Slán Leat Sult!

July 23, 2023

It was our last day and we had one final breakfast out on the covered porch before saying our goodbyes, packing our bags, and heading to the airport.  Ireland decided to mourn our departure with even more torrential rain.  Our cab driver was an interesting lady who gave us lots of good advice about the Dublin airport that we promptly learned was totally false.  I resisted the urge to buy more liquor to take home with me at the duty free store and our flight home was uneventful...until we reached Charlotte.

It turns out that we brought the Irish rains with us and, when we got to Charlotte, it was embroiled in a terrible rain storm.  The storm was so bad that we had to circle the airport a few times before being cleared to land.  Even then, there was significant turbulence and, at times, the plane felt like it was going to roll over while we were slowing down on the runway.  It was definitely one of the worst landings I've experienced.  The issues continued to come once we landed, on time, mind you.  First, we sat on the tarmac for an hour because the rain was so bad that they had to close the ramps.  Then, we went to the madhouse that was baggage claim.  It was packed and total chaos.  our flight wasn't on the baggage claim board and nobody could tell us what was happening.  When we finally got a carousel, maybe 25% of the bags from our flight came out.  We got one of ours, and then the conveyor belt stopped.  When it started back up, it was for totally different flights!  the bags from Dublin didn't start appearing again until an hour later!  It was a complete disaster.  If it's possible, the arrivals deck was even worse.  Tons of cars were just stopped and blocking movement, but none of the traffic personnel were doing anything about it.  We touched down around 2:00, but didn't get out of the airport until after 5:30.  I've been dealing with construction at the Charlotte-Douglas Airport for years, and there are times where it's been bad, but this was by far the worst experience I have ever had.  Despite the painful ending on this side of the pond, it really was an unbelievable trip!

The Great Dublin Tour

July 22, 2023

Our last day in Ireland was spent exploring Dublin.  We started with our traditional, laid-back, breakfast at the hotel...at least Tyler and I did.  Morgan and Kati decided to forego breakfast in favor of sleep.

The first stop on our great Dublin tour was Trinity College.  Established in 1592, it is Ireland's oldest and most prestigious college and has produced notable graduates including Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, and Samuel Beckett.  We met our tour guide under the iconic Campanile.  She was a rising second year had the brightest eyes I think I've ever seen, and was overly enthusiastic about everything.  She began with a discussion of George Salmon's statue, which is not without controversy.  He was the provost 1888 and 1904 and, most notably, was adamantly opposed to admitting women to Trinity.  Our guide directly confronted this fact and why she (and many others) believe that retaining the statue in the middle of campus is important despite Salmon's discriminatory and antiquated views.  They view it as a monument and reminder of how far the college has come and what it has overcome in the name of progress.  The female students embrace the statue, frequently jumping in its arms and kissing it on the cheek for pictures after graduation.  It's a refreshing view of history that I think we could benefit from in the United States.

We saw some cool stuff across campus, including the Samuel Beckett Theater, but the most impressive was definitely the Museum Building.  Built between 1853 and 1857 in the Ruskinian Gothic style, it showcases 13 different types of Irish stones, including Connemara marble.  Found exclusively along Ireland's wild Atlantic coast, the green marble is one of 32 designated Heritage Stones in the world.  I've never seen anything quite like it.  The Museum Building is also home to two Irish elk skeletons, which was quite something to behold.

The campus tour was interesting, but the reason we did it was to gain admission to see Ireland's greatest cultural treasure: The Book of Kells.  Created in the 9th century, the Book of Kells is one of the finest and most famous of an illuminated manuscript in the Insular style.  It is thought to have been begun by Columba at the Abbey of Iona, until he had to flee from viking invaders, and brought the book to the Abbey of Kells where it was finished by others.  There are a lot of theories, legends, and debates regarding its creation and history, but its magnificence is beyond debate.  I've never seen anything quite like it and it blows my mind to think about how they could have created those intricate and vibrant images.  The exhibit was packed to the point of being frustrating and difficult to maneuver around, but it was worth it, even if we only got to see two pages of the book itself.

After passing by the Book of Kells, they send you up into the Long Room, which may be the most fantastic library I have ever seen. It's over 200 feet long and filled with more than 200,000 of the college's oldest books. It was built between 1712 and 1732, and since 1801, the library has been given the right to claim a free copy of every book published in Britain or Ireland! It also includes some extraneous treasures on display, like one of the few remaining copies of the 1916 Proclamation of the Irish Republic that was read outside the General Post Office on April 24, 1916 by Patrick Pearse at the start of the Easter Rising, and a harp from the 1400s (the oldest of its kind) that became the model for the emblem of Ireland. I was also very impressed by their forethought. Large swaths of the Long Room's shelves were barren of books because, following the fire at Notre Dame, the college determined that it also has a similar vulnerability so they are systematically removing books, cleaning them, and restoring them to prevent a similar disaster.

From Trinity College, we set out for lunch. I had heard that the Temple Bar Food Market is one of Dublin's oldest and longest running outdoor foot markets, so we were hoping to check it out. It purportedly runs every Saturday from 9:30-4:00, but we went straight to Meeting House Square and there was no market to be found. Frustrated and a little disappointed, we continued our walk and swung by the hotchpotch complex that is Dublin Castle. Originally built by King John in 1204, the castle was the stronghold of British power in Ireland for more than 700 years. Today, only the Record Tower survives from the original construction, with the rest having been built at various times from the 18th century on. We didn't go inside, but it was a bit surreal to see this bastion of brutality that served as the source of Britain's anti-IRA campaigns and to think that just over 100 years earlier, Michael Collins stood right where we were as the complex was ceremonially handed over to him and the newly formed Provisional Government of Ireland.

Ultimately, we found ourselves right by Darkey Kelly's and decided to stop in for a pint and some lunch because few other places were open at 11:30 am. The food hit the spot and then we were up and walking across town to the Jameson Distillery. On the way, we stopped in another pub for another pint. This one - the Brazen Head - is the oldest pub in Dublin, having been established as a hostelry in 1198. The Irish name for Dublin is Baile Átha Cliath, which means "the town of. the ford and the reed hurdles." It was so named because people used to cross the River Liffey at low tide using reed matting positioned on the river bed. The Brazen Head is located at the spot of that original river crossing! It was a really cool spot and humbling to think about all of the greats who used to frequent it. In fact, James Joyce liked it so much that it makes an appearance in his novel Ulysses.

Lucky for us, the Father Matthew Bridge spans the River Liffey now, so we didn't have to wait for low tide or use reed mats to cross it. The Jameson Distillery was cool, but didn't hold a candle to the Guinness Storehouse. The entire experience was just a little too on-the-nose of an ongoing advertisement, but it was still fun. The most interesting fact I learned on the tour was that in 2006, Jameson redesigned its crest following pressure from sailing enthusiasts. Apparently, they were bothered by the fact that Jameson's ship only had one large mainsail when it should have two. This discrepancy was unacceptable because, were they to create a life-size version of the ship from Jameson's crest, a two-sail design would be much superior to a one-sail design. Honestly, before I read that, I couldn't have told you that Jameson had a sailboat on its crest! I also learned that Jameson has started aging whiskey in old beer barrels and has an IPA cask version. That's the first time I think I've seen liquor aged in beer barrels and not the other way around. We also got to visit the maturation warehouse and drink whiskey pulled directly from the barrel, which was neat.

