Easter in Ireland

The next day was Easter Sunday and we were a little nervous about being able to find things to do in Ireland on this day since Easter is such a big part of Irish culture. Luckily, we found a day trip out of Dublin that took us to the Wicklow Mountains, a stop to see a sheepdog demonstration and ending in the town of Kilkenny.

We started the morning with a breakfast to go from the hotel…..I have to say, as much as I love AirBnBs and the wonderful owners, it’s so nice to have the extra amenities of a hotel. We grabbed our breakfast and walked to the meeting place of our tour bus and ate it while we waited to get started, it was great and so easy!

Our guide, Roger, started us off with a drive through Dublin to get out of town. He taught us several things about Dublin and Ireland. As we drove through town, he pointed out all of the colored doors on the homes of Dubliners. There are a lot of photos you can find online to see these fun colors. There are

a lot of theories about why the doors are so colorful. Roger shared with us our favorite......when the husband of Queen Victoria died, she ordered that everyone paint their doors black for mourning. Because there had been such a history between Ireland and England (particularly around religion) they refused and instead painted bright colors!

Other facts Roger shared with us on the drive: 65% of Ireland’s fruits and vegetables come from Dublin County. He also made sure we didn’t leave the tour without learning some true Irish words. Roger told us that there had recently been a census of how many Irish people knew the Irish language and it is thought that the majority of people said ‘yes’ they know the language. But in reality, most people only know ‘cupla focail’ (Pronounced Coopla fucklow) meaning ‘a couple words’. Another important phrase to remember? ‘uisce beatha’ (pronounced eesh-kabaha) means ‘the waters of life’ and refers to what else? Whiskey! 

Part of the monastery

The joke on the tour (to us) was that we were going to see the Wicklow ‘Mountains’…..because to Ireland they are, but to those of us already living at Mile High……3,000’ mountains aren’t much as far as altitude goes! After driving through the Wicklow Mountain National Park, we made our way to Glendalough (pronounced Glen-da-lock) Monastic Settlement. Because it was Easter Sunday, traffic was very light and we made it in record time with lots of time to wander the settlement. Wicklow Mountains National Park stretches across almost 23,000 hectares south of Dublin. The largest of Ireland's National Parks, and the only one in the east. 

Glendalough Upper Lake

The monastery was founded in the 6th century by Saint Kevin. Most of the buildings that survive today date back to the 10th-12th century. There is a walking path at the settlement, so we walked our way out to the Glendalough Upper Lake and wandered the lake a bit. Across the way he pointed out where Saint Kevin 'hid' in a cave for years.

The lake has easy access to a parking lot, to allow for better hiking and tourist stops and in the parking lot there were food trucks with ice cream, burgers, etc. Roger said we wouldn’t have much time elsewhere for food, so we got a burger and then made our way back. Because we arrived so early with the traffic, we had to keep wandering the settlement until our set time to leave. Our next step had a specific arrival time and we couldn’t get there any earlier.

Once we got in the bus to keep going, we went through what’s called Sally Gap. For those of us that live in Colorado, it’s very reminiscent of a mountain pass with the Valley below. We stopped to take pictures and it was COLD AND WINDY. We made our way to the top, snapped the photo and then ran back to the bus!

Just a little wind

Our next stop was probably our favorite of the day – a sheepdog demonstration! Because Koda is part border collie, we thought it would be fun to watch the dogs in action – see how he’s supposed to act – ha! The dog we saw in action was named Maggie, she was so talented! The owner and trainer told us that they teach the dogs to learn both commands and whistles, and that each dog has different commands to learn. The whistles are for when the dogs are so far out that they can’t hear the words. The trainer showed us lots of variations of Maggie in action with her different whistles and words, then he gave her a break and let her rest. While she was resting, he brought out some border collie puppies that have not yet started training and some baby lambs! We were able to hold both of them – and you can imagine everyone fought over them.

While there, we learned that most of the wool you find in Ireland is actually not from Ireland, but New Zealand. He said the profit and ROI for the wool is so low that it doesn’t make sense to grow sheep for wool. Instead, they are now grown for meat. You would think hearing this would somehow make you not want to eat lamb, but we felt the opposite and kept looking for it on the menu!

