The extinct Irish elk, also called the giant deer or Irish deer, was bigger than a moose. This skeleton was photographed at the National Museum of Natural History in Dublin. Due to museum renovations, only the first floor of the museum was open to visitors in May of 2023.
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©D.M.Long, 2023.
Prologue
From a Rick Steve’s blogpost: “On my most recent trip there, I opt to take Uber from the airport. My driver Paul calls to confirm the pick-up spot, and says in a heavy Irish accent, "I'll meet you at the turd lane." I ask, "The what?" He says, more clearly, "The TURD lane." Before I ask him to repeat himself a turd time, I get it.” (Rick Steves' Europe)
Trippin' in Ireland
This was a last-minute trip for us. By last minute, I mean we planned it six weeks in advance, rather than six months in advance. By “we,” I mean Becky. She did all the planning. We decided (I still mean Becky) that an international trip was in order, because we (both of us) had not left the country since before Covid. We (both of us) last travelled abroad in January of 2019 when we spent a week in Paris. This trip was occasioned by Becky’s decision to retire at the end of May. Dublin, as a destination, was chosen because our local airport, Bradley, and Aer Lingus, began offering non-stop flights to Dublin in March.
We were last in Ireland in 2009 and this time around, we would visit all new territory. The last-minute planning we (Becky) did had little impact other than limiting our hotel and restaurant choices and… we couldn’t go to jail… the Irish jail, Kilmainham Gaol, one of Dublin’s hottest tourist attractions. All the tickets for Kilmainham Gaol were sold out for our dates in Dublin. Who would have thunk it?
Day 1 Thursday – Dublin
View from our sixth floor window at the Grafton Hotel.
We stayed at the conveniently located 128-room Grafton Hotel in Dublin 2, not far from St. Stephen’s Green, Trinity College, The National Museums of Archeology and Natural History and the shopping mecca of Grafton Street.
Pedestrian-friendly Grafton Street is said to be one of Europe’s busiest shopping centers. It is also known for its buskers. At the top of Grafton Street is St. Stephens Green, a lush city center public park, once known for its public executions. Adjacent to the park is the popular St. Stephen’s Green Shopping Center, a commercial hub with over 100 outlets under one roof.
We didn’t go to the shopping center, but we strolled through the green, where we watched chattering magpies and plump white swans. In Ireland, seeing magpies can either bring good luck or bad luck, depending on how many you see. According to an old nursery rhyme, it works like this: one for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a funeral. I saw a pod of four orca-colored magpies, which, according to my calculations, is double mirth. But according to the nursery rhyme, four is for a birth.
We did not shop while we were in Dublin. Nor did we go to a single pub. I guess we will have to go back.
View of Peter's Pub from our hotel window.
Our room at the Grafton Hotel was on the 6th floor overlooking various cafes and pubs, including Peter’s Pub & Snug and a pub called the Hairy Lemon.
This part of Dublin was a hive of activity, shops, restaurants, cafes and pubs. Our clean, well-appointed and compact room at the hotel, however, was very quiet, void of street noise and the coming and goings of other guests. No small feat. Five stars for sound-proofing!
Our only complaint about the hotel involved the heat – you could not manually lower the thermostat/heat/AC below 21 Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit)… or open a window. This was fine when you were not in bed and under the ubiquitous down duvet. Most hotels (or so I hear) in Ireland forgo the "top sheet" or "flat sheet" and provide a duvet instead. But for a "hot sleeper," the bed’s duvet made me feel like I was sleeping in a sauna.
Instead of using the duvet, I slept with a hotel bathrobe as a sheet and blanket. I probably should have asked the hotel staff if there was any way to lower the temperature of our room – or to get an old-fashioned flat sheet and a lightweight blanket. But I didn’t. My bad.
Becky in the glass-roofed courtyard of Powerscourt Townhouse Centre, an 18th century townhouse turned commercial venue with shops, galleries, pubs and cafes.
We flew overnight, direct from Bradley Airport in CT to Dublin. We booked our hotel room in Dublin for an “extra night,” the night before we arrived (the night we spent in the air), so we could check into the hotel in the wee hours of the morning and rest. We landed in Ireland around 5 AM and made it to the hotel via taxi by 6 AM. We napped until 10ish in the morning, showered and hit the town. After a quick croissant and lattes from a nearby café we visited Powerscourt Townhouse Centre just off Grafton Street.
Once upon a time (the 1700s) this assemblage of 40-odd shops was a private residence – a Georgian mansion belonging to Richard Wingfield, 3rd Viscount Powerscourt (1744-1788) and his wife Lady Amelia. They sound important. On various websites this building is described as the third finest Georgian townhouse in Dublin. I wonder if all Dublin historic properties are rated?
Nowadays, it's filled with cafés, small boutiques, galleries and antique shops that surround what would have been the courtyard—a new glass roof allows the sunlight through and the space is used for pub/café seating. We would return to Powerscourt Townhouse Centre on a different day for brunch at the Pepperpot Café.
This carved stone head (with 3 faces), known as the Corleck Head (because it was found at Corleck Hill) is now part of the National Museum - Archaeology. It dates back to the 1st or 2nd centuries.
Making a jet-lagged, Corleck Face outside the National Museum - Archaeology.
BOGMEN
Today, our itinerary included the National Museum(s) of Ireland. Well, two of them. There are four locations under the National Museum of Ireland umbrella—Natural History, Decorative Arts and History, Folk & Country Life, and Archaeology. And they are all free.
On our first groggy day in Ireland we visited the National Museum of Archeology and the National Museum of Natural History.
The archeology museum, which opened in 1890, features a serious array of artifacts under its ornate Palladian roof, including impressive prehistoric goldwork from between 2200 BC and 500 BC. The highlight of the museum for me was the Kingship and Sacrifice exhibition, where you’ll find three Bog Bodies—sacrificial human remains from the iron age found in Ireland’s boglands. They are perfectly preserved, complete with hair, teeth, and even eyelashes – except for one, which was missing his head.
The National Museum of Natural History is known as “the dead zoo” by Dubliners. It is a Victorian relic from 1856 featuring 100-year-old taxidermy of badgers, hares, foxes etc.
The skeletons of Irish elk (also called giant deer) from the last ice age, which were bigger than a moose, were my favorite of the exhibits. Only the ground floor, called the Irish Room because it features animals from Ireland, was open to the public while the upper floors were being renovated.
This museum has changed so little since it opened that it has been called a “museum of a museum.”
National Museum of Natural History - AKA Museum of Ireland - Natural History.
On our first night in Dublin we went to a Spanish restaurant - Uno Mas - that was close to our hotel.
We sat at the bar and had an exquisite meal that included sourdough bread and Hojiblanca olive oil, squid à la plancha, a potato and onion tortilla, a warm salad of charred leeks, Jerusalem artichoke, pear, burnt walnut and ajo blanco, and halibut with white asparagus.
