I tried to keep an open mind about Dublin because friends had mentioned they did not enjoy it. First and foremost, it is a large city and that was a stark contrast to how the rest of our trip had been. There are also many more tourists making it feel more like New York City than Ireland. Driving is equally as awful and parking is ridiculously expensive as well. You’d really have to stay in the city to reasonably be able to explore the area and get your moneys worth.
That being said, we walked over the O’Donnell bridge that the River Liffey flows underneath on the way to the GPO. While it is still an active Post Office, the basement is the Easter Rising museum. My only gripe is that there are several copies and/or photos of artifacts rather than the actual pieces themselves which was slightly disappointing.
Bed & Breakfast – Aaronbeg
This B&B frequently gets workers as guests staying there. Mrs. Maureen Downes was a very knowledgeable host and sat down during breakfast with us to talk about politics. Typically this is an avoided topic with strangers but the Irish are so open minded and willing to discuss the facts rather than debate opinions. The cows and sheep even came right up outside the window to graze. She told us stories about growing up on a farm and how home buying works there. Maynooth is a small university town. There aren’t many pubs on the main street, but we somehow still found an Irishman serenading everyone at the bar over pints.
The next day we drove up to Starinaugh to visit an Irish military war museum and got much more of an adventure than we expected. We went to check out the trenches and wait to drive tanks when these horses came right up to me. They must not have liked men because Al came up and they started nipping at my hair which quickly escalated to biting Al and chasing us through the field where we had to hide between two World War II tanks for cover.
Bed & Breakfast – Bearna Rua
Rathcoole is a small town on the outskirts of Dublin and close to the airport as we were flying home the next day. We saw this hanging in the hallway on our way upstarts. it was a reminder of how connected the Irish are with their family heritage and the pride in their country. It may be difficult to read but our hosts grandfather Patrick McDowell was a member of the Irish volunteers during the Easter Rising as well as several other major events during Irelands fight for independence. We wandered into a traditional building style pub where we were quite literally pulled in by locals. We spent the entire night chatting with them and it was the perfect ending to our trip.
An Poitin Still
We ate lunch and dinner here, they have a huge ornate wooden bar and a few different sections. Poitin (poo-cheen) is basically Irish moonshine. It’s also apparently illegal which I wasn’t aware of. Our waitress was pretty floored when I asked for it so casually. Needless to say, I didn’t get to try it.
Rathcoole Inn
This place is a dive bar, the lounge side was a group of locals watching a football match and making bets. We poked our heads into the bar side and three men smiled at us and pulled my arm insisting we stay and have a drink. We ended up chatting with them about everything all night and having such a great time. Davie went out for a smoke and came back in taking my hand and giving me a ring he’d made himself.
Irish Military War Museum
This guy has collected historical military artifacts from all over the world since he was 8 years old. He has a ton of weapons, artifacts, and vehicles from various countries that all still run. I really wanted to drive the tank, but the owner had left by the time we finished walking through so we went down to look at them. The kid at the desk said to just make sure we close the gate so the goats and horses out. When we got in the field a horse came right up to me and at first was letting me pet him, Al came over to say hi and he nibbled at me a bit but then chomped Al pretty good. Obviously our first reaction was to run but our first thought was don’t run, so that pretty much pissed off the horse and we ended up wedged between two tanks with the horses surrounding us stamping and huffing. Every time we poked our heads out to see where they were, they were watching and waiting. Fortunately we made it out with a minor flesh wound but needless to say I’m pretty leery of unsupervised horses now.