When planning this trip, originally I had identified Kilkenny as a town that would be fun to stay in overnight. We quickly realized that we weren’t going to have time to do that, so instead we found this tour that had a stop in the town. Unfortunately, because it was Easter Sunday, and towards the end of the day, most everything in the town was closed. When we arrived, we were able to roam the grounds of the Kilkenny Castle and do some shopping on the main street, but that was about it. What was odd, we had so much time to kill at the monastic settlement, yet somehow at Kilkenny we had to be in and out in about an hour. Nevertheless, we were pretty wiped out anyway so were happy to get in the bus and head back to Dublin.

Kilkenny Castle

When we got back to the hotel, we changed and cleaned up and made our way to dinner. I had read about this restaurant called Bovinity online that had great reviews and happened to be close to our hotel. Not only was it about a 5 minute walk, but it was on Capel street. A happy coincidence, thisstreet is considered to be one of the ‘trendiest in the world’ right now and isa pedestrian only street. It’s home to a ton of great restaurants and shops and just had a fun energy when walking up and down it! We had a lovely dinner and then made our way home to bed!

Our next morning was our last in Dublin before heading out of town. For the past three days, we had walked by this cute restaurant right by our hotel called, Panem so decided to have breakfast there. Such a cute little café with tables outside on the street and in! We had a table outside to start but it was chilly and asked to be moved inside when we could – thank goodness for that! About five minutes after we moved inside, it started raining! By that point, we were already in our cozy table eating breakfast. After eating, we kept making our way down the main street (Ormond Quay Lower). I had read about a hot chocolate shop down the street called, The Sweetest Thing, that we thought we should visit. Who knew there were so many different types of hot chocolate?! From there, we slowly made our way back to the hotel – with time to kill. We found a mall in the middle of the street and wondered through the stores, I found a bookstore and of course I had to buy myself something to read, and then we got a drink at the hotel before calling it quits. From there, we called a cab and took ourselves to the Dublin train station…..it was time to meet up with our friends, Jonathan and Katie for the rest of the adventure!

Books, Bars.........and Engaged!

After getting a lot of sleep and feeling refreshed, we woke up early, had breakfast at the hotel and started our day. We had a tour planned for that morning, but took advantage of the quiet streets and sights, including walking through Temple Bar so we could get pictures without all of the people and chaos. We got a picture of THE Temple Bar; the whole area is smaller than I expected. This is the main bar district of Dublin. There is a joke that as the night gets going, the prices keep rising. We made a point to walk through the area but didn’t really feel the need to stop for an overpriced drink. Especially at 8am. 😊

From here, we walked to Trinity College for our tour. Emma, a student at the college, was our tour guide. We met near the bell tower of the College and started our tour. On the tower there are four statues of women representing the four higher faculties of the College – math, theology, law and medicine.

Bell Tower

Near the bell tower is the statue of George Salmon, a famous provost who said women would be admitted to Trinity over his dead body. The joke’s on him because shortly after death, the first women were admitted. Cheers!

Can you see the monkey?

Across the square is a brick building that has dorms in it. Allegedly, there is a murder that took place in one of the rooms – so everyone likes to pretend there are fun ghost stories to share.

From the square we went to the geology building. We were able to gain inside access to the building,
which is a benefit you get of the paid tour – versus doing your own free walking version. The architects of this building were known to always carve squirrels into their works. They also were famous for carving a monkey into a building when they weren’t paid on time……from the work we saw, sounds like someone missed a check!

Inside the building, there are 13 different types of stone native to Ireland that are used and can be seen. We didn’t take the time to identify all 13, but it was neat to see so many used in such a small space. In some of the stone you can see the shark’s teeth as a fossil.

Dark spots are the shark teeth

Also inside, a giant deer that has been extinct for 11,000 years. These bones are of a female deer which is rare. Often when bones of a female deer were discovered, they were thought to be a horse so just simply thrown away. This one was preserved.

Female Deer

The intricacy of the design is amazing. Holes in the wall were made to help with air flow but rumors started that it would also help with disease and protect you. People would often stick their hands in for that protection.

