Ireland

It was a marvelous trip to the Emerald Isle, other than various traveling logistical difficulties. We seemed to have brought some of our East Coast sunshine to the perpetually rainy Irish weather, which was welcomed by all. Apparently, before Agnieszka and I arrived, the summer had been unusually cold and wet, but during our stay we really only had one rainy day, and one or two that were simply gorgeous.

First, the bad stuff. The first time I tried to leave for my trip, I got all the way to the airport before I realized I’d forgotten my passport! So obviously I couldn’t fly without it and it was too late to get it and return, so I had to reschedule for the next day. So my trip started out one day shorter right off the bat.

On my second attempt, I had all my stuff together, but bad weather in Charlotte, NC cancelled my connecting flight and forced me to stand in a lot of long lines to get rebooked on a different flight. The plus side was that I got a Continental non-stop flight straight from Newark to Dublin. The downside was that it left seven hours after my original flight so I was waiting around the airport a while. And then the more bad news was that, due to the change, my checked bag didn’t make it with me, so I had to go the first 24 hours in Dublin without a lot of my stuff. I wouldn’t have even checked that bag if the TSA security hadn’t flagged my liquids and gels in my carry-on bags, basically forcing me to check a bag or lose some of my stuff.

Anyway, I left NJ about 11 pm and arrived at about 11 am the following morning, where a friendly cabbie named Darren picked me up and brought me to the house where Agnieszka’s family lives – her brother Adam, his wife Asia and their daughter Julia, who is two-and-a-half years old and quite a handful, so much so that her mom has been living there since Julia was born to help care for her, since both Adam and Asia work during the day.


Julia

Upon arriving, of course I was rather jet-lagged, so I took a nap before Agnieszka and I ventured out to explore Dublin. We crossed the River Liffey at the famous Ha’Penny Bridge:



We walked from landmark to landmark, visiting places like Temple Bar, Christ Church Cathedral, and the gardens at St. Stephen’s Green. Along the way, we saw many examples of urban graffiti, some of it very Banksy-esque:

We also stopped in a pub, although having just gotten off the plane, I wasn’t ready for my first taste of stout, so I had a local Irish red beer instead, somewhat the color of my hair:



Wednesday morning we took a tour bus to visit the south coast of Dublin, guided by a wonderfully droll bus driver named John. Our first stop was Powerscourt Gardens, a magnificent 45-acre array of formal gardens. If some of the views look familiar, it might be because it was featured in the movie adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, starring Guy Pearce, Jim Caviezel and Richard Harris.









From there we journeyed to Glendalough, or Glen of the two Lakes, one of the most important monastic ruins in Ireland.









Finally we ended the tour with a drive through the Wicklow Mountains, including a stop at the famed Wicklow Gap, with a 360-degree vista of the 17,000 hectares of the Wicklow Mountains National Park.

On Thursday we went on a second tour with John to explore the historic Hill of Tara, ancient seat of the High Kings of Ireland and the most important center of political and religious power in pre-Christian Ireland:







We also drove by Slane Castle, well-known as a modern concert venue (check out U2 Go Home, their best concert on DVD) and Trim Castle in the town of Trim along the banks of the Boyne River:



Finally, we ended the day at Newgrange, a Neolithic passage grave over 5,000 years old (built 1,000 years before the pyramids of Egypt). We got to go into the passageway and see a simulation of how the space within was built to be precisely in alignment with the rising sun during the winter solstice. The decorated entrance stone and the Corbelled inner chamber are some of the most impressive abstract stone age art of the early farming communities in Western Europe.





Friday the weather took a turn for the wet, so we spent another day in Dublin, visiting various museums and looking at more graffiti art.



The highlight was a simply amazing exhibit on the life and works of William Butler Yeats at the National Library of Ireland. Here’s an excerpt of the audio-visual display of one of his well-known works, “The Stolen Child”:



We also came across a sand sculpture exhibit in the courtyard of Dublin Castle, which we went back to visit several times to view the progress of the four works, which were supposed to represent the four points of the compass:



Saturday Agnieszka and I took her mom on a cross-country trip on the Paddywagon tour bus to explore the Southwest and drive one of the most scenic drives in the world, the famed Ring of Kerry. Our first stop was at Kate Kearney’s Cottage at the scenic Gap of Dunloe, where I took the opportunity to go off-trail a bit and explore on my own and finding this rock, which reminded me of one that stories tell of creating passages between worlds:





There was also a cave a little too high up for me to reach in the limited amount of time we had, but I got close enough to get a good photo of it (the dark place on the right side of the photo):



Here you can see how high I was above the road that everybody else walked on (you can see my purple bag in the upper part of the photo):



And here’s a view of the bridge and the valley beyond from the edge where I was standing on the outcropping:



Here’s the view that most people think of when someone mentions the Ring of Kerry drive:







At the top of one lookout point, the wind was quite fierce:



We stopped in Sneem, one of the little towns for handmade Bailey’s Irish Cream ice cream, which was fantastic, and I found the art installation titled, “Where the Fairies Went” or Sneem Pyramids, hidden behind the parish church (inexplicably not part of the tour).



From Sneem we drove through Killarney National Park, with its breathtaking vistas and the lovely Torc Waterfall:





Once we got back to Killarney, we took a horse carriage through parts of the national park, which featured views of the lakes and Ross Castle in the distance, plus the beautifully Gothic St. Mary’s Cathedral in the center of town:



Sunday Agnieszka and I traveled to northwest Dublin to Phoenix Park, the largest urban outdoor park in Europe, as my guidebook said cricket is played there on Sundays, and sure enough, we got there about 45 minutes before a match was to start.





From there we made our way back east toward the City Center, marked by The Spire (a 395-foot high sculpture nicknamed “Stiletto in the Ghetto” by the local smarties):



We stopped at National Museum Collins Barracks and the Old Jameson Distillery, where we took a fascinating tour of how they make Irish whiskey:





It also included a sampling of the product, of course, which the Irish typically drink with cranberry juice, lemonade or ginger ale, unlike New Yorkers who tend to have it with cola. Agnieszka got the opportunity to become an official Irish whiskey taster by volunteering to taste a sample of Scotch, Jack Daniels American whiskey and Jameson’s Irish whiskey to taste the differences.

Monday was our last full day, although we had to retire early because I had an early morning flight home on Tuesday. Since it turned out I had room in my suitcase, we went back to the Jameson Distillery to buy a bottle of Distillery Reserve Label 12-year whiskey which is only available from the Jameson locations. We also visited some of the old churches in Dublin, and looked in on the sand sculptures one last time at Dublin Castle.

We had lunch at a charming and colorful little bistro called Urban Picnic in an outdoor mall, where I had Guinness beef stew, served with mashed potatoes.



I also finally had my first pint of Guinness stout at the famous Grogan’s Bar! The perfect pint is poured in two stages: the glass is filled three-quarters full, then allowed to sit.



After the head settles, the glass is filled to the top, creating the iconic silhouette that is seen in gift shops all over the city. And actually, even though I’m not a beer drinker, I really liked the taste of Guinness, so fortunately there are Irish bars all around my apartment if I ever want a pint of the dark stuff again.



So all in all, my trip was full of what the Irish call "the craic," a Gaelic word that roughly translates as "lively talk and good times." The craic is the sort of thing that's difficult to find only when you're looking too hard for it. Large crowds, loud music, and one pint too many can also make the craic elusive. When your companions all seem clever and handsome, and you can't imagine better company in the world, that's when you know you've found it.