the 30 minutes to the park, and despite starting the day at 3AM and landing in Ireland at 7:45, we only arrive about 15 minutes early before Emerald Park's 10AM opening. This is still a benefit because it's not too crowded this early. I was a little bit worried about crowds as this would be our only major park visit of the trip on a weekend.
I had read up on the park a bit before our trip and people were constantly saying how pretty the park was. This isn't completely true. The first thing we were treated to was an unshaded midway with an assortment of carnival rides. Uh okay? The path to the Tír na nÓg section is particularly sad as it's just an unshaded straight path with a fence on either side, and maintenance buildings just outside of the fence. It's not an attractive sight to be greeted with.
It was only after I came home that I realized the park just used to be the zoo area, and they've kind of piecemealed the park together as best they can with the larger investments. I don't know what their long term plan is, but I commend them on being a pretty new park, still family owned, and adding as much as they have. They have some defunct upcharge attractions too that are a bit of an eyesore like the Sky Glider and Zipline which I assume are hold overs for when they were a newer burgeoning park. Nothing is easy or cheap at a large scale, so I would rather them stick around for a long time and be smart, than make sudden wholesale changes to cater to some dumb American that's only going to go once.
Despite our excitement for Cú Chulainn, we did not go there first for reasons which I will outline at the end. Instead we made a beeline for the Tír na nÓg area, where we were greeted to a very pretty, well themed, lushly landscaped area! It was the polar opposite of everything we had seen in our short time of the park thus far, but the effort and detail just in this area has to be commended.
(Jay talk about a fucking coaster already)
FIANNA FORCE.
Again even as little as a few months ago, I really didn't know what this was. (Dumb American, remember?) Maybe I had heard of it in passing, but it wasn't really on my radar. After some digging I saw how well reviewed it was, but even then.. how good could it be? It looks like a slightly souped up version of Vekoma's existing Suspended Family Coaster line, of which I had been on many. It was intertwined with a Family Boomerang, and only has a 47 inch height requirement. This is for kids right? Nice, kids deserve good rides too.
Covers of books do not deserve to be judged by morons like me.
I quickly note that, also like the newer Suspended Family Coasters, this only has lap bars. And, it's absolutely FLYING LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL through its course. The course which spends quite a bit of time close to the ground. The ground full of theming, lush vegetation, and oh yeah, another coaster to interact with.
The excitement grows.
One minor gripe about Emerald Park is that they assign rows. Or sometimes they let the "correct" amount of people in the station and let them sort it out. No matter, I would not let this sour me. We take the 4th row for ride number one.
WE GO UP THE LIFT. The drop is small, but has quite a yank for an invert. I quickly realize this is no kids coaster. We hit the overbanked turn, I'm feeling positive G's I haven't felt since ALPENGEIST. Back down again feet barely above the grass, until out of nowhere we are careening towards a building, it's the station for QUEST, the Family Boomerang. But before we crash into it, we corkscrew THROUGH the roof of the station.
I'm cackling like a maniac. This was my favorite part of the ride. Something as simple as putting a "tunnel" on your inversion. You can't see it coming and it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it part of the ride, but it just adds so much to an already great ride.
But we aren't done with Quest's station just yet, we crash around the bend, producing more wonderful positive G's, and BLAST through the station over the waiting would-be Quest'ers and then immediately into a zero-g-roll.
The rest of the ride is all low to the ground so bear with me if details are hazy. A couple of high-G twists again very close to the ground so the sensation of speed is incredible. Did I mention how smooth this ride is? Not one wrong bump, no rattle, no shake, no jostle. Except in the ways you're meant to be jostled.
And then finally we get to the most unexpected part of the ride.. the ending full of small, but very aggressive bunny hops. And remember we just have lap bars, so the airtime is APLENTY. Twist, hop, twist, hop, twist, hop. Alternating positive G's, negative G's, lateral G's in a calculated yet convoluted concoction of g-forces. It's truly an amazing finale, and quite unlike anything I've ever felt on an inverted coaster before.
THIS AIN'T YER DADDY'S SLC! This is the real deal folks. This is like the agile small Fiat to B&M's rigid giant Mercedes. I have no doubt that B&M could do this if they were asked, and their Family Inverted Coasters might be coming close. But this is unlike any B&M Invert I've ever been on. Again, it does things I didn't know were possible on an inverted coaster.
I was gonna go on a long diatribe about how I think this coaster could be the future, but that's my dumb American point of view since we have so few new Vekoma coasters in the States. Even less if you're only talking about major thrill rides.