I did not have a pint of Guinness at Uno Mas, because, based on my provincial American palette, stout does not complement fish.
I'm sure some people would disagree.
My obligatory (and celebratory) pint of Guinness, a requirement for all who visit Ireland, would have to wait.
We made all our Dublin dinner reservations weeks in advance and were glad we did. All our meals were thumbs up, but this, our first meal in Ireland, was the best. Three thumbs up.
Day 2 Friday – Glendalough – Wicklow National Park
Having been in Dublin for over 24 hours, it was time to take a day-trip out of the city. We boarded the St. Kevin’s bus to Glendalough outside of St. Stephen’s Green North. The bus leaves Dublin daily at 11:30 and costs 20 Euros round trip. We arrived at the bus stop at 11:10 AM to find there was already a queue. The bus would fill and the last in line, which grew as we waited, were turned away. We were glad we arrived early.
St. Kevin's Bus Service from Dublin
Yellow furze is everywhere in May.
St Kevin’s Bus takes approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes to travel from Dublin to Glendalough. Some of the scenery was spectacular, especially the rolling fields of yellow furze (also called gorse), an ubiquitous wildflower that grows on a prickly bush. Glendalough is located within the Wicklow National Park, a beautiful, largely untouched mountainous landscape.
The Round Tower and cemetery at Glendalough. The Round Tower is 108 feet tall. It was built almost 1000 years ago by the monks of St. Kevin’s monastery. The conical roof had to be replaced in 1876 when it was struck by lightning. This tower is called a “cloigtheach,” meaning bell tower. The tower was sometimes used as a lookout or place of refuge for monks when the monastery was under attack. Today this tower keeps watch over a sprawling graveyard.
The verdant info center & a mostly barren hilltop in the background.
The verdant info center & a mostly barren hilltop in the background.
The last stone in the cemetery, up against the fence that keeps the sheep out (or the dead in).
St. Kevin's Kitchen is not a kitchen. It is a nave-and-chancel church with a stone roof and bell tower, from the 12th century. You can see the Round Tower with its similar conical crown in the background.
Glendalough is home to one of the most important monastic sites in Ireland. This early Christian settlement was founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century and is often referred to as a “monastic city.” Most of the buildings that survive today date from the 10th through 12th centuries. Despite attacks by Vikings over the years, Glendalough thrived for 700 years, until the Normans destroyed the monastery in 1214 A.D. (around the time the Normans would build Trim Castle, which we would visit later). The current site includes an impressive round tower, stone churches and foundations in various states of ruin, a cemetery that is still in use, a waterfall and two lakes ringed with miles of trails.
We explored Glendalough for roughly three and a half hours, meandering through the cemetery, hiking the trails to see the waterfall and other ruins, exploring the visitor center, sitting by the lake and picnicking on doughnuts - Bailey’s Irish Cream flavored doughnuts we bought in Dublin. Before returning to the bus we watched a man swim in his long pants... in the cold lake... I bet he had a dank ride home.
That night we ate at Fade Street Social Woodfired Restaurant which was also near our hotel. We ate a fairly unpretentious and quite satisfying meal of salads, pizza and flatbreads and washed it all down with a pint of... no, wait...
Again, I did not have a pint of Guinness. Instead, I had a pint of Rockshore Lager, which is a light beer. Although I did not know it at the time, Rockshore is made by Guinness. It seems that Guinness makes all kinds of beer, not just stout. Mind-boggling.
The highlight of our meal may have been a bakewell tart, which Becky knew all about from the Great British Baking Show.
Day 3 Saturday – Exploring Dublin
Vintage postcard of Grafton Street, 1949.
Trinity College
We started the morning with a 9:30 tour of Trinity College given by a perky student. Her script was light and funny and her delivery was smooth and entertaining. She could really project her voice, like a veteran stage actress – probably to the dismay of her fellow students hoping to sleep late on a Saturday morning.
Trinity was founded in 1592 for male Protestants (Catholics were first admitted in 1794 and women were first admitted in… 1904). Famous Trinity alumni include Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, Samuel Beckett and of course, Joffrey Baratheon from The Game of Thrones, among others.
The tour concludes at the Old Library, home to the Book of Kells – a 9th-century illuminated manuscript often referred to as Ireland’s national treasure and Dublin’s biggest tourist attraction (they say the same thing about the Guinness Storehouse).
Folio 309r contains text from the Gospel of John written in Insular majuscule by the scribe known as Hand B. Tourists may not photograph the Book of Kells. (Book of Kells, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
The Book of Kells is a monk-made transcription of the four Gospels from about the year 800. The book’s 340 folios and 680 pages contain intricately decorated calligraphy. Cover pages and chapter heads were a chance for the monks to show off their artistic whimsey. They went to great lengths — using powders from crushed bugs, precious stones and minerals — to get the most vivid pigments for their imaginative decorative doodles. Medieval books were written on vellum — that’s calfskin scraped with a knife. It’s estimated that it took the skins of 185 little moos to make the Book of Kells. An extensive exhibit prepares the visitor for the historic book, which is about the size of a modern coffee table book, a diminutive 10 X 13 inches. It’s in a dark room, lit by a single spot light. The page on view is changed to another about eight times a year. If you want to see all the pages, live a long time and visit regularly. And yes, it is behind glass. You can’t flip through it. You can’t photograph it.
The Long Room is lined with marble busts of intellectual giants. Ada Lovelace, who died in 1852 at the age of 36, was a mathematician and writer who wrote about the “Analytical Engine,” the predecessor of the modern computer. The sculpture of Ada Lovelace was modeled originally in clay, then 3-D scanned and carved from a block of Carrara marble by a computer and then finished by hand. This bust was one of four busts of women added to the library in 2023 - the first women installed in the Long Room. Becky photographed this bust for a colleague who named his daughter after Ada Lovelace.
Upstairs, above the Book of Kells exhibit, Trinity’s Old Library “Long Room” is stacked to its towering ceiling with 200,000 of the library’s oldest books. Or it was, until they started renovating the library. Here you’ll find a rare original edition of the 1916 Proclamation of the Independent Irish Republic. It’s like our Declaration of Independence, except each of the document’s seven signatories were arrested and then executed.
The library holds another national icon — Ireland’s oldest surviving harp, from the 15th century. This harp is featured on the back of the Irish Euro coin and looks a lot like the Guinness logo.
While the Euro — adopted in 2002 — is the accepted currency throughout the countries of Euro land, each country customizes the flip side with its own national symbol.