The Hole for air flow and 'protection'

After this building, we made our way around the rest of campus. We didn’t get into the business building, but we stopped to admire it because is very eco-friendly and carbon neutral. Here, Emma shared with us that the entire campus is working toward this goal of being carbon neutral. While we were stopped here, Emma shared with us that Erwin Schrodinger gave his famous speech for the firs time about ‘the cat’ on this campus. Why is this important? It probably isn’t to most of you. Except Bryan and I are both big fans of The Big Bang Theory TV show and it’s mentioned during the show. So when Emma brought it up, Bryan and I both looked at each other and started laughing – confusing the rest of our tour group.

After this, we had our timed entry into the Old Library,Long Room and Book of Kells…..the real reason I wanted to come on this tour. Books! Before entering the Long Room, you have a small museum that you can walk through that gives the history of the Library, the Book of Kells and other related pieces. I know we should, but that’s not really our cup of tea, so we buzzed through that area and went straight to the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is a manuscript of the four gospels of the new testament – the real origins unknown but it is on display in the Library, with no photography allowed. The museum will rotate the pages from time to time so you can see different text or illustrations.

Once you see the Book of Kells, you are ushered into the main chamber of the Old Library, called the Long Room, this room is probably most synonymous with Trinity College and what you will see photos of when googling even the campus. It is 65 meters long. The library is in the process of being remodeled, so some of the books were starting to be removed but it was neat to see the process of the books being removed. Rather than the books being sorted by author or title, they are sorted by size, with the largest being on the bottom and smallest on top.

In the Long Room, there are marble busts throughout the room, all of men. In 2020, it was announced that the Library would commission four new busts (the first time new ones were commissioned in over 100 years) of women. The women are Rosalind Franklin, folklorist, dramatist and theatre-founder Lady Augusta Gregory, mathematician Ada Lovelace and writer and pioneering women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft.

I had intended to call this day our ‘book and old bar day’ because of the itinerary. We were starting at the Old Library and making our way to some markets. I had read online about a series of Temple Bar markets –one for food, the other for books and the other for designers….so we made a plan to visit them. First, we stopped at the food market, which was a series of food trucks and farmers market style tents, here we got a quick snack and then kept on our way. What was interesting about these markets is they were not all in the same place, rather within a few blocks of each other and you had to go find them. Following the food market, we went to the book market and What. A. Bust. It was just two 10x10 pop up tents with some old books, cards, etc. I thought maybe since it was the day before Easter, that was the small supply – someone else will have to visit for me and let me know!

Old Bar #1 - Brazen Head

After the book portion of the day, we started the old bar tours. There is a bit of a competition between two bars in Ireland – one in Dublin, called the Brazen Head, and the other in Athlone, called Sean’s Bar. Both claim to be the oldest bar in Ireland….Sean’s Bar claims to be the oldest bar in the world…..and both are considered must see if you can do it. Geographically, it worked out well for us to walk from the Temple Bar markets to Brazen Head where we stopped for a beer. Following that, we were able to keep walking west and make our way to the train station – we had a 1:30pm train out of Dublin to the small town of Athlone – about a 90 minute train ride.

Early in our trip planning, I asked Bryan to google some things that he wanted to do in Ireland that I probably hadn’t come across yet. In his search, he found a list of old bars and Sean’s Bar in Athlone was one of them – allegedly oldest bar in the world. When we realized it was so close to Dublin, and you could get there by train, we thought we had to make it work….and as luck would have it, we had some time on this afternoon. When we arrived in Athlone, we took about a 15 minute walk through the town and found the bar – bright blue! Once you turn the corner, it’s hard to miss.

Old Bar #2 - Sean's Bar!

Allegedly wall from the OG Sean's Bar

We were there fairly early in the day, so it was easy to find us a spot at the bar and hang out. It was here that we made friends with the bartender, Clare, discovered some new beers we liked, and tried their own whiskey! Oh yeah, and we got engaged!! 😊