No no, this coaster is the PRESENT, the RIGHT NOW, and Europe and Asia are just leaps and bounds ahead of us. Hopefully the US parks catch on to new-age Vekoma soon. COME ON, THEY'RE AFFORDABLE TOO! I honestly think something like Fianna Force would be a perfect complement to any park that already has a B&M Invert, and an absolute star in any park without one. They're just such different rides and show you the whole spectrum of inverted coasters. You could pair it with something like QUEST to interact with, and really have a large interesting area. I'm just imagining something like this interacting with Big Bear Mountain or Werewolf Gorge. Just a gluttonous grouping of great Vekomas.
We enjoy the still early morning emptiness and went for another spin on Fianna Force, this time in the back. The first drop really yanks here!
Wanting to not wait too long for a lower capacity coaster, we headed over to Quest, the Family Boomerang. Luckily, still early, so there was no wait. We again were able to finagle a back seat ride. It's also amusing now being in Quest's station, and now being subjected to Fianna Force's train every few minutes. I'm sure it gets annoying for the poor ops!
We have been on maybe 3 of the Family Boomerangs prior (as well as one each from Gerstlauer and Zierer), and those were more twisty, more small. Quest is pretty long, and is really focused on smaller airtime hills close to the ground, as well as its interactions with Fianna Force.
It's so long in fact, I was wondering how we were going to make the return trip without some sort of boost along the way! Unfortunately in the back the airtime wasn't quite as good as I was expecting (even for a smaller family coaster), and made a mental note to come back and do the front seat since that looked like it carried more speed over the hills, and of course went further up the spike on the far end.
(We never came back to it, whoops, sorry Quest, you deserved better.)
Next we head to Cú Chu NOPE NOT YET. We head to Dino Dash. The crowds have finally started to show up, so there's a bit of a line. I quickly notice that I can't even see much of the ride, as there's much vegetation on either side of the queue. I'm very much starting to like this trend.
Dino Dash is the first of Vekoma's "Kalypso" Family Coaster line, and as for how that's different than the rest of their family coasters, I'm not really sure. But the first drop is kind of unnerving as you bank *extremely* far to the right. You "dash" around a bunch of shrubs and some large dinosaurs, and overall it's quite a fun family coaster.
The next coaster, Flight School, is right next door so we go there next. But oh no! It's down temporarily. That thwarted our plans a bit, so we venture off into the Zoo section of the park to look for the "Junior Zone" section since I know it's not directly connected to the rest of the park. Getting there was a bit complicated, as we have no physical map, and only spotty internet for their online map. After much wandering, backtracking, but somehow seeing zero animals, we finally found it, in this tucked away corner of the park.
We were no stranger to SBF Visa spinners having ridden an embarrassing amount as adults, but Ladybird Loop may have been the best themed one we've yet to see. The tall mushrooms you circle around, and tunnel through a log makes this fit in quite well with the area, and not just cheaply plopped down on the pavement like 90% of the other installations we've ridden. Not the most thrilling, but fun nonetheless.
I somehow found a more direct path back to the main area of the park and we FINALLY found ourselves ready to take on the Irish Folk Warrior himself.
CÚ CHULAINN
It took me forever to figure out how to pronounce this, and it was only after asking an employee to learn it's "KYEW-KUL-LIN." (Edit - I'm currently having a debate with my wife if it's COO-CUH-LIN instead. Please assist!) His story is pretty metal, and I enjoyed detailing the tale to my wife during our 40 minute wait, but this trip report is already obnoxiously long without getting sidetracked into reiterating Celtic Folklore. So check it out if you have some time and aren't familiar.
But yes. Finally. In line for what we had traveled all this way for. Would it match up to our other favorite Gravity Group coasters?
First let me say, while the imposing wood structure is pretty, everything surrounding it is quite less so. There's a decently sized sculpture just outside the coaster, but I don't even know if you can see that from the ride and certainly not the queue. I'm not expecting a lush landscape like the other coasters on such a large ride, but it was literally just plopped down with an awful unshaded switchback line in the middle of the ride.
Why are parks so allergic to putting up shade structures? I don't need a full air conditioned building like a Disney or Universal park, just something to block the sun as I meander back and forth through this cattle pen.
The ops are good, running 2 trains at a steady clip, but everyone in Greater Dublin was here now, and 40 minute wait was discouraging in terms of getting re-rides. It was noon and I had already been awake for 7 hours with minimal food, so the patience was wearing thin. Like I said before for Fianna Force, the ops just count off the people at the bottom of the stairs, and leave it to the riders to sort themselves in the station. This really screws you if you're in the back half of those going up the stairs, which I felt we were a few times.