Long Room
Trinity College’s Old Library is a "copyright library," which means the library is entitled, free-of-charge, to any book published in Ireland. The 213 foot Long Room was built between 1712 and 1732. At the time, it had only one level. Because of all the “free” books, Trinity College raised the roof and added a second level in 1860.
The library began a massive update and renovation in 2022 involving, among other things, fire-proofing. Many of the books in its collection are being stored elsewhere during the modernization.
Central Plaza, Temple Bar District.
After a brunch of scrambled eggs on sourdough toast at the Powerscourt Pepperpot Café we visited the nearby Little Museum, just off St. Stephen's Green, a Trip Advisor “must-see” tourist trap attraction.
The Little Museum is housed in a 1776 Georgian mansion. For 10 Euros per person, we listened to a hammy tour guide in period costume recite a cheesy script (yes, ham and cheese) for a half-hour while we moved through two small rooms containing an eclectic array of donated items relating to Dublin’s cultural history. The rest of the tour was self-guided, and featured three more pint-sized rooms, including one fully dedicated to the band U2. The disparate and seemingly random items on display had no context save the tour guide’s narration.
After the Little Museum, we took a long walk through the Temple Bar district and over the River Liffey.
Ha'Penny Bridge, built in 1816. A half-penny toll was charged to cross the River Liffey.
The Temple Bar District is a visitor “destination” in Dublin, located on the south bank of the River Liffey. It used to be bohemian, known for galleries and artists drinking late into the night. It has narrow pedestrian lanes lined with shops, cafés, galleries and pubs.
Today, the pubs seem to be the big draw. Some people think the Temple Bar District is too touristy, too crowded, and overhyped. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but I understand that the area is very popular with pickpockets.
A lantern slide of tenement children from the museum's website - 14 Henrietta Street
Layers of wallpaper in one of the rooms at 14 Henrietta Street.
Next stop: 14 Henrietta Street, a tenement museum.
This four-story 18th Century Georgian house (built 1740) was once quite posh, one of the most luxurious houses in Dublin, but by the late 19th century it was a tenement, as were most of the once grand houses on Henrietta Street.
From the museum's literature: In 1876 Thomas Vance purchased Number 14 and installed 19 tenement flats of one, three and four rooms. Described in an Irish Times advert from 1877: "To be let to respectable families in a large house, Northside, recently papered, painted and filled up with every modern sanitary improvement, gas and wc on landings, Vartry Water, drying yard and a range with oven for each tenant."
By 1911 the sub-divided mansion had more than 100 residents, split among 17 families, sharing two toilets. The last tenement residents of Number 14 left in the late 1970s by which time the building was essentially abandoned by its owners. In 2018 Number 14 opened as a museum.
The museum is comprised of largely unadorned empty rooms with layers of paint and peeling wallpaper; the house is conserved but not restored, except for two rooms. It felt a bit like walking through an archeological dig.
Our middle-aged Henrietta Street tour guide had family that once lived in the tenements. She was passionate about her job; she was not reciting a script. She apologized for her thick working-class Dublin accent before the tour started.
Thick it was, and she spoke fast and had an odd way of reminding the assembled that they were from-someplace-else, and thus had a comparatively privileged past, one without English oppression and a potato famine.
A group of three Eastern European tourists departed mid-tour unable to understand the guide's English. Did I mention her Dublin accent? I myself, definitely, would have benefitted from subtitles. Ah, the price of authenticity.
All day long we had noticed that Dublin was pulsing with men in team jerseys waving flags, moving from here to there in packs. We saw lots of Leinster fans. Leinster? Soccer? Gaelic Football (not to be confused with American football)? Hurling (not to be confused with curling)? Turns out Leinster is an Irish rugby team.
It seems that we were in Dublin during the 28th Heineken Champions Cup final, Leinster vs. Stade Rochelais (a French team) at Aviva Stadium. La Rochelle (aka Stade Rochelais) won 27 to 26. Nonetheless, there was a late-night raucous gathering at the Hairy Lemon next to our hotel.
Before dinner we visited a shop named Celtic Whiskey Shop & Wines on the Green and purchased a bottle of Fercullen 10 Year Old Single Grain whiskey. We were told one could not buy this whiskey outside of Ireland, which could be blarney, but it made the whisky taste special.
That night we ate at another elegant restaurant near our hotel, called Sole Seafood and Grill. We ate at the restaurant’s bar again. For entrees, I had turbot and Becky had sea bass. I did not have a pint of Guinness, again.
Does Guinness pair with fish?
Day 4 Sunday – Driving from Dublin to Galway
Any road designated with an M, such as M-50, is a toll road. These days, you can pay most of your tolls with a credit card. But the M-50 has an electronic toll system – no toll booths. Instead, you have to pay the toll online.
The next morning we ate breakfast at the very busy Taste Food Company across from the hotel. I had Irish scrambled eggs again, which are creamy (probably because, in addition to butter, they use cream). I also had brown Irish soda bread, which is very hearty.
I managed to avoid the traditional Irish breakfast during this trip, but saw it served many times. The traditional Irish breakfast is eggs, bangers (sausage), bacon (ham), baked beans, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms, toast and sometimes black pudding – all arranged in separate lumps on your plate.
Originally, we were going to take a train from Dublin to Galway but Becky decided renting a car would give us more flexibility – and the route was more or less easy. I’m fine with renting a car in a foreign country, as long as I don’t have to drive on the wrong side of the street. Becky, on the other hand, is a fearless driver. She doesn’t mind driving on the wrong side of the road (and does so in CT, sometimes on purpose). So after breakfast we packed and took a taxi to the Dublin airport’s very disorganized Budget car rental facility and picked up our very small Nissan March. After an excruciatingly long time, we figured out how to use Google Maps audio with this car and shakily drove off towards Galway.
Outside of the metro Dublin and metro Galway areas with their roundabouts, it was a straight shot, mostly on the M-50, M-4 and M-6 motorways. Any road designated with an M, such as M-50, is a toll road. These days, you can pay most of your tolls with a credit card. But the M-50 has an electronic toll system – no toll booths. Instead, you have to pay the toll online. If you don’t pay, you’ll be fined.
My last memory of this trip involves being in the Dublin airport going home, sitting at the terminal, surrounded by an Irish FootGolf team (yes, such a thing exists). The FootGolf players were all in team uniform, drinking prodigious amounts of beer, while Becky, on her phone, cursed the website used to pay the M-50 tolls.
One last driving note: speed limits take a little getting used to. The M-50 is 120 KM/H. That seems fast, but 120 KM/H is 74 MPH. Most rural two-lane roads (designated R) are 80 KPH (49 MPH).
The Dean Hotel opened its 100 room location in Galway in 2022.
Our very small, pink room at the Dean Hotel.
The Dean’s rooms have turntables. The hotel supplies one vinyl LP in case you have never used a record player and want to give it a spin. Our room's vinyl LP was the Talking Heads "Remain in Light."