Here’s how it went down……we had been sitting at the bar for a couple of hours, drinking some beers, just hanging out. Bryan made a comment that the bar reminded him of where we met – Pub on Pearl – in Denver. I told him, yeah kind of, because Pub is it’s on dive-y bar. While we were having this conversation, a wedding party walked in to have a few drinks in between the ceremony and reception and they were off to the side of the bar, near where we were sitting. Bryan excuses himself to the bathroom and when he comes back, he starts chatting away with the wedding party. I just start laughing to myself saying he made friends and ditched me because they’re probably cooler. Turns out, he was chatting them up and told them that he had a ring in his pocket, and he was planning to propose! One of the guys asks ‘do you want me to video tape’, Bryan says ‘yeah, actually, I was hoping you would.’…..and there we have it. I saw the guy videotaping out of the corner of my eye, but I really wasn’t sure what was happening – I started laughing and crying I was so surprised! To this day, everyone asks if I knew he was going to propose – and while I had the tiniest suspicion, I truly had no clue it was going to go down the way it happened….true emotion in the video!

After that, our new friend Clare, the bartender, came up and gave Bryan a hard time ‘you were holding out on me!’ The rest of the guests in the bar congratulated us, bought us drinks, and helped us celebrate. When we were getting ready to head back to the train, Clare said she was getting off work and her boyfriend was coming to pick her up….she said – you guys deserve a ride! So, thank you to Clare and Andrew for helping us celebrate and the ride back to the train station! We spent the entire train ride back to Dublin calling family and friends to share the good news. As an extra token to commemorate the day, we bought a bottle of the whiskey they distill themselves at Sean’s Bar and will only open it on special occasions!

By the time we got back to Dublin, emotions were so high that we decided to wrap things up by having a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant….it had been a long and exciting day!! It's safe to say, our vote in the oldest bar matchup will be Sean's Bar - and we will always have a reason to go back!

Our bartender friend, Clare!

The Emerald Isle

2023 finally saw us back on the road for our next big trip! Due to a variety of reasons, Bryan won this vote, and we were heading to Ireland! As per usual, I ordered ourselves a travel book to read all about Ireland and find out the spots we would want to see and visit! So many places countryside that seemed good to check out, we were going to (as per usual) try and cram it a lot!

Off to Dublin we go…..

We were already scheduled to land in the morning and got lucky by coming in about an hour earlier than planned. From the airport, we grabbed a cab and went to our hotel – Hotel Morrison – just north of the river. Our room wasn’t ready, but we chose to upgrade and pay for a deluxe room, rather than standard. This allowed us to get in, unload our bags, shower, and know we wouldn’t have to move them around later, which was worth the extra money.

Ha'Penny Bridge

Our plan was to do a Rick Steves walking tour of the city,starting on the south side. So, we headed out, getting some lunch first before starting the day. One of the fun spots I had seen and read about ahead of time was a place called the Merchant’s Arch. It has this really neat aesthetic to it and holds a lot of history. This place was also almost directly across the street from our hotel. We were able to walk just a block down from the hotel, cross at one of the most famous bridges in Dublin, the Ha’Penny bridge, and that leads us right to the Merchant’s Arch. We were too early to eat there, so we snapped a quick photo and kept on our way. Just west of the building is a very narrow alley that if you walk down it, it leads you directly into the Temple Bar area (more about that later). It felt like such a unique way to find ourselves in the heart of Dublin and kick off this visit.

Prior to the trip, I had read about a famous fish and chips shop called Leo Burdock’s. There happened to be one in Temple Bar, just south of where we were staying, so we stopped there for lunch. The good news about this trip – we planned to eat a LOT of fish and chips and we had some really good ones – but this one was not. It’s not that it was bad exactly, just very bland. And because it was in Temple Bar, also very expensive. (Temple Bar is probably the Dublin photos you are most familiar with. The center of arts and nightlife and very touristy where the prices get more expensive as the night goes on 😉)

Temple Bar

After lunch, we walked to St Stephen’s Green Park to start our tour. Below are the main points of the tour stop – I’m not going to give all the details because, well, go take the tour and learn it for yourself!

Fusilier's Arch and the bullet holes

St Stephen’s Green – Fusilier’s Arch is where we enter. Take time to walk in the park – lots of people hang out for lunch breaks or picnics on nice days. This park was founded as a private park but became public in 1880. Easter Rising (Easter 1916) happened in this park. If you look at the exterior of the Arch, you can see bullet holes that are reminders of the conflict.

Mansion House: Official residence of Dublin’s Mayor – architecture is Georgian style.