After Jameson, we walked back over the River Liffey and stopped in at Christ Church Cathedral, which was founded in 1030 under the Viking king Sitric Silkenbeard, and substantially rebuilt in 1172 under the the Norman potentate Strongbow. Interestingly, the church is officially claimed as the seat of both the Church of Ireland and the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland even though in law, and in fact, only the Church of Ireland has used it since the Irish Reformation. The church was beautiful, and the massive crypt underneath was interesting as well. I was most fascinated by these two broken swords displayed in the crypt. One sword is said to have been used by a young soldier accidentally locked in the crypt after the funeral of his commanding officer in 1822. After the funeral service had finished, the soldier lost his way in the warren of piled up coffins in the crypt and was devoured by rats. He was found some time afterwards, still grasping his sword. The weird part comes in the 1950s, when one of the cathedral vergers caught a boy running out of the grounds with a broken sword. He brought it back to the cathedral to hang it up in the Chapter House, where it was displayed, only to discover that the original sword was still in place. The mysterious appearance of the second, identical weapon has never been explained!

As cool as Christ Church was, we were all pretty spent and wanted to get back to the hotel for a quick respite. The walk was about 1.5 miles, but it felt like three times that far. We cut through parts of the city that we hadn't seen before and Kati questioned whether I knew where I was going several times, but we finally got there and took a load off for a few before heading back out.

In the time it took us to get ready for dinner, the sky opened up. It had rained literally every day of our trip, but this was the first time we had seen a torrential downpour. Though we were going to walk to our next destination, we opted for a taxi instead. Farrier & Draper, on South William Street, is probably the most unique and eclectic establishment we had stopped at on our trip. It takes up three floors of the Powerscourt Townhouse and each room is an experience in and of itself. We lucked out and got a table in the Gallery Room, which the hostess assured us was "the best room." It's hard to disagree with her as the extra-high ceilings, paintings from ceiling to floor, and colorful furniture were pretty stunning. On top of that, the cocktails were exquisite. Yet after two rounds, it was time for dinner.

We had saved a particularly special place for our last dinner. Mr. Fox is set in the basement of a gorgeous Georgian townhouse on Parnell Square, where they celebrate Irish ingredients with a cheeky twist. Though it doesn't have a Michelin star yet, many expect it to get one soon. We grabbed a taxi again because it was still raining hard. Along the way, I saw some unexpected graffiti on a transformer box: "I·R·A 20203 Derry." We had seen plenty of remnants of the IRA years in Northern Ireland, but this was the first time I saw something in the Republic of Ireland, and something that was current. I actually haven't been able to stop thinking about it and would love to understand the story behind it.

The food at Mr. Fox was unbelievable! Kati will adamantly disagree with me, but I preferred our meal at Mr. Fox to the one we had at Chapter One. We started with a trio of canapés - Osietra caviar and a chive flower on a deviled egg, a king crap, Yuzu Kosho, and fennel croustade, and a bluefin tuna and sriracha tartlet. All three were amazing. After whetting our appetites, they brought out a langoustine carpaccio, some halibut, and lamb with smoked ricotta, black garlic, and a stuffed zucchini flower. Then, they finished us off with four desserts. The star of the show was definitely their modern take on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I truly cannot begin to describe how incredible that little thing was! We couldn't have asked for a better last dinner on our trip and we savored every second of it. Somehow, the week had flown by but simultaneously felt like we had been there for a lifetime. Reluctantly, but filled to the brim with joy, we piled into the taxi and made our way back to Number 31 Leeson Close to pack our bags for the long journey home.

Passing Through the Boyne Valley

July 21, 2023

It was our second-to-last day in Ireland and we were doing one last day tour, this time up to County Meath to see Brú na Bóinne and the Hill of Tara.  Our tour was through Mary Gibbons, who was this delightfully small Irish lady who showed up like she was going on a safari.  Ultimately though, she didn't actually take us on the tour, leaving us instead with a guide whose name I can't remember, but whom I started calling Colm because his droning tone and propensity to go down tangents off of tangents was reminiscent of Uncle Colm in Derry Girls. Somehow he managed to fill up virtually every second of our hours on the bus with random stories and factoids, some of which were incredible, and some of which just lulled you to sleep.

Our first stop was Brú na Bóinne, which is one of the world's most important prehistoric sites. It contains three massive megalithic passage tombs and somewhere around 90 other monuments. The area has been a center for human settlements for at least 6,000 years and some of Neolithic mounds, chamber tombs, standing stones, henges, and other prehistoric enclosures date to as early as 3,500 BC, predating even Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. The three most prominent of the passage graves at the site are Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth. We were visiting the first two of these.

Our tour started at the visitor center, which was unbelievable. They spared no expense in developing this place and laying out an immersive experience to take you all the way back to the Neolithic period and understand the significance of the area. Then, we took a bus up to Knowth (Cnóbha). It is the largest of the mounds, at 40 feet high and 220 feet in diameter, and is surrounded by 17 smaller satellite tombs. It is dated to around 3,200 BC and contains two passages that run east-to-west and are thought to align with the equinoxes. The passages lead to separate burial chambers, with the eastern passage ends at a cruciform chamber and the western passage is just straight. Unfortunately, neither passage is open to the public, but you are able to climb on top of the mound. The mound lived many lives throughout history and, in the Iron Age, it became the seat of Northern Brega, with the king and his soldiers living on top of it. Apparently, they have excavated the foundations of 15 houses up there, which blows my mind because, while large, it isn't that big. No matter how hard I try, I can't wrap my brain around how people thousands of years ago moved stones that large from as far as 100 miles away without wheels! The stone carvings in the kerbstones lining the tomb are also just unbelievable.

From the top of Knowth, you can also see the Hill of Slane where St. Patrick is said to have lit the first paschal fire in Ireland. At the time, the High King of Ireland ceremonially lit a great fire on the Hill of Tara every spring equinox and it was forbidden to light any other fire until the great fire had been set. Legend says that, in 433, in defiance of the High King Laoire, St. Patrick lit the paschal fire on the Hill of Slane and that, though angry, Laoire was so impressed by St. Patrick's devotion that he allowed him to continue his missionary work. The view was great, but as cool as Knowth was, I was ready to see the inside of a passage tomb.

Newgrange (Sí an Bhrú) is probably the most famous of the passage tombs at Brú na Bóinne. At it's highest point, the tomb is 39 feet high and it's 279 feet across. It has one inner stone passageway that ends in a cruciform chamber with a corbelled vault roof. Amazingly, after nearly six thousand years, this stone chamber is still water-tight! The most incredible thing, however, is that the passageway has a "roofbox" that aligns perfectly with the winter solstice. The stone passageway was constructed with such care and precision that for up 17 minutes during the winter solstice, the light shines perfectly into the otherwise pitch-black chamber and lights it up with an intense golden glow. The fact that it is so well preserved is a miracle, largely attributable to the fact that locals have always associated it with fairies and gods. Most significantly, it is thought to be home to The Dagda, who is the king of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Because of the mythical associations, locals were generally scared to go too close to it.