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?”
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
Into the blue again after the money's gone
Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground
And you may ask yourself, “How do I work this?”
And you may tell yourself, “This is not my beautiful house”
Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
[Bridge]
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
In Galway we stayed at the Dean Hotel. It's been open for about a year, making it one of the newer Galway hotels. The Dean has sister hotels by the same name in Dublin and Cork. The Galway hotel is located just off Eyre Square and is a longer walk (down a hill) to bustling Quay Street. If you are traveling by car like we were, the closest parking garage is at City Park - not exactly next door, but close enough. The hotel does not offer on-site parking, but parking is only 12 Euros per day at the garage after the hotel validates your ticket.
Our “superoom” at The Dean was perhaps the smallest hotel room we have ever been in. Smaller than hotel rooms we’ve had in New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam, Rome etc. It was an oddly shaped corner room on the second floor (more triangular than rectangular). The room's single window looked out on a residential back yard. We did not book one of their smallest rooms which they call “modpods.” So seemingly they have even smaller rooms! In case you are wondering, The Dean is not cheap. It's not a hostel.
To be honest, The Dean is also not great. The Dean endeavors to be very hip. The hotel website states the "bespoke rooms... are filled with gadgets, treats, and plenty of stuff to make you smile." But the hip accoutrements take up space in a room with no space to spare and that many travelers need for hotel living. Which doesn't make me smile. The Dean's conceit is that cool travelers will dig their vibe, and "get it," and ignore or work around everything else. If you don't like the hotel, then you don't "get it."
For instance, The Dean’s rooms have turntables and a retro-looking Marshall amp on the room's desk; the desk being the only horizontal surface in the room other than the bed’s tiny side tables (or at least it was that way in our room). The hotel supplies one vinyl LP in case you have never used a record player and want to give it a spin. Our room's vinyl LP was the Talking Heads "Remain in Light." Did they select this LP just for us? I still have vinyl Talking Heads at home - I was a Talking Heads fan. How did they know? What if I was a Tony Bennett fan instead? I don't get it. What is the point of a turntable and one LP? Do any guests actually play their allotted record? Blast the Talking Heads and dance on the bed?
The room had no closet, no drawers. No place to unpack or hang clothes, other than a short wall mounted rod with three or four hangers outside the bathroom. Yes, we could have requested more hangers. There were only two places to cram a suit case and we each had a suit case and carry-on backpacks. With two suit cases and two backpacks, there was very little floor space, save a path from the bed to the bathroom. There were no comfy chairs, just a bed. No place in the room to do morning yoga (if you happen to be my wife and do such things). Or dance to David Byrne's jittery proclamations.
The room has a full shelf of the predictably overpriced "munchies" and booze and a stylish SMEG mini fridge stuffed with... more booze, but no room for our water bottles. Don’t stay here if you are in recovery. I've never seen so much alcohol in a hotel room that also has two in-house bars and about 20 pubs within spitting distance.
When people complain about this hotel's lack of storage space on TripAdvisor, The Dean's media relations representative replies that they will remove anything in the room the guest does not care to use. We did not ask about emptying the SMEG or removing the turntable and amp. Our bad.
What really made us hot under the collar was that we were unable to change the temp in our warm and stuffy room. The room's thermostat was D.O.A. or at least unresponsive. Having learned our lesson regarding climate control at the Grafton Hotel in Dublin, we did ask about this at The Dean's front desk and they said the room's thermostat was broken and lowered our room temperature from their end, which was very accommodating. But we had to do this each day.
I'm not sure if the thermostat was really broken, or just disabled. We stayed for three nights and had to ask them to re-set the temperature each morning. Eventually we learned that the room’s heat/AC is like Cinderella's coach and automatically returned to a default setting each night at midnight (a "green initiative to reduce our energy consumption" according to the hotel).
On the third afternoon we found that housekeeping unlocked our window and opened it, leaving it open, which was greatly appreciated. It was pleasantly cooler outside than inside.
And we were disappointed to find a charge on our bill for a beverage we did not consume. We did not consume any "treats" from the room, neither snacks nor booze, not the Jameson nips, not the M&Ms, not the Haribo gummy bears.
On the plus side: the bathroom was adequate in size, especially compared to the rest of the room. Everything was clean. The room wasn't noisy. The bar/restaurant on the top floor (Sophie's) served a pleasant breakfast and offered booze with a view. So it could have been worse.
Galway: After dinner we walked to the water, an area known as the Claddagh Basin, and admired the boat wrecks off Nimmo’s Pier.
After checking in and not unpacking, because there was no room to unpack, we headed out to explore Galway’s Latin Quarter. The main attraction of the Latin Quarter is Quay Street. Quay Street is a pedestrian artery lined with locally-owned gift shops and cafes/pubs. It’s also a favorite spot for buskers. It’s mobbed with tourists, or at least was when we were there.
We looked for, based on recommendations, and found the small, unassuming, no-frills, Quay Street Kitchen and had a lovely dinner. We had salads, one with goat cheese and one with grilled beef. The Quay Street Kitchen does not have a website or take reservations. It does not have a wine cellar or beer on tap. It makes no attempt to be a fancy-pants bistro or a traditional Irish pub. Which was just fine with us. We ate there again Tuesday night (because we liked it!). I did not have a pint of Guinness on either occasion. A pint of Guinness, in order to be authentic, has to be draught. Right?
After dinner we walked to the water, an area known as the Claddagh Basin, and admired the boat wrecks off Nimmo’s Pier.
Day 5 Monday – Cliffs of Moher and The Burren
The Cliffs of Moher run along the coast for nine miles and range everywhere from 380 to 720 feet above the Atlantic Ocean.
According to a widely available study, between 1993 and 2017, 66 people died at the Cliffs of Moher, some by suicide, some by accident. I'm not sure when the slab barrier was erected, but it has not always been part of the Cliffs experience.
Google Maps Shortcut
After breakfast at the hotel’s rooftop restaurant and bar called Sophies, we set off to see the Cliffs of Moher and explore the Burren. On route to our first stop, the Cliffs of Moher, we had an unexpected adventure. Google maps took us on a long shortcut through the Burren. We are talking very narrow roads with chest-high stone walls on either side… and no shoulder. When the walls subsided, tall hedgerows of hawthorn took their place. It was like driving down a chute. In some places you would need to back up to allow oncoming cars to pass. On some roads grass grew through the asphalt in the center strip. We had to watch for sheep and tractors in the road. For a while, there was no phone reception, rendering Google Maps useless. But the scenery was spectacular.