Grafton street. Leads directly into St Stephen’s Green. Pedestrian and top shopping street in Dublin. Things must stay low profile – even McDonald’s can’t have their golden arches (they’re silver!)

St. Teresa’s Church – in a small alley just off Grafton Street. Very easy to pop in from shopping and then pop back out. It’s a Catholic church built in 1792. Up until then, Catholics weren’t allowed to practice their religion and when the law changed, they had to do so discreetly – so the church was intentionally built small.

Because we had plans for a separate tour of Trinity College and the Long Library, we chose to skip that as part of the walking tour.

In ‘researching’ our trip, I watched the show ‘Somebody Feed Phil’ on Netflix about his visit to Ireland. I really enjoy this show as a fun travel food documentary – we had also watched an episode about Florence in preparation for our trip to Italy! Anyway, on that show, Phil mentioned this place called
Murphy’s ice cream, a chain throughout Ireland that started in Dingle, that has unique ice cream flavors. We had to stop for some of course! While there, had a blast from the past since I saw a sign for the Irish Cancer Society, and they were fundraising for daffodil days. #iykyk

First beers of the trip!

Up until now, we had been trying to keep moving and caffeinated so we wouldn’t get too tired, but our legs were finally ready for a break, so we stopped at a bar called O’Donoghue’s Pub. (Fun fact: Pub is short for ‘public house’.) We wanted to take a break from all the walking and get our first beer of the day. Even though this was close to a touristy area, and this bar has multiple locations, it felt more like a local shop. There were several guys watching horse races, and they had cheap beers – our kind of place! Bryan was so happy to be having his first beer. The people here were so friendly too. I got a kick out of some of the older, local men. They were all standing in the middle of the bar, as I tried to make my way through for the restroom, one saw me and yelled “Get out of her way!” Very cute and very funny. At this bar, Bryan found his favorite beer in Ireland – Smithwick’s (Pronounced Smitticks) and stuck with it the rest of the trip! No Guinness for him.

After the stop for beer, we finished the tour including these stops:

Bank of Ireland, former Parliament building on Grand Boulevard (we did not go inside, but you can if you’d like.)

Church Lane leads you to the Molly Malone statue (unofficial theme song of Ireland). Legends have been told about the ‘luck’ you will get if you ‘polish’ her chest….so lots of tourists line up to do so! This statue is in front of St. Andrews church, which is now a high-end food court.

Molly Malone Statue

Homeless Jesus

Back on Grand Blvd, Bank Bar – Worth it to step inside just to peek even if you don’t plan to eat or drink. Built in 1894 in Victorian style and they kept the design when the Bank moved to other offices. Lots of fun designs are still in this including the vault doors!

City Hall – Has a dome that was modeled after the Pantheon.

Dublin Castle: We didn’t book a tour, just walked the grounds for free.

Christ Church Cathedral – Check out the statue ‘Homeless Jesus’. Outside of the church on the pavement you can see a historical marker for Dublin’s first Viking establishment.

Down to River Liffey – Source of much of the city’s history because the river created an inland port. Many bridges (including pedestrian only) cross the River Liffey connecting the two sides of the city.

Millenium Bridge

Ha’Penny (hay) Bridge – 1816. Cast iron arch. Got its nickname because it was a toll bridge – only half a penny (ha’penny) to cross.

Bank Bar

Other things that we learned on this tour. If you look closely at the post office boxes on the streets (columns)– you will see that they say ER – because they were built during Edward the VII’s reign. Originally the boxes were red for Great Britain, but when Ireland became independent, it made more sense just to paint them green!

While finishing this tour, we decided that the Bank Bar would be a great place to come back to for dinner and around 5pm we made our way there for an early meal. At this point I decided to have my first Guinness of the trip. It took me about an hour to drink – ha! I hadn’t had Guinness for quite some time and forgot just how heavy it is!

By this point, we were so tired but couldn’t go to sleep yet so we wouldn’t have any jetlag issues. Rather than walk through the town like zombies and not really enjoying what we were doing, we went back to the hotel bar for a drink and by 7pm, I was begging Bryan to let me go to bed – ha! He finally gave me the green light and we crashed wrapping up our first day in Dublin!