The rock façade around the tomb is stunning, as is the stone carvings in all of the kerbstones, but the most incredible part is being able to go inside. Entry is highly regulated and they only let 12 people in at a time, which is why we opted for a guided tour of the area. Being inside the chamber was surreal, as was the extent to which it's preserved. Yet by far the coolest part was when the shut off the lights and simulated what it's like to be in there during the winter solstice. They do a lottery to pick the people who have an opportunity to be in the passage during the winter solstice every year and I'm really tempted to start trying.

After exploring Newgrange, we walked down to a nearby farm for lunch and spent a little time walking around to see the farm animals. It was kind of an odd experience because you could tell it was the same kind of farm experience we have in the United States that elementary schools frequent all the time - there were tons of school kids there while we were eating - and yet, to us, it felt uniquely foreign and different.

Our last stop on the day's tour was at the Hill of Tara (Cnoc na Teamhrach). Historically, the site is known as the seat of power for the High Kings of Ireland and it features prominently in Irish mythology. According to legend, five ancient roads met at Tara, linking it with all of the provinces in Ireland. The views from the hill were incredible, and it was easy to see why they chose it as a seat of power. Personally, I was a little underwhelmed by the site because all of the halls and palaces are gone, leaving only the carved out hills and land.

On the bus ride back to Dublin, Colm told us the legend of how the boundaries for Ireland's 32 counties were drawn. It's said that one night Boann, the goddess of the River Boyne, went up to Newgrange and slept with the Dagda, but left early in the morning before he was awake. When the Dagda woke up and found her gone, he was distraught and set off to search all of Ireland for her. He spent years searching the country over and was so weary that he crawled on his hands and knees, dragging his giant penis behind him in the dirt. And that's how the borders to the 32 counties were set out.

We got back to Dublin around 5:00 and spent a little time walking around the shops before heading back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. We had reservations at Glovers Alley in the Fitzwilliam Hotel. It's a chic, Michelin-starred restaurant named in honor of the city's glove makers, who once occupied the neighboring alley. The restaurant itself was stunning and the menu looked excellent, but the experience fell a little flat. The food was very good, but not great, and our waiter (French) spoke so fast and with such a thick accent that it was difficult to understand anything he said. Compared to Chapter One it also just felt a bit stuffy and pretentious. For me, the highlights, besides the unrivaled company, were my BBQ squab pigeon the modernist pseudo-deconstructed chocolate-forward take on tiramisù I ordered for dessert.

After dinner, we decided to change gears entirely and live the pub life. My co-worker Megan had recommended a place called Darkey Kelly's and said that they always have live music. The pub is named after Dorcas "Darkey" Kelly, who operated the Maiden Tower brothel on Copper Alley in the mid-1700s. In 1761, she was burned at the stake for witchcraft after killing a shoemaker on St. Patrick's Day in 1760. Allegedly, however, he was not the only person she killed. They also discovered five bodies under the floorboards of her brothel, suggesting that she may have been Ireland's first serial killer. The pub did not disappoint. The music was excellent and, despite being packed, we managed to snag a table in the back. Our waiter must have been fresh off the boat from Iberia because, while he could understand when you ordered a Guinness, if you ordered anything else, he'd have to run off, grab a menu, and have you point to what you want.

The funniest thing that happened at Darkey Kelly's was Tyler's and Kati's belated realization that Ireland does not have a "slut festival." For the last two days driving through western Ireland, we had been seeing signs for this festival and we were all joking about the slut festival. Tyler brought it up again over drinks and that's when Morgan said, "You know it's not a 'slut' festival, right?" They were both indignant and insistent, so I had to chime in and back Morgan up. I had chalked it up to a joke, but I think it must have been more subliminal dyslexia. There certainly were a lot of signs for a festival - the Sult Festival! "Sult" is an Irish word that roughly translates to "enjoyment" or "satisfaction," and the signs were in reference to a massive music festival from earlier in the month. I cannot begin to describe how hard we laughed over that one.

Riding High in County Wicklow

July 20, 2023

Compared to the rest of the trip so far, this morning was laid back. We had a leisurely breakfast around 8:15 and then headed off toward the Molly Malone statue to hop on a tour bus for the day and explore County Wicklow.

When we reached the statue, we met Johnny who was one of the tour guides. He had a lot of personality and immediately separated the four of us in two different vans because Kati and I were going horseback riding and the Justices were going for a walk. Our first stop was purportedly at the Powerscourt Estate, but we all got a little hoodwinked. Kati and I thought we would be riding around the estate, but ended up going on a forest ride somewhere nearby and never actually saw the estate. The Justices thought they were going to be walking in the garden but ended up going for a hike down from the estate to the town of Enniskerry. Regardless, we all had a great time.

Heading up to the stable was a trip! It was well up a mountain along a one-lane road. We got part of the way up when we ran into an old man driving down. He pointed at us, telling our driver to back up. Our driver, Martin, pointed at him to go back. Then, the old man threw on his parking break, crossed his arms, and Martin jumped out of the van to go talk to him. By all appearances, Martin was handling the situation very well, but the old man just continued to yell at him. By the time Martin huffed back into the van, there was a line of cars behind the old man. Martin informed us that the guy was crazy, did not understand the rules, and refused to give way to a bus full of people (as is the law). He had also taken the old man's registration and intended to call the authorities on him. Still, Martin relented and backed up to let the old man pass before we got back on our way. As the other cars passed us, Martin insisted on telling all of them that he was very sorry and that the old man doesn't understand the law.

The horseback riding was very cool and it was extra-special because it was Kati's first time riding a horse! The stable was this quaint little place up the side of a hill and there were tons of little kids in riding camp when we arrived. There were seven of us riding that morning, and the guide had us stand up against the wall of the barn. Then he pointed at one of the obnoxious college kids on our tour and loudly said, "Cracker!" It took all of us by surprise and nobody knew what to say until we finally realized that Cracker was the name of the horse he had been assigned. Kati was assigned to Ned and I was assigned to Cruise. From the barn, we set off on a 90-minute trail ride. The trail was unbelievably muddy and none of the horses particularly liked walking through the mud so they routinely decided not to listen to instruction and try to deviate from the rocky, muddy path. About a third of the way through, the girl leading the ride fell of her horse when he missed a step and went down on his front knees! Luckily, neither she nor the horse were hurt. Ned and Cruise also both missed steps at different points but were thankfully able to correct it and avoid tossing us. The ride was a lot of fun and we even got to do a bit of trotting.

After the ride, we hopped back into the van to go down into Enniskerry for lunch. Though we thought we'd be able to meet up with the Justices for lunch, we weren't that lucky. We spent some time talking to some of the other folks on our tour, but none of them had much merit. There was a couple from Texas who were spending five days in Dublin because they couldn't bear the thought of losing half a day traveling to see something else, and an older foursome focused primarily on golf and money. We did, however, run into a few interesting locals, including a guy who was biking with his brother and bickering about what clothes they should account for the constantly changing weather. The whole town also seemed perplexed as to why we were there, which made no sense considering the tour we were on stopped there every day.