Cliffs of Moher
The Cliffs of Moher are one of Ireland's most recognizable and visited landmarks. Located on the west coast of Ireland, part of the Burren, these towering cliffs are one of the most visited sights along the “Wild Atlantic Way.” We arrived early enough in the morning that there were only twenty or so tour busses in the parking lot. The cliffs stretch for 8 miles and the tallest part, at O'Brien's Tower, is 700 feet above sea level. The Cliffs of Moher were featured as the Horcrux Caves in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and the Cliffs of Insanity from Princess Bride.
The Burren is known for its “glacio-karst” landscape. Karst is defined as a “landscape underlain by limestone which has been eroded by dissolution, producing ridges, towers, fissures, and sinkholes.” The word Burren comes from the Irish "boireann" meaning “great rock.”
Poulnabrone Dolmen
The Burren
After walking part of the cliffside trail, we set out to explore the “limestone wilderness” known as the Burren. The Burren has been referred to as fertile rock, famous for its limestone landscape and unique flora, not to mention its Poulnabrone Dolmen (an ancient tomb).
The Burren is an other-worldly natural landscape, with unusual rock formations and plants that look like they should be growing in a bog, not on an Irish moonscape.
Our first stop in the Burren was the Burren Center, a visitor center/museum in the remote village of Kilfenora. A docent in the sleepy, tourist-free visitor center gave us some good tips on where we should drive and what we should see along with a paper map. Almost hidden next door to the visitor center, with no signage to welcome tourists, we found the Kilfenora Cathedral ruins.
The Kilfenora Cathedral was built between 1189 and 1200. There were originally seven crosses in the village of Kilfenora and it was known as the city of the crosses. In 1821 one of its finest crosses was removed to Killaloe. Ever since it’s been known as the city of fewer crosses.
The most famous of its remaining crosses (because of the carving) is known as the Doorty Cross. The 12th century Doorty Cross was in two pieces in two different parts of town for a very long time, since at least the 1700’s, and until 1946 when someone figured out that the two pieces belonged together. The pieces of the cross were eventually reunited and the relic was moved to the Lady Chapel at Kilfenora Cathedral.
Our next stop was Leamaneh Castle. Situated between Inchiquin and Kilfenora on the edge of the Burren, the ruins of Leamaneh Castle are on private land and are not open to the public. There is no signage or nearby parking, just a precarious pull-off for a few cars.
The ruins tower above the adjacent farmhouse.
The castle was originally a basic, 5-story Irish tower house which was built c. 1480 – 1490. Part of the tower house was demolished and replaced by a 4-story mansion around 1648.
It has now been abandoned for more than 200 years. It is famously haunted. The ghost, a previous owner, is referred to as Red Mary. The story of Red Mary.
The modest nearby farms make the structure even more implausible and incongruous.
Our next stop was the picturesque ruins of Carran Church. Like the Leamaneh Castle, these ruins are nestled in farm fields. Like the Leamaneh Castle, we had to drive by it and backtrack to find a place to park on the side of the road.
Unlike Leamaneh Castle, it is accessible to the public. A skinny path led through the fields to the ruins.
The church at Carran was initially built in the 13th century, but much of what can be seen today dates from the 15th century. Once upon a time, it had a fortified upper level.
Our next stop was the Poulnabrone Dolmen. Dolmens are single-chamber megalithic tombs. Megalithic is a fancy way of saying prehistoric and stone. Dolmens have vertical stones that usually support a massive flat upper capstone making the structure resemble a table. Dolmens can weigh many tons.
When first built, dolmens were typically covered with earth or smaller stones to form a tumulus or mound. Over the centuries these earthen coverings have weathered away, revealing their stone "skeletons." Standing for millennia, they now perch majestically on grassy hillsides, on craggy cliffs, on winding roadsides, and even right between modern day homes.
There may be as many as 150 different dolmens in Ireland. The Poulnabrone Dolmen is the oldest known dolmen in Ireland. It was built sometime between 5,200 and 5,800 years ago.
When excavated the remains of 22 people from the Neolithic Age were found. Their burial site beneath the monument included personal items like pottery and stone axes.
When we visited there were maybe eight other tourists - this site may not draw tour busses like the Cliffs of Moher. The dolmen was roped off, keeping the tourists at bay. It was, however, difficult to photograph the dolmen sans ropes. But with a little ingenuity, we managed.
Question: is a single dolmen a dolman?
Many stonewalls in The Burren feature stones stacked almost vertically or at an angle, not horizontally, flat side down.
From the dolmen we drove along the coast to Blackhead, but did not make it as far as Doolin before we turned around and headed back to Galway.
That night we ate again on Quay Street, this time at McDonaghs, a locally famous fish and chips joint that has been in business since 1902.
At McDonagh’s, if you want a beer to wash down your chips, it has to be a Carlsberg, because that’s all they serve. No pints of Guinness again tonight.
Day 6 Tuesday – Inishmore
It cost 55 Euros per person to fly to the Arann Islands via Aer Arann.
We were two of six passengers and sat right behind the pilot.
Inishmore/Arann Islands
Inishmore would prove to be the highlight of our trip, as we thought it might. Rather than driving from Galway to the waterfront in Doolin, an hour and a half away, and then taking another 35-minute passenger ferry to Inishmore, we decided to fly.
There are actually two ferry lines from Doolin to Inishmore, the O’Brien’s and the Garrihy’s, and the ferries are how most people get to the Arann Islands. The ferry cost 39 Euros pp. It cost 55 Euros to fly pp (but took less travel time).
We boarded an airport minivan in Eyre Square in Galway headed to the Connemara Regional Airport, 20 miles away. The van ride, with one other couple, took about 45 minutes and offered up some interesting scenery.
The airport consisted of a large open room, not much bigger than a two-car garage, with restrooms and an office. We flew on a small propeller plane operating as Aer Arann Islands.
There were six passengers on our flight. We sat directly behind the pilot. The entire flight took less than 10 minutes. From the Inishmore landing field we took another minivan to the village which was about 5 minutes away.
The view of Inishmore from above.
The Arann Islands (often spelled with just one "n") are a group of three islands located off the west coast of Ireland in Galway Bay. The largest island is Inishmore (also called Inis Mór), followed by Inishmaan and Inisheer.
The sparsely settled Arann Islands are known for their unique culture and language, as well as their breathtaking landscape. The islands have a gnarly, weathered limestone landscape just like the rest of the Burren.
This landscape was featured in the award-winning 2022 film The Banshees Of Inisherin. From what I hear, since the movie, there has been an uptick in tourism.
Set on the fictional island of Inisherin in 1923 during the Irish Civil War, The Banshees of Inisherin, a dark comedy, was filmed on Inishmore and Achill Island.
Inishmore covers about 12 square miles and is home to less than 1,200 people who predominantly speak Irish as their first language.
