Now if you think it seems a wee bit like most of the pictures and videos have much to do with beer and whiskey in this post - you’d be absolutely right! Welcome to Ireland!

Being from the Pacific Northwest, and having been in Italy, Spain, Morocco and Portugal prior to this stop - this felt like coming home. We took a taxi ride from the airport to our hotel - and what a welcome! The taxi driver chatted non-stop (kind of like Fukao-san, for those who know him), giving us all sorts of advice, and asking about us, etc. He was wonderful. We had planned to rent a car for about 3 weeks of this trip however, having sold our car and canceling our insurance, we found out it was going to cost us around $2,000-$2,500 for the pleasure of driving a stick shift on the “proper” side (aka - left) of the road. Our taxi driver assured us that local transport solutions (train, bus, taxi, hired car) were all good, and would save us money in the long run, as well as stress.

We are glad we took his advice, as we have met at least a few couples already who have made comments about “white knuckling it” on the roads in their rental cars. The highways are great, but the narrow country roads and town roads can be a bit of a challenge. Anyway, we cancelled the rental car and booked some trains, private cars, and buses to help get us between places, and have been using taxis and the two good legs God gave us while we are in each place (and God also knows we need to use those legs to work off a few beer calories as well). Here is a good look at what much of the next few weeks will involve...

We started with about 5 days in Dublin, where we had maybe 15 Pubs within a one block radius of our hotel. The Temple Bar district is full of Pubs and nightlife - and Irish music. Not sure what it is - maybe the weather (?) - but the Irish seem to all either play some kind of instrument or sing or dance. And they laugh! At themselves or anything around them - they are just genuinely happy folk!

We used the Hop-On Hop-Off bus (the green one) to get to various sightseeing points in the city, seeing the memorial to the Irish Potato Famine of 1845-52. This of course resulted in many Irish heading to the U.S., where many died just trying to get there. Some who could not go, would even try to go to jail (gaol) for some minor offense as they would at least be assured of one meal a day. We also saw the memorial to Molly Malone - the fictional girl that sold cockles and mussels from her cart (and they say other things in the evenings...). Many of the monuments in Dublin have nicknames, but the ones for Molly Malone are nearly endless. ‘The Tart with the Cart’, ‘The Dolly with the Trolley’, ‘The Dish with the Fish’, ‘The Trollop with the Scallop’ to name a few. In addition to the picture, I’ve included a video for those of you who don’t know this famous song...

OK - I’ve been (relatively) good so far - no beer pictures. Well, our next stop was at the home of Guinness in Dublin, and a visit to the Guinness Storehouse - where you can do a self-guided tour with several opportunities to try out the product. This was a very well done tour. My pictures cannot capture it, but the building has escalators going up a total of 7 floors, with glass walls going around each floor and open to the 7th floor - forming a giant Guinness pint glass atrium. It would take 14.3 million pints to fill “the pint”! Anyway, this was a great tour and we had a chance to go to school - The Guinness Academy - where we learned to pour a pint of Guinness (we already knew how to drink it). A fun way to spend a birthday (mine) and anniversary (33).

Another great part of the Guinness Storehouse was the display of old advertisements. A couple of great ones...the video speaks for itself..

A few blocks from Guinness was a newer Distillery - Pearse Lyons - which had been built inside an old church. We understood that Mr. Lyons bought the decaying property for about $800,000, and then spent another $22 Million to rebuild and refurbish it. He did a great job, but unfortunately he passed away within a year after the Distillery opening. We also visited the Jamesons Bow Street Distillery while we were in Dublin, and would later visit the working factory outside of Cork in Midleton. The “Jamesons Experience” was another very well done tour - interactive, and with complimentary (we paid for the tour) tastings.

OK - Enough of beer and Whiskey! Dublin has an incredible number of pubs where you can go and listen to music - on any day of the week. And on Sunday’s, many locals go to their favorite place to get together for little jam sessions. We went on another AirBNB “Experience” that took us to three local pubs to just sit and listen (of course drinking) to the music. This was excellent! Certainly not “professional quality”, but fun to listen to, and you could see how much each of them enjoyed playing. Each place was a little different, and each was great - one group included a father (60 something) and his 30 something son. Maybe our favorite was one pub that had two different groups playing - one in a back room called a “snug room”. These were originally built so that women had a place they could go for a drink (they weren’t allowed in the main pub). This small room could handle the maybe 7-8 strong group, and two of us, sneaking in for just a few minutes. I am attaching a couple videos in addition to the photos.

On to Kilkenny. We head out from Dublin, via train (about $15 each) and get to see the countryside for a couple hours along the way. This is a beautiful and green country! Arriving in Kilkenny we take a taxi to our hotel and then walk into the small town. We only have 3 days here, and we enjoy every minute - especially when we find “the family beer”! Sullivan’s was (of course) the best beer I have ever tasted! Anyway, it was fun to see and drink, and we bought a couple souvenirs as well!

Kilkenny Castle was incredible - sitting above the river this place was huge! Built in the 12th century first as a wooden structure by Strongbow, and then later as a stone castle, it was meant to protect an area where the rivers came together. It is a beautiful place for sure. We also visited Smithwicks Brewery while in Kilkenny - DO NOT pronounce the “h” or the “w”, or you will not be served! It’s “Smiticks”, by gum!

More music in Kilkenny - a couple of good places, including at Kytelers Inn. This place is famous for being where Dame Alice de Kyteler was accused of being a witch and was nearly burned at the stake before escaping to England in 1324. Having accumulated much wealth (having gone through 4 husbands), it seems the town folk became jealous and tried their best to take her down. Anyway, the place was great and the music even better!

Time to head to Kinsale - a small town in a cove on the southern coast in County Cork. This town reminded us of Gig Harbor near Tacoma - very quaint, and with a fisherman’s village feel to it. It happened to be the weekend of their annual arts festival which was great. Very small scale, but we had a chance to see a couple of one-person plays, and a slightly larger (and hilarious) show. Found a “favorite pub” and watched the last few holes of the final round of The Open Championship, and trust me - it was a fun time for Ireland, with Shane Lowry winning on home soil!

We also took a day (and the bus) into the city of Cork. It was “ok”, but a more industrial city with not a whole lot going on. We did find the English Market, which was nice, and also took a ride out to the town of Midleton to see the Jamesons Distillery. It was a very good tour (again), this time seeing many of the actual old factory works of the original distillery - and doing another very thorough tasting!

Holy sweet Mary, mother of Jesus! (And I can’t count just how many times I’ve already heard that expression!). We've packed a lot into this first week and a half! This takes us through our first maybe 1/3rd of Ireland. Next stop will be in Killarney as we work our way up the western side of Ireland. Hoping for better weather, but it is a beautiful country no matter what!

Please check out all the pictures in the album, and the videos as well.

All the best,

Tim & Eileen