From Enniskerry, we headed up into the Wicklow Mountains. The one-lane road up was treacherous, but the views were phenomenal. Our first stop was at what they've come to call the P.S. I Love You Bridge, which was just a random bridge in the national park until became the site of Gerard Butler's and Hillary Swank's meet-cute in P.S. I Love You. It was a picturesque location, if not a somewhat silly and kitschy stop, but the most interesting part was the water. The stream running under the bridge was eerily red and almost black because of the extremely high iron content in the rocks it was coming out of.

Next, we stopped off at a cliff overlooking Lough Tay, which is fed by the same iron-rich water that runs under the P.S. I Love You Bridge and into the Cloghoge River, giving it a deep black color like strong tea. These days, however, it's better known as Guinness Lake because it was formerly owned by the Guinness family and some claim they imported white sand to put on the north beach so the entire lake looks like a giant pint of Guinness. it is also famous for being the setting for parts of Braveheart, Excalibur, and Vikings. For me, there was on added reason to visit the lake - one of my favorite philosophers, Bertrand Russell, was profoundly impacted by visiting the lake as a child. And it's easy to see why. It is yet another landscape unlike any other.

The main attraction of our trip was Glendalough (Gleann Dá Loch) - the 'valley of two lakes.' It is home to one of the most important monastic sites in Ireland, founded by St. Kevin in the sixth century. Kevin was a descendent of one of the ruling families in Leinster, but he eschewed all worldly comforts and moved to Glendalough in order to avoid the company of his followers. There, he lived as a hermit in a very small, partially man-made cave now known as St. Kevin's Bed. For seven years, he lived as a hermit, wearing only animal skins and sleeping on stones. Yet Kevin started attracting disciples that moved to Glendalough. By 540, St. Kevin's fame as a teacher and a holy man had spread far and wide, with many people seeking his help and guidance. As a result, Glendalough grew into a renowned seminary for saints and scholars, and an entire monastic city sprung up in the area.

First, we stopped in at the lower lake. On the way there, Martin had another run-in with two cars on a one-lane road. This time, it was a German couple in a rented RV that didn't want to back up or move because there were five cars lined up behind them. Martin, however, persevered and was successful in persuading them to give way. During the exchange, one of the less-than-enjoyable people in the van loudly commented about how sad it was that the German man was "making" his wife drive the RV. I just don't understand people sometimes. While the lower lake was pretty, it didn't hold a candle to the monastic city. The most impressive building in the monastic city is the Round Tower, which stands 100 feet high. The door is almost 12 feet off the ground, requiring a ladder to get in, but it can't be climbed today because the six original floors with wooden landings are no longer there. Other key sites in the city include St. Mary's Church, the 12th century Romanesque Priest's House, St. Kevin's Church, also known as St. Kevin's Kitchen, St. Peter and St. Paul's Cathedral. The cathedral was by far the most imposing, despite being the most ruined. I could have stayed at Glendalough for hours and regret that we weren't able to see everything, so we may just have to go back for a longer stay.

The hour(ish) drive back to Dublin was a much needed respite from a day of tours and gave us an opportunity to nap before an evening out. We had dinner at The Winding Stair, which sits right beside the Ha' Penny Bridge. It was a quaint little bookshop and restaurant that became a Dublin institution in the 1970s and was a popular meeting place for writers, musicians, and artists. It closed in 2005, but in 2006 was saved and brought back to life, with a restaurant on the second floor, up the winding staircase that gave the shop its name. The food was very good. Kati and Tyler got some smoked ox tongue that I tried, but didn't care for, and we shared some tasty potted Dingle Bay crab t and a piggy scotch egg with bacon dust may to start.  For mains, Tyler and I both got the Pigs on the green pork cutlet, which may have been one of the best pieces of pork I've ever eaten.  Kati got some Irish cod, and Morgan ordered an incredible looking Irish striploin.

After dinner, we made the obligatory stop in at The Temple Bar (est. 1840), which is the most photographed pub façade in Dublin and gave its name to the entire area of bars in which it sits.  It was packed to the gills, but for good reason.  It knows exactly what it is and plays its part perfectly, with excellent live music, a buzzy atmosphere, and everything you think of when you imagine an Irish pub.  On the way back to one of the bars, an English guy stopped me because of the Charlotte FC jacket I was wearing and asked if I was from Charlotte.  As it turns out, he's going to UNC in Raleigh, so we had a nice chat for a few minutes.  After a quick drink though, we had to leave because we had a reservation at a vastly different type of establishment - The Blind Pig.

The Blind Pig was a late add to our itinerary based on a recent trip that one of Kati's friends made, but I'm glad we heard about it.  It's an underground speakeasy hidden in the middle of Dublin.  It is so well tucked away, in fact, that we walked past it more than once.  The bar is named after the police who turned a blind eye to the liquor rooms of 1920s prohibition, and was initially established as a pop up in 2011, but has now become a permanent institution.  The drinks were outstanding and the live jazz music provided a great accompaniment.

Guinness for Strength!

July 19, 2023

From Keash, we set off across the country to Dublin.  In the process, we crossed through the rural Midlands through Counties Roscommon, Leitrim, Longford, Westmeath, Meath, Kildare.  Yet again, they offered a vastly different landscape than we had seen before - much more pastoral.  The only notable event from our drive was when we stopped off at a gas station and ran into a big group of twentysomething (and maybe thirtysomething) soccer hooligans gearing up for a Celtic FC match.  One of them had just parked his car in the middle of the drive into the gas station, making it difficult for us to get by.  Otherwise, we reached the Dublin airport in great time, dropped our rental car, and hopped in cabs to the city.

We were staying in Number 31, a hotel with which neither of our taxi drivers was apparently familiar.  Kati and my driver tried to drop us at The Merrion Hotel, which is one of the most expensive hotels in the city.  When we redirected him, he derisively asked, "Is that one of those expensive artsy hotels?  No offense."  In truth, that kind of summed up Number 31 (in a good way).  The hotel sits in the home of Sam Stephenson, who lived there in the 1950s and may be Dublin's most famous modernist architect.  The lobby of the hotel is in Sam's sunken lounge, which is listed as one of the 100 places to see in Dublin and was a draw for many international names, including Henry Kissinger.  The art deco hotel is split between Number 31 Leeson Close and another Georgian mansion across a beautifully manicured secret garden.  The art deco rooms are uniquely themed around various jazz musicians.  Ours door was painted for Duke Ellington and Billie Holiday while the Justices' was painted for Ella Fitzgerald and Bird (Charlie Parker).

Once again, we got to the hotel before our rooms were ready, so we ran down the street Madigans Pub for a quick bite and then walked down to Merrion Square where we poked our head in the National Gallery.  The gallery was very oddly laid out and confused us enough that we lost a lot of the time we had to spend exploring the more interesting Irish collections, but it was particularly neat to see several sculptures from Auguste Rodin.  Of course it was also cool to see works by Picasso, Monet, and Degas, but I was also a little mad at myself after we left because I had forgotten the reason I wanted to go there in the first place.  It's home to Caravaggio's The Taking of Christ.  Alas.  Maybe next time.