By comparison, Rhode Island’s Block Island is around 10 square miles and has a year-round population also of around 1,200 (which triples in the summer). But Block Island’s New Shoreham town center looks like Times Square when compared to Inishmore’s much smaller, low-key town center.
Inishmore’s town center/principal village is Kilronan, where the Doolin-Inishmore ferries dock. There is a smattering of small shops, small pubs and small B&Bs in Kilronan, which has one very small main street. Did I mention small? There are no large-capacity 100-year-old “grand” hotels or seemingly modern hotels on Inishmore. Inishmore was not historically a tourist destination like Block Island. But it is one now. You have to wonder how Inishmore will change in the next few decades.
Inishmore’s rolling fields are crisscrossed by a maze-like network of ancient stone walls and dotted with modest stone houses of indeterminate age all set against the backdrop of the Atlantic Ocean. It's a lovely time-warp.
A couple blocks inland from “main street” in Kilronan there is a grocery store with an ATM. Cash is required at many of the island’s pubs, so the grocer’s ATM is an important Inishmore tourist attraction.
Cars are not allowed on the ferry unless you happen to live on the island. Tourists get around by minivan tours, by horse trap tours, by bike and on foot.
Rick Steves writes that there are fewer than 100 vehicles on the island, and most are minivans catering to tourists.
The pony & trap tours typically cost between €20-€50 per person. Most tour operators only accept cash. The traps vary in size, some of the smaller traps carry 4 people while the larger traps can carry up to 9 people.
Bikes can be “hired,” as the Irish say, from near the pier in Kilronan. There is probably a half-dozen shops in Kilronan that rent bikes and they are all fully stocked. If you lined up all the available bikes on Inishmore, end to end, the line would probably stretch to Newfoundland.
We rented Da Vinci e-bikes for about €40 per person. We were glad to have rented e-bikes as the terrain would prove hilly.
Our orientation to the bikes could not have been more minimal. When we were sent to find a bike helmet that fit, we found a pile of 100 or so helmets, many of which were “used” beyond effectiveness.
It made us wonder how so many helmets came to be dented, cracked and otherwise traumatized (and why they were still in rotation). What were the roads on Inishmore like?
I carefully checked each helmet for dried blood, brain smears and flies before I tried it on.
We were very thankful there was minimal car traffic on Inishmore because the roads were narrow, twisty and hilly.
When a minivan did pass us, it was so close that you could smell the driver’s breath (and know what he just had to drink at the pub). Passing a plodding horse trap was also interesting.
But all things considered, the biking was glorious, the sea breeze was invigorating and the sun regularly peeked through the clouds (enough to burn my face). The coastal views were spectacular and the changing light conditions were a photographer's nightmare and dream scenario.
In May, Inishmore is a biking paradise. The islands have an unusually temperate climate. Average air temperatures range from 59 °F in July to 43 °F in January.
The winter of 2010 recorded a prolonged period of snow, the first in living memory.
The soil temperature does not usually drop below 43 °F.
Since grass and many other plants will grow once the temperature rises above 43 °F, the island (like the neighboring Burren) has one of the longest growing seasons in Ireland or Britain.
Late May is the sunniest time and also likely the best time to view flowers, with the gentians and avens peaking.
We biked from the town center directly to the cliff-side fort Dún Aonghasa (also known as Dún Aengus). A number of minivans and pony traps had beat us to our destination and the vanguard tourists were already clambering up the long hill to the fort ruins located at the top of the 14-acre site. It is not known exactly when Dún Aonghasa was built. Excavations carried out in the 1990s indicated that people had been living at the hill top from c. 1500 BC. It is the largest of the prehistoric stone forts of the Arann Islands.
The fort consists of three terraced walls surrounding an inner enclosure containing a platform on the edge of a sheer three-hundred-foot-high cliff, not quite as tall as the Cliffs of Moher, but impressive nonetheless. Unlike the Cliffs of Moher, the cliffs at Dún Aonghasa have no barrier wall to keep tourists from plunging to their deaths. At Dún Aonghasa, you can literally step over the edge and fall into the sea.
The cliffs are about as tall as the Statue of Liberty.
The cliffs are about as high as an American football playing field is long.
A strong wind could blow you off... An affectionate, face-licking yellow lab could send you to the deep.
Dozens of people die each year while taking selfies. Not on Inishmore. But worldwide. How can this be? Too many pints of Guinness? Exploding cameras?
A remarkable network of defensive barriers known as a chevaux de frise, that is, a dense band of jagged stones, thousands in number, surrounds the whole fort.
By the time we left, the tourist assault had tripled.
No chevaux de frise known to man can keep the tourist hoards at bay for long.
We expected to see a lot of minivans in the parking lot at the base of the hill. What we didn't expect was all the pony traps - the ponies, dozens of them, were hanging out, drinking Cokes and smoking cigarettes.
An unmarked structure en route to The Seven Churches. Its version of a "do not enter" sign is very effective.
No one really knows why they are called The Seven Churches. There are only two.
From the fort we biked to The Seven Churches of Arann.
Although named “The Seven Churches” there are in fact only two churches.
The two churches that are named The Seven Churches are next to each other, with a number of other domestic buildings scattered about the site.
The ruins of The Seven Churches date to the 8th - 13th century and were originally an important monastery and pilgrimage destination.
No one really knows why they are called The Seven Churches.
As we scrambled around the ruins and adjacent cemetery, the unmistakably distinctive call of a migrating cuckoo could be heard, loud and clear. We heard the cuckoos on other island stops. The cuckoos were going crazy.
We spent the rest of the day bicycling, traversing both the “high” and the “low” roads, before stopping for a cold Rockshore Lager at Joe Watties Pub.
Who drinks a Guinness stout after biking all day?
Day 7 Wednesday –
Galway to Trim
The evil Earl's Belvedere House and Gardens in Mullingar.
We set out Wednesday morning to find a breakfast joint in Eyre Square, but ended up returning to the hotel’s restaurant, Sophies, where we ate eggs Benedict on sour dough bread. After checking out and gassing up, we headed northeast towards Dublin and a town called Trim.
If we drove straight without stopping, this would have been a two-hour journey. But we planned to stop en route at Belvedere House and Gardens in Mullingar on the shores of Lough Ennell.
The Belvedere House was built in 1740 as a hunting lodge for Robert Rochfort, 1st Earl of Belvedere. The earl was not a very nice man. Having turned the family home into a prison, he built Belvedere, where he would luxuriate until his death.
You see, Robert Rochfort had “incarcerated” his much younger wife Mary in the family home for an alleged affair with his brother Arthur Rochfort. She would remain isolated and locked up for thirty years, not regaining her freedom until the earl’s death.
Arthur, the alleged philanderer, was put on trial for adultery and fined £20,000, which he could not pay. So Arthur spent the next 18 years in debtors' prison in Dublin. How did the earl know of this alleged affair? He was never home and paid little heed to his wife.
