James' in the UK

I had been to Dublin twice before without actually visiting it - both times just flying into the airport and leaving straight away. Our friend Wombat (MC at our wedding) was visiting the UK so we decided to spend a weekend in Dublin with him, which was really just a thinly veiled excuse for a drinking weekend.

Adrian and Wombat flew from East Midlands earlier in the day, and I flew from Luton after work. By the time I got their they had already scoped out the local pubs, experienced quite a few of them and were back in the hotel ready to call it a night.

Dublin at Night

Saturday morning we started with a bit of a walking tour of Dublin, which to start with was a tour for me as the others had already explored the day before. Eventually we wantered further and further around the city, finding some souveneir shops, Trinity College, St Stephens Green, Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral and a few other spots along the way but we knew that these were really all just a lead up to the main event - the Guinness factory.

St Stephens Green

Adrian and Wombat

It seemed as though going to the Guinness factory was not only the main event in Wombats day, it was a defining moment in his life and the realisation of a dream for him. The walk through the factory (not the real factory but the museum type displays) was pretty good, and at the end we went to the gravity bar to have a pint of guinness. The gravity bar was very cool, kind of hanging out over the edge of a building so it was a bit like floating above Dublin, it has floor to ceiling glass around most of the bar and provides a fantastic view over the city. We managed to snaffle ourselves some seats and sat and enjoyed the view while Wombat sat there beside himself with joy.

Guinness Factory

River Liffey

Once we'd lapped up our Guinness experience and finished up where all good tours should finish - the gift shop - we headed back into the Temple Bar area to find....well....more Guiness!. We found a pub that was selling the stuff - which to be fair wasn't that hard in Temple Bar - and settled in for a few drinks. There was a band pretending to have a bit of a trad session in the corner that we sat in and listened to. They were pretty good and made the evening most enjoyable. What made the night less cool was the groups of middle aged English (and even worse, Brummie) women hunting in packs for some young men. Actually come to think of it they probably provided as much entertainment as the band did - especially when the most horrid one started chatting up Wombat.

After seeing what we were going to see in Temple Bar we decided that we desperately needed a curry. So we hailed a taxi and gave him the instruction of finding us a curry house near our hotel. He managed to do all right and found us a classly looking indian restaurant which was almost deserted except for us. I'm not sure if we were in a fit state to be eating in a classy restaurant but they seemed to serve us anyway. We all downed curries and hideously expensive beers and headed to the pub across the road from the hotel. By this stage I was getting ready to hit the hay so it wasn't long before we left Wombat in the bar and went to bed.

Whilst in the Indian restaurant Wombat had some how managed to organise to go on a bus tour to Belfast the next day. So very bright and early he went off to catch the bus and we got to have a lazy morning. We walked into town to find some breakfast then headed out towards Dublin Zoo which all up turned out to be a pretty damn long walk. The zoo was pretty cool, especially all the monkey 'islands' with the night enclosures you could see right in to. We saw a baby elephant who was pretty cute and had a very close encounter with a gorilla. The gorilla had just been given some food which was sitting along the shelf right infront of glass window, and he sat down right in front of us, leaned up against the glass and looked us straight in the eye. It was very cool.

Dublin Zoo

After the zoo we caught a tram into town, sat down and had a coffee, then headed back to the hotel. For tea we headed to the 'usual' - the pub across the road - and had a meal of roast lamb. Wombat came back from his tour which he quite enjoyed and we sat and had a couple drinks. I had to leave very early Monday morning to catch a flight back and go to work, but Adrian and Wombat stayed until the afternoon, doing more souveneir shopping and a tour of Croke Park.

Food of choice in Dublin: Guinness! Yes it is a meal in itself!

A week after getting back from Australia it was Easter. Being a four day weekend, going away for the weekend was an opportunity we couldn't pass up. We had organised a hire car and booked bed and breakfast accommodation for the weekend, so we set off on a cheapy thursday night flight to Dublin.

Good Friday in Ireland.....what does the country do? It seemed like a conflict of the two biggest influences on Irish culture, religion and drinking. Would pubs be open on good Friday? It seems religion was the clear winner, not only were no pubs open, we saw a TV survey that said something like 95% of people said pubs should not open on good Friday. Well that's that questions answered.