We didn't have a ton of time to spend at the National Gallery because we had a 4:30 reservation at the Guinness Storehouse.  I was excited to visit Guinness, but I underestimated just how excited Morgan and Tyler were.  Our 1.5-mile taxi ride there took us more than 20 minutes and the most anxious I've seen Morgan was during that ride when she thought we might be late!  To say that Guinness did a good job with the experience would be an understatement.  They walk you through everything, starting from the individual ingredients and the history of the Guinness family, to the history of advertisements and a tasting room wafting in the scents underlying the beer.  It was filled with unbelievable facts, like that Guinness purchases two-thirds of the malting barley grown on the island of Ireland every year, and hilarious old-school advertisements.  The gravity bar, seven stories up, also offered outstanding views of the city with which we were still trying to acclimate ourselves.

Dinner was what I had been most excited about.  I had woken up at 4:00 am months earlier to book us a table at Chapter One, which has two Michelin stars.  Not just that, we had scored the coveted demi salle table, built into a reclaimed and refurbished cellar space.  The experience did not disappoint!  We started with a series of canapés that blew our minds.  The first was a cherry tomato that they had somehow filled with soup so it exploded when you bit into it.  The second was a sea trout tartlet, and the third was this delicious bignet-style ball stuck into a blackened piece of bog wood.  For our first course, I chose the mackerel tartare with oyster bavarois, kohlrabi, Kaluga hybrid caviar, and spiced elderflower bouillon while the others all went with foie gras royale with apple, walnut, and smoked eel.  Tyler and Morgan weren't too keen on the foie gras, so they passed it on to Kati who was literally giggling and shaking with excitement as she ate it!  After the first course, we also learned that we got different breads between each course.  Kati liked the butter that came with the first bread so much that she stopped the waiter to ask what was in it.  He proudly said, "That's just real butter.  Real Irish butter."  Next we had BBQ Donegal lobster, followed by roast Normandy yellow chicken "Demi-Deuli."  Both were truly phenomenal.  I broke from the group again for dessert and ordered the wild and cultivated strawberries, vanilla, and violet, while everyone else went for the grand cru coffee dessert in three services.  My dessert only came with two, and apparently the waiters didn't want me to feel left out when everyone else had three desserts, so they brought me a third too!  After an amazing 3+ hour dinner, we were all wiped so we opted not to head out for more drinks and went to bed instead.

Gateway to Fairyland

July 19, 2023

Another early(ish) morning, another unique destination.  We were leaving County Sligo and heading into Dublin, but had one more stop to make along the way.  The Caves of Keash (Uaimheanna na Céise) are a series of 16 limestone caves on the west side of Keshcorran Hill, some of which are interconnected.  The caves have been used by men for thousands of years and are believed to have been the site of ancient religious practices and gatherings.  They also feature prominently in Irish mythology.  For example, they are said to be the entryway into the magical middle earth-esque realm of the supernatural Tuatha Dé Danann, who inhabited Ireland before men and are often associated with leprechauns and fairies.  Cormac mac Airt - Ireland's most famous High King - is also said to have been born at the foot of the hill, carried of in infancy by a she-wolf, and reared in the caves by the wolf before being found by a hunter, returned to his mother, and crowned to rule over Ireland during its golden age.  Even the legendary Finn McCool (Fionn mac Cumhaill) is tied to the caves through multiple stories, ranging from visiting a smith inside them to get enchanted weapons to angering witches on a wild boar hunt.

 

The weather in the morning left something to be desired.  It started pouring when we got in the car, but had let up by the time we parked to start our ascent.  When we arrived, there were two cars there.  One belonged to a farmer who had driven up to the field to feed his cattle and the other appeared to be an abandoned van.  Further causing confusion was the sign on the gate blocking the path declaring that the caves were closed for lambing season.  It took us longer than I care to admit to realize that the dates printed on the sign were from months earlier, so they weren't relevant.  As it turns out, our walk to the caves might have been the only time throughout our entire trip thus far that we hadn't seen any sheep at all!

The hike up the hill was quite steep and Morgan joked that I must have just looked for hikes that got progressively harder for each consecutive day.  The good news though, was that, while steep and muddy, the hike wasn't very long.  We got up to the first cave in no time and it was pretty cool, even if the weather wasn't perfect.  They were so big that it was easy to see why people had sought refuge in them for so long.  And some of them were so deep that the legends of being a passageway to a magical realm also seemed plausible.  We made our way across the side of the hill, stopping in each cave as we passed it.  When we reached the last one, the rain started up again, so we quickly turned and headed back down.

As we were changing shoes in the car and packing up to head out, I heard a door behind me.  Turns out that the abandoned van wasn't abandoned.  Rather, there was a really odd French couple living in it!  They didn't so much as acknowledge that we were there, much less engage with us.  Instead, they just went on doing weird hobo French people things like lounging in uncomfortable looking positions, smoking cigarettes, and making coffee in the parking lot.  It was bizarre, but we were off to Dublin!

Exploring Yeats Country

July 18, 2023

We set off for Sligo early in the morning, before the Rusty Mackerel staff showed up at 8:00 am.  It was supposed to be another big hiking day.  The plan was to hike the two big mountains around Sligo - Benbulben in the morning and Knocknarea in the afternoon.  But the Sliabh Liag hike took its toll on both Kati's and Tyler's knees, so we called a bit of an audible and decided to skip the morning hike in order to preserve their knees for the afternoon.  Instead, we decided to stop off at the Glencar Waterfall in County Letrim.  It was an easy 0.4 mile "hike" from the road along a paved path, but Kati's knee was still bothering her a lot, so she opted to nap in the car while Tyler, Morgan, and I headed up to the waterfall.

The path to Glencar meandering along the side of the cascading stream, up through the wooded glen to the main attraction.  It was easy to tell when we were close to the waterfall because the temperature dropped by what felt like 15 degrees.  At 50 feet tall, the romantic waterfall is something to behold and it's easy to see how it inspired William Butler Yeats's poem 'The Stolen Child':

Where the wandering water gushes

From the hills above Glen-Car,

In pools among the rushes

That scarce could bathe a star,

We seek for slumbering trout

And whispering in their ears

Give them unquiet dreams;

Leaning softly out

From Ferns that drop their tears

Over the young streams.

Come away, O human child!

To the waters and the wild

With a faery, hand in hand,

For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

The shores of Glencar Lake, into which the waterfall flows, were also serenely beautiful and calming.  It turned out to be the perfect interlude for the morning drive into Sligo.

From Glencar, we drove to the Carrowmore Megalithic Cemetery. The name Carrowmore comes from. the Irish Cheathrú Mhór, meaning "the great quarter." It is a very fitting name for one of the largest clusters of megalithic monuments and tombs in Ireland (and in Europe). There are 30 surviving tombs at the site, all constructed around 6,000 years ago in the 4th millennium BC. The most in-tact and impressive of the tombs is Tomb 51, known as Listoghil, which reaches a height of approximately 8 feet and included a chamber large enough to walk in. It was very cool!

Our exploration of cairn culture continued with Knocknarea (Cnoc na Riabh). At 1,073-feet tall, it is a striking mountain overlooking Sligo and the Atlantic coast. At the top sits Queen Maeve's Cairn (Miosgán Meadhbha). Outside of Brú na Bóinne in County Meath, it is the largest cairn in Ireland, measuring 180-feet wide and 33-feet high. Legend has it that mythical Queen Maeve (Medb) is buried there, standing upright in her armor and holding her sword and shield, facing north toward her eternal enemies in Ulster. The hike up Knocknarea was a beast! The path seemed to get steeper and steeper the closer you got to the top, but the view was well worth it. The cairn was pretty incredible, but the views of the surrounding area were the real stars.