Well, his other brother, George Rochfort, told him about the affair. George and Arthur did not get along it seems. But George and Robert did, at least for a while.
Rochert's Folly, also known as the Jealous Wall, was erected in 1760 to block the view of a sibling's house.
The Belvedere House was designed by a prominent architect and while lovely, it is most famous for its massive folly called the Jealous Wall. According to the experts: "In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings."
Rochfort’s folly, built in 1760 and now known as the Jealous Wall, was a towering 65-foot, faux ruin made from limestone. Rochfort went to great expense to construct the wall to resemble a ruined abbey, hiring a celebrated Italian architect to work on the project. It is notable for being the largest folly in Ireland.
Robert Rochfort built the folly to block the view of his brother George’s adjacent house, Tudenham Park House, which was grander than the Belvedere House. It seems that Robert and George had a falling out too.
Today, the Jealous Wall blocks the view of the Visitor Center.
The house and 160-acre estate (which boasts two other smaller follies and an exquisite walled garden) stayed in the Rochfort family, falling into disrepair, until 1912. In 1982 it was sold to the county and opened to the public after extensive restoration and the addition of a visitor center, which is hidden on the other side of the Jealous Wall.
Only the “basement” of the Belvedere House, where the servants worked, and first floor, are open to the public for self-guided tours. The house is sparsely furnished with dated signage. There wasn’t a docent, security guard or any other employee in sight making the current iteration of the Belvedere House feel a bit abandoned. In one room molding that had broken off from an ornate mantel lay neglected, awaiting a bottle of glue.
The walled garden, created in 1850, is magnificent and includes a Victorian glasshouse and a newer fairy garden. The garden is currently home to a horticultural school and is managed by a master gardener and his staff. The adjacent 12-acre arboretum includes Dawn Red Woods, Mordina Spruces, Beeches, Magnolias, Japanese Cherries, and Western Red Cedars planted in the mid-19th Century. The trails that lead through the ivy and holly woodland take you to the quiet lake.
Interestingly, while we were touring the house and gardens the estate was a beehive of activity. There were only a handful of tourists, perhaps a half-dozen. There was another party of mothers with infants who were meeting up for tea. And there was an army of event workers setting up a maze of fencing, signage, platforms, lights, booths, tables, porta-potties and glamping tents and yurts. Unbeknownst to us, the Belvedere House and Gardens was due to close the next day for the annual three-day Life Festival, an open-air techno/electronica/dance festival which pre-covid drew 15,000 attendees. 2023 Life Festival
Yellow Steeple, St. Mary's Abbey, ruins are from 1368. These ruins are a short, scenic walk from the castle.
Trim Castle was used in the movie Braveheart to depict the walled city of York, the Tower of London and Edinburgh Castle.
Trim
Trim is situated on the River Boyne and has a population of less than 10,000. It’s a sleepy town with a handful of shops and restaurants, located about 30 or 40 minutes from the Dublin airport. Trim is a good staging ground for visiting Brú na Bóinne.
In the 1700’s, Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver’s Travels, lived in Trim.
In the 1700’s, the first Duke of Wellington (real name: Arthur Wellesley) lived in Trim. The Duke, a famous Irish-born, English general and Tory prime minister, is best known for defeating Napoleon at Waterloo.
Trim commemorates Wellington with a 205-foot plinth. The column in Trim was erected in 1817, two years after his famous victory over Napoleon. The statue depicts the Duke in military uniform, with one arm raised in blessing or triumph.
Local tradition holds that Wellington originally brandished a sword in his upraised hand (like Mel Gibson), but an Irish patriot took offense at this during the War of Independence and shot it away. So now, Wellington just waves hello.
Remnants of Sheep Gate and the great walls that surrounded the castle compound.
But Trim’s claim to fame is even older. St. Patrick is said to have founded a monastery in Trim in 432.
Trim boasts Irelands oldest working bridge, which dates from 1393.
Trim has remnants of a 13th -14th century Augustinian abbey, two gates from the original 13th century town walls, and most notably, the extensive remains of Trim Castle.
Trim Castle dates to 1173 when construction began and proceeded in stages. Trim Castle is the largest and best-preserved Anglo-Norman fortress in Ireland.
As best I can tell, the Normans were essentially “Vikings” that settled Normandy, France and then invaded England (led by William the Conqueror) in 1066.
The “Anglo-Normans” were French speaking Englishmen who invaded Ireland in the late 12th century.
The Anglo-Normans gradually conquered and acquired large swathes of land from the Irish, over which the kings of England then claimed sovereignty.
A view of Trim Castle from the banks of the River Boyne.
The central fortification of Trim Castle is a three-story keep. This massive tower has 20 corners, and is cruciform in shape. It was all but impregnable in its day. It was protected by a ditch, curtain wall and water-filled moat.
The Anglo-Norman rule of Ireland was short-lived (not all Norman fortresses were as grand as Trim’s); by 1300, large chunks of Ireland were once again ruled by Irish Lords.
Trim Castle would have many “Lords” in its 700+ year history. Oliver Cromwell’s army once occupied the fortress. Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington, once owned the fortress.
By the 1700s the castle had fallen into disrepair. Ownership of the castle transferred to the Irish state in 1993.
You can take a low-key tour to the top for 5 Euros. We had four other tourists on our tour in the late afternoon. Our tour guide was an older gentleman who grew up in Trim. He said locals never studied the castle in school because it was an English castle, an invader’s castle.
Despite being set in Scotland, Mel Gibson’s 1995 Academy Award-winning epic film Braveheart was partly filmed in Ireland and Trim Castle played its part as the fortified English town of York. The scenes set in London were also filmed inside the castle walls. Trim Castle was used in the movie to depict both the Tower of London and Edinburgh Castle. The movie set was temporary and all alterations to the castle grounds are gone. It was not until 2000 that the castle ruins were opened to the public.
Day 8 Thursday –
Brú na Bóinne – Knowth and Newgrange
On our only full day in Trim we headed out to visit the prehistoric sites of the Brú na Bóinne Complex.
This UNESCO World Heritage Site has timed entry, which means it is never crowded. Our tickets were for 9:30 AM.
The Neolithic mounds of Brú na Bóinne were re-discovered in 1699 and opened to the public in 1997.
Brú na Bóinne is about 40 scenic minutes from our hotel and 30 miles north of Dublin. The three main sites of the Brú na Bóinne Complex, Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth, are situated among farm fields on the north bank of the River Boyne, the same river that flowed by our Trim hotel.
Photo above from drone footage - JJ's World Tour
Knowth in the morning. We visited Knowth and Newgrange, traveling by van from the visitor center/museum.