We settle for row 8 on our first ride, 2/3rds of the way towards the back. We sit in our panini-press Timberliner seats and head up the lift.
As much as I love GCI woodies, the straight drops on Gravity Group woodies are unmatched, and this one is no different. Airtime galore on the 105 foot descent to the earth feeling every bit of that top speed of 56 miles per hour. We fly through a tunnel and we have a pop of nice floater as we THUNDER through the turnaround.
This sucker is built for *speed.* Every element feels like you're taking it at 100 miles an hour.
Another great float at the end of the long sustained turnaround, and up next is one of the better parts of the ride. Going under the lift, a quick right, left, right, providing floater air and laterals galore. It feels like you're fighting alongside the Warrior himself! And floater air, mixed with laterals! You barely have time to regain your sense of direction, when suddenly you fly up into the 115 degree overbanked turn! This part looked impressive (especially from the queue) but I didn't think it was super forceful.
Out of the overbank and it's another series of hills providing floating sensations ranging from *oooh nice pop* to *HOLY SHITBALLS*. While I'm a sucker for airtime, I really think Cú Chulainn excels at high-speed changes of direction. Catching you off guard, sending you flying sideways. It's a wonderfully creative, yet simple design.
Another long sustained turnaround and you're into a double down flying out of your seat. But now we're still going left! Left, left, left, left! It's like a helix without being a helix as we have some airtime hills in between some of the lefts.
You might think Our Warrior is resting on his laurels, using all these turns to burn off his Ludicrous Speed, but no, he has one final surprise! Probably the most intense airtime moment of the ride as you get a slam of ejector into another tunnel, and finally hit the brakes.
It was absolutely worth traveling to Ireland for. This is everything I could want in a wooden coaster.
Tons of airtime. Insane layout. No steel. No gimmicks. Just a classic, yet modern, mammoth of a wooden coaster. Cú Chulainn feels so incredibly long, so you get your money's worth in terms of ride time. Literally the only thing I would change is the Timberliner trains to PTC's but that may be more of a "me" thing since the Timberliners are so light and bounce all over the place at higher speeds. However, for being a decade old, I thought it tracked pretty well, so hopefully the park is taking good care of it.
I am grateful for every new wooden coaster that comes to the United States, but it's a sad state of affairs that the large scale woodies of America are getting fewer and fewer by the year. And even less are being added. Any woodie could be a top tier ride with retracking and maintenance. Any ride could be saved, by just doing the bare minimum. Don't let your rides rot for decades and then wonder why people don't want to ride them anymore. I wish shareholders could make money on increasing maintenance budgets.
Erm, enough of that, we still had one more coaster to ride.
Flight School, a cute little Zierer family coaster added in 2019. The station was quite adorable with all the airport theming, but we were quite tired of airports at this stage of our trip, so instead it was triggering some of our PTSD. Once again I am impressed by the lush landscaping that Flight School "flies" around, which meant Cú Chulainn was really the only coaster without any extra beautification. This is a fun enough coaster for families, but it felt redundant with Dino Dash in the same park, which more or less does the same exact thing and on the same scale. The lines for both coasters were absolutely full though, so once again who's the redundant moron?
With all the coasters completed, we were wondering if there was anything else in the park that was worth doing before we sought out any re-rides on the coasters. Walking around we saw a bunch of fairly standard, yet higher thrill flats, all with gigantic lines. We would have loved to have done them, but those would be a no-go today unfortunately. However, in our travels back and forth hitting all the coasters, we walked past a ride named Viking Voyage many times. We knew this was the park's Log Flume, but couldn't see any of it from the rest of the park
More intrigue!
First off, once again the bad. They were only running 3 boats on this thing, so the line was tortuously slow. Honestly we would have skipped it had we known that, but the whole time I was like "hey the station is right there, how much longer could it take?" as my wife is staring daggers at me while she's overheated and underfed. (But hey she added another Log Flume credit for her extensive list!)
Anyway the ride isn't quite as "dynamic" as some of the newer flumes, as 80% of the ride you're at ground level traveling through small themed sets and a dense canopy of trees, which was still wonderful to see. And, it is very, very long at EIGHT minutes! There are 3 big drops, but the SPOILER second one which goes backwards, is the one that will get you soaked. I'm glad we utilized the cubbies next to the station! Overall a fun ride but would have been better without the line.