The summit offered an outstanding view of flat-topped Benbulben (Binn Ghulbain), which at 1,726-feet is visible from any point in County Sligo. Though I was sad about skipping our ascent of Benbulben that morning, the real beauty of the mountain is looking onto it, not out from it. It really was something! The other interesting sight we saw from the top was in Sligo Bay. The tide had gone out considerably and there were dozens of cars just driving across the partially dried up bay! We all agreed that the idea of driving across that soft sand was not something we wanted to try.

After carefully descending Knocknarea, we headed over to Strandhill, which is a quaint littler surfing town. More importantly, it's where we were going to have a seaweed bath! I had booked these baths months ago and yet remained skeptical about whether I would enjoy sitting. in a bath with slimy seaweed when I don't like touching it to begin with. Nevertheless, it has been a traditional therapeutic technique in western Ireland for centuries, so I felt like I had to try it. Plus, I'd read a decent amount of scientific literature discussing how seaweed baths lower body stress, relieve skin conditions, treat muscle aches, and joint stiffness, and improve circulatory problems. They started us off in a steam room to open our pores, and then Kati and I hopped in our side-by-side bathtubs overlooking the Atlantic ocean. Somehow the experience was both gross and enjoyable all at once. They encouraged us to drape the seaweed all over our bodies and in our hair. Doing so left a really slimy film that felt very similar to the inside of an aloe leaf. Still, I kind of loved it and there is no denying that the experience left us all relaxed beyond belief.

Having thoroughly explored the surrounding area, it was time to head into Sligo proper. We were staying at The Glasshouse, which is a very modern, mostly glass, hotel built in the middle of downtown Sligo, right on the Garavogue River. The modernity of the hotel caused a bit of an uproar with the locals when it was built a few years back, but it was a great spot and we had balconies overlooking some rapids on the river. We took a whirlwind tour of the town, stopping to see the memorial statue of W.B. Yeats and peeking into the Sligo Abbey, which was built around 1252, burned down by an unattended candle in 1414, rebuilt, and then further destroyed during a rebellion in 1641. The quaint little town also has several beautiful bridges crossing over the river along the gently curving streets of shops and pubs. We ended our tour in Thomas Connolly's which is the oldest pub in Sligo, having been first licensed in 1861. Thomas Connolly himself even became mayor of Sligo in 1890!

We had dinner reservations at another gastropub in town - Hargadons (est. 1868). It is a charming little place with uneven floors, antique signage, and snug corners. Plus, the food and drinks were outstanding. Thus far in the trip, Morgan had found a somewhat surprising and embarrassing drink that she really liked - the Pornstar Martini. As we were ordering drinks, she gravitated toward the passionfruit martini. I asked her if she was sure she didn't want a Pornstar Martini, at which point the waiter quipped, "They're the same thing." Between the four of us, we got an ungodly amount of food - seafood chowder, flame-grilled Irish ribeyes, and mussels. We ordered two things of mussels and they brought out two large pots full of them! It was so much food that we didn't even come close to finishing them. The other funny moment happened when I went to the bathroom. There was an English guy in there who insisted on talking to me and asking me where I was from. I politely told him and asked him where he was from. He said, "Lincolnshire, England" and asked me if I'd ever heard of it. I said that I had, though I wasn't super-familiar with it and offered up the fact that I had lived in England for a number of months as a child. He asked me where, and when I said Woking, he said he'd never heard of it!

After dinner, we headed back to Thomas Connolly's for live music. It was a trio of girls who looked like they may have been in high school, or perhaps they were young university students. Regardless, they were great and just jammed out on Irish songs on their violins and harp. We ended up sitting with a trio of women from Canada and, after pushing them on where specifically they were from "outside of Toronto," learned that they live in Burlington which is where my best friend and college roommate was from and still lives. Somewhat surprisingly, they didn't know Shawn or his family, but they do all teach at the local high school where we went for breakfast after a freezing cold 10K race a number of years ago! Talk about a small world! We had a blast chatting with them while listening to the music before finally turning in to get some rest for yet another eventful day in the morning.

Walking in the Footsteps of Giants

July 17, 2023

Today was the day on the trip that I had been most looking forward to. In fact, I planned the entirety of our jaunt through Northern Ireland, and eschewed visiting the south, because I wanted to see the Giant’s Causeway (Clochán an Aifir). It is the only UNESCO World Heritage Site in Northern Ireland. We were also staying in the Causeway Hotel because that meant we could get down to the Causeway early in the morning, before the crowds. The plan worked like a dream and the Causeway did not disappoint.

According to legend, the Irish giant Finn McCool (Fionn mac Cumhaill) built the Causeway after the Scottish giant Benandonner challenged him to a fight. When Finn crossed the bridge and realized Benandonner was much larger, he returned to Ireland where his wife Sadhbh disguised him as a baby and tucked him in a cradle. When Benandonner saw the size of the "baby," he decided that its father (Finn) must be a giant among giants, so he fled back to Scotland in fright, destroying the causeway behind him so that Finn would not be able to chase him down. According to legend, all that remains from the destroyed causeway are its ends—the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland and the island of Staffa in Scotland.

We set off down to the Causeway around 7:30 am amidst overcast skies but no rain. There literally wasn’t another soul there when we got down. After spending a solid 90 minutes down at the Causeway, we set back up to the hotel for breakfast, followed by a quick stop off in the Visitor Experience. It was a good thing we went down to the Causeway early, because when we walked out of the hotel after breakfast, it was pouring rain!

Because we had retooled our plan to stop back by the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, we started our way back east along the Causeway Coast. Our first stop was Dunseverick Castle (Dún Sobhairce), which was first fortified by the ancient chieftain Sobhairce by at least the 5th century, became the center for the Earls of Ulster between 1250 and 1350, and the stronghold for the MacDonnells beginning in 1560. Saint Patrick is recorded as having visited the castle where he baptized Olcán, the future Bishop of Ireland. The castle was finally captured and destroyed by Cromwell's troops in the 1650s and all that remains today is the gatelodge.

From there, we drove east, passing the white sand beaches of Whitepark Bay. The four of us spent an embarrassing amount of time discussing how it could possibly be that there were people down on the beach on such a chilly and rainy morning only to finally realize that they weren’t people at all, but cows! Our next stop was down winding and treacherous road in Ballintoy (Baile an Tuaighe) Harbor, which is where they filmed a number of scenes for Game of Thrones, including those for the Iron Islands’ Lordsport Harbour. The harbour was built in large part because of the nearby lime kiln that was built in the 1700s and redeveloped a century later. Additionally, in the late 1800s, sett stones, hewn in nearby quarries were exported from the harbour to pave the streets of fast-developing industrial cities like Dublin and Liverpool. The harbour offered yet another incredible view of the northern Irish landscape.