Brú na Bóinne has Europe's “largest and most important concentration of prehistoric megalithic art,” dating to around 5,000 years ago, from the Neolithic period. The site predates the Egyptian pyramids and Stonehenge!
Brú na Bóinne is dominated by the three great burial mounds of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth. These large funerary mounds are surrounded by many smaller satellite mounds, chamber tombs, standing stones, henges and other prehistoric enclosures.
Archeologists have discovered that these mounds were built with sophisticated knowledge of science and astronomy, which is most evident in the passage grave of Newgrange.
We started at Knowth. This giant grass-covered, earthen mound is encircled by 127 “kerbstones” which were quarried miles away and possibly floated up river.
The large stones are decorated with symbols and patterns. The Knowth site is said to contain one-third of all the megalithic art in Western Europe, with over 200 decorated stones found during excavations which began in the 1960’s.
According to our guide, one of the stones is an accurate petroglyph calendar.
They mow Knowth by lowering a lawn mower to the bottom of the mound and then dragging it back up using a rope tied to the handle.
Newgrange was constructed around 3200 BC. This means it is at least 600 years older than the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, and 1,000 years older Stonehenge.
The most famous part of Newgrange relates to the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. At dawn on the winter solstice, the light of the rising sun enters the roofbox of Newgrange and penetrates the passage, shining onto the floor of the inner chamber. The beam illuminates the inner chamber of Newgrange for just 17 mystical minutes.
Brú na Bóinne conducts a lottery for those who want to experience this first hand.
As part of our tour, the guide turned off the chamber’s electric lights and all the tourists stood elbow to elbow in total silence in the pitch dark for a few minutes. Then a hidden light source glowed, slowly becoming brighter to illuminate the chamber floor, replicating the sun on the winter solstice.
Next, we visited Newgrange, another giant stone and earth burial mound. According to Carbon 14 dating techniques, Newgrange was constructed around 3200 BC. This means it is at least 600 years older than the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, and 1,000 years older Stonehenge.
Our tour of Newgrange included entry into a narrow subterranean passage tomb. The ten people from our van barely fit. Our tour guide told us that probably only high priests were allowed into the chamber. The tour guide said that the entrance stone outside the chamber marked the boundary between the World of the Living and the Land of the Dead.
The passage allows the Living to make a symbolic journey to the Underworld, represented by the Chamber, and return again to the Land of the Living. Spooky.
The interior of the tomb is decorated with petroglyphs, probably carved before the ceiling was capped. The petroglyphs included the triple spiral, which has become a logo for Brú na Bóinne.
The main chamber is curiously cruciform in layout (but obviously predates Christianity). In one of the niches there is a stone basin, the purpose of which is unclear (blood-letting?).
The tour guide told us that cremated human remains from as many as five people were found in the chamber in the 1970s. Intact bones were also found. Interestingly, modern DNA testing of these bones showed that they came from a single adult Neolithic male who was the product of parent-child or sibling incest.
This Library of Ireland photo dates from about 1910. These mounds were lost to time until 1699 when a farmer discovered the ornately carved rocks. The site did not open to the public until 1997.
There is a large carved stone at Newgrange's passage entrance.
Above the passage there is a separate portal for light which captures the rising sun's rays on the Winter Solstice.
View of the bar/terrace outside our hotel room from our front windows, with Trim Castle on the other side of the street.
Trim Castle Hotel
We stayed at the Trim Castle Hotel, which is literally across the street from the Trim Castle. The 68 room, 4-story hotel, with free parking on-site, is modern without being remotely hip. There was a generic and staid quality to the hotel’s lobby, restaurants and rooms, like a mashup of all the corporate hotels ever built. The hotel reminded me of a high-end retirement community; it was safe, clean and inoffensive. We were there for two nights. Local high schools held events at the hotel both nights. The Trim Castle Hotel, based on their website, is an event venue. It’s a wedding reception magnet. Our corner room was luxuriously spacious, on the third floor, with a side facing, private balcony. Oddly, our two large front-facing windows opened onto another much larger public balcony – an uncovered bar-space called the Rooftop Garden Terrace.
Our corner room came with a private balcony, with AstroTurf, plastic hedges, an L-shaped couch, a coffee table and a roof vent that doubled as contemporary art. The balcony had a nice view of the neighboring church yard and was more than likely larger than our room at The Dean in Galway.
For fresh air, we immediately opened our windows. Semi-transparent privacy curtains were enough to block the view in, but not enough to block the sound of people conversing on the terrace. Luckily for us, the Rooftop Garden Terrace was always sparsely populated and closed at night at 10:30 PM.
However, when we left our room and went outside onto the terrace to reconnoiter the bar shortly after arrival, we watched a woman, who had been relaxing at the bar, walk up to one of our room’s open windows, push the curtains aside and stick her head in to look around.
I'm sure she had no idea that the room she was peeping into was ours. After that we kept the windows closed.
View of the castle, day and night, taken while standing on the couch on our balcony in order to peer over the plastic privet.
The view from our front windows sans drapes? Café tables and potted plants and then on the other side of the terrace, looming directly in front of us, the top two-thirds of Trim Castle. Mighty picturesque. The view wasn’t quite as good from our private balcony where a chest-high plastic-privet wall obscured all but the top of the castle - unless we stood on the couch. The balcony had an unobstructed view of a lovely old stone church. And the room’s door and window to this balcony was safe to leave open day and night. Only pigeons and crows could peer in.
The view of our hotel taken from the top of the Trim Castle.
The Trim Castle Hotel included a complimentary breakfast as part of its B&B package. One had to sign up for a breakfast time slot in advance. We ate on the early side both mornings and the restaurant was nearly empty.
The breakfast menu was fairly standard, a half-dozen items, including, of course, a full Irish breakfast.
The first morning I ordered pancakes and coffee. The waiter asked if I would like toast with my pancakes. I had to laugh. It felt like I was being offered tea to go with my coffee.
Our first night in Trim we ate early at Khan Spices, an Indian restaurant, just around the corner from the hotel. We were the only patrons at 6 PM. The gray-haired owner flirted with Becky. The food was delicious. Inspired by the many fields of grazing sheep we had driven by, I ordered lamb korma (and an Indian beer, not a Guinness). The lamb melted in my mouth.
When we got back to our hotel room we discovered a complimentary bottle of prosecco, macarons and chocolate goodies. We thought they were left by mistake. We called the front desk and we were told the sweets came with the room.
In Ireland we stayed in three hotels and were able to walk each night to a perfectly fine if not utterly outstanding restaurant.
The second night in Trim, our last night in Ireland, we ate at the Stockhouse. The Stockhouse was across the street from the hotel. This pub-like eatery was seemingly full of locals. I ordered my one and only Guinness. Finally!
You can’t go to Ireland and not have a pint of Guinness. Sláinte!
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