There were several reoccuring themes throughout our weekend in Ireland - tractors, old people driving (or people of all ages driving like old people) fantastic fences and mooing. Some further explaination may be required....
Tractors - We found the Irish loved a good tractor. We constantly found ourselves asking 'what is so important that you need to be driving your tractor down this multi lane motorway on good friday?' We got stuck behind so many tractors, on small country lanes, in the middle of busy towns, on motorways. Apparently there is no road that isn't just fine for a tractor.
Old people driving - I guess this was a symptom of the questionable road surfaces, but we came across a disproportionately large number of people driving like they were elderly, and we just assumed they were elderly. We spent a lot of time willing old people to get off the road, reasoning with them that the craft shop coming up on the road really was that interesting and that after the 7 cups of tea they had drunk with breakfast, there was only one destination they really needed.
Fantastic fences - We were endless fascintated and impressed by the standard of many of the front fences, on farm driveways or houses. They were often made of stone and wouldn't have been cheap to contruct. We thought it was cool that everyone went to the effort to put up a more expensive fence so that it was in keeping with the whole fence thing that they've got going on.
Mooing - this was us, not the Irish. This was our first trip with our new Satnav so we were testing out some of the features. As a result whenever we went anywhere near a tourist information office, it let out a long lound moo. It got to the stage that if we saw a tourist information office that the satnav didnt' know about we just provided our own moo, and if we heard a cow moo in a paddock we looked around for the big blue 'i' symbol.

We spent the first night in an airport hotel in Dublin because we got in pretty late. So on friday we headed towards the southern coast. First stop Kilkenny, home to a castle and a brewery. We then went on to Waterford, home to crystal. We went to the crystal factory where we had absolutely no interest in crystal or the purchase of it, but we felt like we were supposed to go there.

We decided we would try and get to the Rock of Cashel before heading to our b&b as otherwise we'd need to back track the next day. We knew that it might not open heaps late so we started heading in that direction soon after lunch. One flat tyre (on good friday!), a space saver tire, several service stations, a car show room and a mad dash later, we got to Cashel about 45 minutes after the last entry. Yay. With few other options we headed to Kinsale to where we were staying. Kinsale is on the coast south of Cork and was a really nice place, set on a large inlet and full of yachts in the very calm harbour.

Kinsale

The b&b we stayed at was nice (when we eventually found it) and as Kinsale is apparently the Irish home of gourmet food, we headed out to find some tea.

Saturday morning we left Kinsale and headed towards Blarney Castle, via a town called Riverstick and a city called Cork. Riverstick was a tiny little village really but with a name like that, we clearly had to stop for a game of Pooh Sticks, which I won. I'm not sure if we did the typical tour of Cork, but following the satnav's directions we crossed the same river three times on consecutive bridges before heading out of town in the opposite direction that we entered.....hmmmm.

We headed to Blarney Castle to do what you do, follow fat english men up narrow spriral stairs while they are almost dying due to their non existent level of fitness. No wait a minute, I mean kiss the Blarney stone. I had already kissed it once before and it hadn't worked it's magic so I didn't bother trying it again, but Adrian did. I was trying to take a photo but he was in and out so quick I didn't capture the moment.

Blarney Castle

Before leaving town I insisted we get some easter eggs because the only ones we had were still in England, and I couldn't have an easter with no eggs at all. Next it was onto Killarney, a pretty cool irish town, for lunch. We found some food, had a look around and more importantly found some icecream for dessert. The icecream was apparently from Dingle, the place we were staying that night. I knew it would be a good place to stay.

After taking the scenic route we got to Dingle and found our b&b (straight away this time). We headed into town for a few drinks and some tea. The first place we found for a drink was a bit unique, a tiny little place that was a shoe shop (mostly for shoe repairs) on one side and a bar on the other. You leant up against the shoe store counter when sitting having your pint of Guinness. After a tea of a pound of smoked salmon (would you like some smoked salmon with your smoked salmon?) we headed back to the b&b.

We were staying right at the start of the Slea Head Drive, a road around the Dingle Peninsula which I had fond memories and a lot of photos off. Sadly the weather and the haze made the drive no where near as good as I remember it which was dissappointing. So we set of on the other great drive in the area, the Ring of Kerry. Our time there was also affected by the same wind and haze, but to be fair it was still a spectacular drive.

Next we headed towards Dingle and the Cliffs of Moher. We got to the cliffs as the sun was getting lower in the sky and projecting a cool light on them.

Cliffs of Moher

When we got into Dingle I barely recognised it. There were alot of new houses, hotels and restaurants that had been built in the last few years and it wasn't really the little Irish village it used to be. We headed to one of the 'old' pubs for tea, stepped in the door and the place was heaving. After fighting for a table we settled in for a few drinks and some traditional music. I had been to this pub before, and then it really was a trad session, with the one legged guy in his seventies sitting in the corner playing music. Now there was kind of a stage and people obviously hired to play there.

Monday was a bit of a rush, we tried to cover a lot of ground and then get to the airport in Dublin. We thought we were in serious trouble catching the flight when traffic ground to a holt over 100kms out, but it eventually started moving again and we threw the hire car in the general direction of the returns car park and checked in. Overall a good but slightly rushed weekend.

Snack of Choice in Ireland: Easter Eggs