Finally, it was time to head back to the Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge, and I hadn’t gotten any notification that the bridge was closed today, so we were all excited and hopeful. The bridge itself is 60-feet long and 3-feet wide, spanning the 90-foot-deep chasm between the sea cliffs and the tiny island of Carrick-a-Rede. The island's name comes from the Gaelic Carraig-a-Rade, which means "The Rock in the Road." It was named such because the island represented an obstacle for the migrating Atlantic salmon. The rope bridge was first erected by fishermen in 1755, but the fish are long gone now. because of fishing pressure at sea and river pollution. The last fish was caught at Carrick-a-Rede in 2002 when the last fisherman on the island retired after 30 years.

The trail from the car park to the bridge was a little over a mile, winding up and down the sea cliffs and past fields and fields of sheep. As we were walking down, we passed a group of four girls - seemingly American college students - who made a series of less-than-astute observations about the Troubles and the political challenges of Northern Ireland. The penultimate decision they reached to resolve these political challenges was that if they just changed the name of Londonderry to “Derry Londonderry.” Apparently that simple change had the power to resolve literal centuries of religious and political disagreement. At that point, I had to speed walk to get as far away from their ignorant idiocy as possible.

The bridge and the island were both really cool! Kati had been on the fence about crossing the bridge before the trip, but managed to summon the courage to do it (and enjoy it). There’s still an old fisherman’s house built into the steep side of the island and all I could think about the whole time was how it just doesn’t seem possible to live in a house like that…on an island like that! Like so many things along the Causeway Coast, it was just mind blowing. Equally mind blowing was the fact that, on our walk back, Kati turned to me and said, “Is she wearing a Transy jacket?!” As it turns out, not only was she wearing a Transy jacket, but her husband (also wearing a matching jacket) is the President of Transylvania University! We stopped to chat with them for a few minutes and marvel about how small the world is and how, without fail, when we go somewhere, we run into other people from Kentucky.

We made one last stop in County Antrim before setting off for the wild Atlantic coast of Donegal in Portrush (Port Rois) to grab a quick bite to eat. Portrush was packed with people and bears a lot of similarities to the Jersey Shore. It’s a seaside resort town and the focal point of the downtown area is a boardwalk full of carnival rides, putt putt, and the likes. We tried to stop off at Kiwis Brew Bar for lunch and some craft beer, but we got there at noon and they didn’t start serving food until 1:00. As much as we wanted to try it out, we had places to be and no time to linger. Unfortunately, the next several places along the street that we tried to stop at to eat were also closed, so our options were limited. Finally, we found nondescript hotel restaurant to get a burger and head back into the Republic of Ireland and on to the Irish equivalent of the Wild Wild West - County Donegal.

Donegal - The Craic Was Ninety

July 17, 2023

The drive from Portrush to Ardara should have taken about two hours, but we ran into a lot of traffic between Derry and Letterkenny, which really stressed me out because our next stop was at the Sliabh Liag Distillery and I had been looking forward to tasting their gin for months.  Even with about a 30-minute buffer, we found ourselves running late for our 4:00 pm tour by about 20 minutes.  I called the distillery at about 3:45 to let them know what was going on and see what our options were.  Unfortunately, they said that they couldn’t hold the tour up for us because by the time we showed up they would have gone through all of the safety information and the tour would be half over.  The could, however, do a tasting for us with one of their distillers.  Between the four of us, we’ve been to dozens of distilleries and we were all floored and confused by the fact that there was a safety briefing.  Oh well.  I’ve been to enough distilleries that what I really cared about was not getting a tour, but tasting their products, so everything probably worked out for the best.  The folks at the distillery were wonderful, though the lady at the front desk (whom I spoke to on the phone) was shocked that we ran into traffic in Donegal and made multiple comments about it during the 45 minutes or so that we were there.  Her confusion made sense because there really wasn't any traffic in Donegal, but it did have some of the most quintessential and stereotypical Irish scenes.  For example, while we were driving, we passed by an old man in a full, black suit and hat shoveling gravel on the road outside of a church, not to mention all of the sheep walking in and along the roads!

Our tasting guide was Declan, the son of the distillery’s owners, and he was a delight. He was born in England, spent a while living in Hong Kong, and then moved to Ireland.  His parents distill Silkie Irish Whiskey, and Declan helps his mom distill what I sought them out for - An Dúlamán Gin.  They use a 500-liter, hand-hammered copper still and five types of Donegal seaweed; one of which can only be harvested during a full moon, when the tides are right.  It turns out that Declan was actually the person who harvested that seaweed!  The An Dúlamán totally lived up to expectations!  We also tried another gin that Declan helped develop and three Silkie Irish Whiskeys.  The whiskeys are named after the mythological silkies - women who can shift their shape between human and seal.  The whiskey tasting was fascinating because Declan taught us all about peat and smokiness.  I don't typically like peated whiskeys, but it was very interesting to taste the differences between slightly peated whiskey and heavily peated whiskey.  They were actually pretty good!  After the tasting, Declan and everyone else then had a good time making fun of me as I grabbed more and more gin off of the shelves to buy.  Declan also felt so bad that about us missing our tour that he offered to take us into the back and show us around, but we declined to get on our way to the Sliabh Liag (“sleeve league”).

Though the Cliffs of Moher get more publicity, the cliffs of Sliabh Liag are higher.  In fact, they are the highest sea cliffs in Europe, plunging over 1,800 feet into the churning sea.  The hike up to the cliffs was pretty steep and followed a gravel road with dozens of sheep roaming free throughout the area.  Kati desperately wanted to pet one and tried, but it did not go well and the irritated sheep clip-clopped away.  There aren’t words to describe the sublimity of the cliffs, and the higher we climbed, the more unbelievable it got.  Kati and Tyler were both having some knee pains but couldn’t turn down climbing higher and higher.  By the time we reached the pinnacle of our climb (but not the highest point on the cliffs), it was about 7:00 pm and we were getting hungry so we started our trek down.

We were holding up for the night at the Rusty Mackerel, which is the closest inn to the Sliabh Liag and, surprisingly for a pub in the middle of nowhere, named the Best Gastro Pub in Ireland in 2022.  When I opened the door to the pub, I was met with a slew of old Irish guys loudly carrying on in Irish in a dark wooden room that had been decorated with random signs and pictures over the course of decades.  It was exactly what I had expected Donegal to be!  We also lucked out because we rolled in right at 8:00 and the kitchen closed at 8:00, but they promised to squeeze us in.  Tyler and I both went with the prawns and monkfish.  It was kind of like shrimp scampi, if you replaced all of the pasta with cheese!  Definitely good, but also way too much food.

The rooms left something to be desired.  They appeared to be rapidly built permanent trailers behind the pub, but they got the job done and we were only going to be in them for a matter of hours.  At 9:30, the live music started and the pub rapidly to fill up with locals.  Morgan headed off to bed and Kati followed after her a little while later, leaving Tyler and me to our own devices.  The guitarist was great and played a nice mix of traditional Irish songs and modern music.  

Tyler - no surprise to anyone - managed to befriend some of the locals.  When getting us drinks at the bar, he was talking to one guy about how we had hiked up the Sliabh Liag earlier in the evening and how many sheep there were just roaming around.  They guy said, "Oh those are Martin's sheep!" and pointed over to a guy across the bar who raised his glass in acknowledgement that he was, in fact, Martin.  There was also another rowdy group of locals right behind us, clearly speaking Irish.  The were having a grand time and we couldn't understand a word they were saying.  That is, until one of them switched from Irish to English and very clearly said over the quieted bar, "And that's when I said once you go black you never go back!"