Now soaking wet, we were looking for some coasters to re-ride to help us dry off. Coming out of Viking Voyage puts you right in front of Cú Chulainn, which miraculously had a posted wait time of 5 minutes. Where was this earlier?
So we rode Cú Chulainn 4 times in a row, waiting less than a few trains each time. We finally finagled our way on to the very front seat, as well as the very back seat. As with many woodies the front is a little gentler, a little more floater air, but a tremendous sensation of speed. The back is way more out of control, more forceful airtime, and overall our preferred seat on the ride. We had been concerned with even getting one ride, and we left having ridden the Celtic Warrior 5 times. Not bad for a busy Sunday.
Cú started to have some issues after our 3rd consecutive ride where it was stopping on the lift for about a minute before getting restarted again. After our 4th ride we took that as a sign to go do something else.
My wife asked if I wanted to ride Fianna Force once more before we left, and I nodded and grinned like an idiot so we made our way back down to Tír na nÓg. As expected the line was quite a bit longer now, stretching outside the station castle. Again one train ops meant this was slow going. There were some kids jumping the switchbacks "to catch up to their friends" inside which definitely pissed us off, but even more so because they were just being overly rowdy in this cramped space the whole time while we were in line.
The grouper called for 2 riders and we ended up getting on their train anyway. Going up the lift for Fianna Force all the annoyance washed away, as I refocused my attention on enjoying what would be our last coaster of the entire trip. It had warmed up a bit from our rides in the morning, so we were really hauling ass one last time through this magnificent new-school Vekoma.
Pleased with my ride, but desperately starving and tired, we headed out of the park. But of course first we have to look around the park store for some uh, "thoosie swag" as another poster a few days ago put it. Unfortunately the offerings were not to our liking. No pins for Emerald Park, Cú Chulainn or Fianna Force. The only shirts we saw were coaster soccer jerseys with big obnoxious numbers on them. Sorry, not what we're looking for. There may have been some hoodies, but those are always more expensive, more difficult to pack, and it's summer so I'm not wearing them anytime soon. There's always magnets or keychains, but again I don't think anything was to our liking. We definitely wanted to spend money, I don't think we were being unfairly picky, but maybe we were.
I have small regrets about not exploring the zoo and the rest of the park's offerings, but my stomach was letting me know we didn't have time for any of that. So we departed Emerald Park at 4pm.
Outside the park we kept seeing advertisements for a place called the "The Snailbox" and upon Googling I saw it was a restaurant. The menu looked much better than anything the park was offering so we headed over. It was again busy, but they were able to seat us quickly. The food was good, the people were friendly, and the decor with thousands of hats on the ceiling was mesmerizing to look at. It's only 8 minutes from Emerald Park, so highly recommended if you want an actual meal and not amusement park food.
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Oh yeah, I mentioned milestones in the title. Me and my wife had never hit milestones at the same park on the same day before, and we had the opportunity through sheer luck to do it here today. (Although in 2017 she hit #300 on The Beast at Kings Island, and I hit #750 on Mystic Timbers right after, but my wife says #750 isn't a milestone, so I'll leave that alone) Coming into the day my wife was at 895 and I was at 1099, meaning the first coaster of the day we rode (Fianna Force) would be my 1100th, while the 5th coaster of the day we rode (Cú Chulainn) would be her 900th, hence all the skipping around. She's successfully made 8 out of 9 milestones wooden coasters (with the only outlier being Matterhorn Bobsleds), which is something she's trying to keep up as long as possible.
My wife joked at the start of the day I should go ride Cú Chulainn without her first so we could have the same actual coaster as our milestones, but I honestly could not think of anything crueler for either of us. I wouldn't have her to enjoy the experience with, and she would have to look on as I get this anticipated coaster without her. While 1100 is an stupid unbelievable number (even for me) filled with tons of kiddie coasters, SBF Spinners and other assorted "filler," every single number represents a memory and a story of a place I went, a thing I did, and a person I was with. I don't care about the number and I care even less about the milestone itself, but what do care about is making the memories, some by myself which was fun, but even more with the people that were with me, the time spent with them, and the memories we make and share together. That number is the result of spending 27 years thus far in this hobby with family, friends, and my soulmate at places that we love to be at together.
Credit counting is fun, but don't lose sight of what's really important. On to many more coaster rides with my wife, maybe I'll hit 1200 on the way.
Posted Aug 11, 2026, 11:23 AM UTC