I headed back to the room around 10:30 pm so that Kati and I could call the kids together, but Tyler stuck around for a bit longer and said it got a bit rowdy.  It was John's birthday and, at some point, the local bus driver brought his bus to pick John up and take him home.  Apparently his wife and daughter we already there at the bar celebrating, and instead of quietly heading out, when he showed up, he was whisked onto the dance floor and passed around square dance style.  The Rusty Mackerel was everything I expected from Donegal and so much more!

Exploring County Antrim

July 16, 2023

From Belfast Castle, we set off on our journey through County Antrim and its mystical landscape of rock formations, ruined castles, and wooded glens.  Our first stop in Antrim was at the Dark Hedges.  They were planted by the Stuart family in the 18th century as the formal entrance to their property, but the gnarled and intertwined beech trees became famous as the site as the Kingsroad in Game of Thrones.  Before the trip, I had heard that the Dark Hedges, while really cool, were a bit of a disappointment because there were tons of tour buses parked nearby and too many people to truly appreciate the site.  That, however, was not our experience.  Though there were a decent number of people, it wasn’t overwhelming and the street was still very cool.

For lunch, we stopped off in the harbor-town of Ballycastle, which marks the eastern end of the Causeway Coast, and found a small pub to grab a quick bite before continuing our tour. The town was everything you would expect in rural Ireland - narrow roads winding up and down rolling hills, flanked on both sides with picturesque and colorful storefronts. We also got to drive along the harbor as we started our trek down the Causeway Coast.

Our first stop along the coast was Kinbane Castle (Caisleán Ceinn Bán), which was a late-add to fill our puffin void and perhaps the highlight of the day. The ruined castle was built in 1547 by Colla MacDonnell, then rebuilt in 1555 following an English siege. What is left of the castle sits on a limestone headland jutting out from basalt cliffs with incredible views of both Rathlin Island and Scotland. We had to descend 140 stairs from the top of the cliff to reach the castle, but wow! I can’t imagine a more picturesque location.

Next on the itinerary was the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, but we arrived to find that it was closed for the

day due to extreme winds. Luckily, everything along the Causeway Coast is relatively close together and I was able to rejigger our plans tomorrow and get reservations to come back to the bridge in the morning. We did walk down to the rope bridge, which was a much longer walk than I had anticipated (~1.2 miles), but then set off to Dunlace (Dún Libhse) Castle. In contrast to Kinbane Castle, Dunluce (“dun-loose”) Castle is pretty well preserved for being centuries old. It is perched atop a dramatic basalt crag and there is a narrow bridge that leads from the former guest lodgings and stables across a dizzying gap to the main part of the fortress. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the castle was the seat of the MacDonnell family (the earls of Antrim from 1620). What amazed me the most about the castle (besides the setting and the view) was the fact that three of four of the bay windows are virtually undamaged beyond the lack of glass. Dunlace Castle was very cool, but personally I think Kinbane Castle was the more impressive and stunning site.

By the time they kicked us out of Dunlace Castle at 5:00 pm, it was time to go to our hotel and get ready for dinner. We were staying at the Causeway Hotel (est. 1844) because it is right at the Giant’s Causeway and offers unfettered access before the visitors experience and parking lots open up.

Dinner was at Bushmills Inn, which is an old coaching inn dating back to around 1608. It has peat fires, gas lamps, a secret library, and a round tower, and the old 17th century stables are now used as a restaurant that uses local produce to make local dishes. The food was good across the board, but the stars of the show were the savory goats' cheesecake and the sticky toffee pudding. After dinner, we returned to the hotel and grabbed one last round of local craft beers before turning in for the night.

Climbing the Slumbering Giant

July 16, 2023

My alarm went off far too soon; 6:30 am to be exact.  I had slept like a baby, but it still wasn’t enough and getting our of bed was a mental high-jump.  We hadn’t spent enough time in our room to really unpack things, so the packing part was easy.  Despite the beauty of our Victorian room, the massive bathroom, and the stunningly massive porcelain bathtub, the shower was the most coffin-like enclosure I have ever stepped into.  It couldn’t have been more than two feet wide on each side and the rain shower head over top meant that I barely had enough room to get my hair out of the water to put shampoo in it!  We met the Justices downstairs in the dining room around 7:00 am for breakfast.  It was then that I learned Irish people actually eat real breakfast!  I had prepared for the standard European fare of small pastries, cheeses, meats, and fruit, but instead we got massive omelets, pancakes, bacon, and sausage.  It was quite the nice surprise.  I was a bit anxious at breakfast because it was our first travel day, there were a lot of logistics to keep in mind, and I wanted things to go well.  We had already had to make some last-minute adjustments to the day’s itinerary when the skipper who was going to take us around Rathlin Island to see puffins and seals called me and said he had to cancel our reservation because there was “some guy” that was going “to do crazy stuff in a canoe” and needed him to provide safety training and support.  Unfortunately, he was the only skipper in Ballycastle that ran that type of trip, so we were out of luck and needed to pivot.  I had planned to fill the void with more sightseeing along the Causeway Coast.

After breakfast, Tyler took the wheel so he could try his hand at driving on the wrong side of the road.  He had his moments at the beginning (as did I), but picked it up quickly.  We started our adventure at the impressive Belfast Castle.  It was built in 1870 for the third Marquess of Donegal in the Scottish Baronial style and commands the southern slopes of Cave Hill.  Legend has it that the castle’s residents will experience good fortune only as long as a white cate lives there.  This tale is built into the beautiful gardens surrounding the castle which depicts nine cats in mosaics, paintings, sculptures, and a topiary.  From there, we set off on our hike to the summit of Cave Hill (elev. 1,207 feet), which offers unobstructed views of the entire city, the docks, Belfast Lough, and the Mourne Mountains.  On a clear day, you can even see Scotland!  The hill was originally called Ben Madigan, after the 9th century Ulster king Matudhain.  Atop the summit sits McArt’s Fort, where members of the United Irishmen, including Wolfe Tone, looked down over the city in 1795 and took an oath to fight for Irish independence shortly before they launched the rebellion of 1798.  The hike - 3.6 miles by some estimates and 4.5 by others - was a beast going up, but well worth it.  It was pouring rain on our drive to the castle, but by the time we set off on our hike (10 minutes later) the rain was gone and the sun was burning the clouds away.  However, the sun didn’t do much about the wind which was out in force for the duration of our hike.  During our climb, we passed the five caves that give the hill its name.  The climb got steeper and steeper the closer we got to the top, but the views improved exponentially as well.  The panorama from McArt’s Fort was worth every step and shiver along the way.  It was also something to realize that we were standing on top of the mountain - shaped like a sleeping giant safeguarding the city - that is thought to be the inspiration for Johnathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

The hike back down Cave Hill was significantly easier and blew by.  After reaching the castle again, we strolled through the gardens for a few minutes before hopping in the car and heading north to County Antrim and the Causeway Coast.