Kevin and Anthony's Visit

Kevin and Anthony came to Dublin early Saturday morning. Saturday was rough for them adjusting to the time difference, since they essentially missed a night’s sleep. I took them into the city and showed them the Grafton Street area. Then we went to Temple Bar and had lunch in Fitzsimon’s, my favorite place to get Beef and Guinness Pie. Then we took the bus to the Guinness Storehouse. That had a ridiculous line since it was a cold rainy Saturday afternoon, so we decided to do it another day. We took the bus back to campus and just hung around and I kept yelling at Kevin for sleeping.

The next day we went back to the Guinness Storehouse and bought our tickets ahead of time to cut the line. Before we went I showed them the circle thing with the drop of Guinness in it that was my ticket the last time I went, and I told them they would get one. Apparently a couple of weeks ago they switched to a regular paper ticket, so that was disappointing. The storehouse was cool as always and the gravity bar was fun. I think we had lunch at the Bank that day. That was their favorite bar in Dublin. It’s an old Victorian bank that was converted to a bar but left exactly the same. They really enjoyed the food there. We walked around O’Connell Street after that. That night we went to Temple Bar for drinks, and I liked the guy who was singing there since he did all my favorite pub songs plus Johnny Cash randomly.

On Monday we went out to Kilmainham Gaol, a famous jail in west Dublin. That is where the 1916 uprisers were executed and many other historical events happened there. It was also a location for many movies. It was cool to see, especially after all the Irish history I’ve learned. It was weird that our guide was the same guide I had at Dublin Castle when I went with Caity. After that we got fish and chips at Burdocks which is supposed to be the best in Dublin. Then went to the O’Connell house because I needed to register for Fall classes. That took much longer than I anticipated because I ended up on the phone with the registrar’s office for a long time because of a mistake in a class listing. After that we went to St. Stephens’ Green, which looked so beautiful with all of the flowers in bloom. We had dinner at a pub on Dame Street.

On Tuesday the boys went into the city by themselves while I studied for a quiz and packed. I met them at 5:00 to check into our hostel in Dublin. We were taking two train tours where we had to be at Heuston Station at 6:40am, and since buses don’t run until 6:30am, I decided to stay in the city rather then take a taxi all the way from campus. Next I went to Theology class. Afterwards Kelly and I met up with Kevin and Anthony and we went to Porterhouse.

The next morning we woke up at 5:30am for our tour. We walked to the train station, which took a solid 20 minutes since it is really west of the city centre. Then we had a 3 hour train ride to Cork. The train was very nice and new. When we got to Cork we transferred to a minibus and rode to Blarney. There we climbed to the top of Blarney Castle and kissed the Blarney stone. Blarney castle was very cool – the stairs were very windy and the stairwells narrow, and you could go in any of the rooms you found. I felt badly for the older people on our tour and a man who was heavy because it was not easy to climb and some parts were extremely narrow.

At the top we laid down as an older man helped us slide back, grab the rails, lean down, and kiss the stone. It was pretty cool, and we got some great pictures. After that we went to a pub in Blarney for lunch and shopped at Blarney Woolen Mills. I got a Belleek claddagh frame for my parents for their anniversary, which was kind of a bad idea in hindsight since I had to travel the rest of the time with it.

Next we got back on the bus and headed to Cobh, going through the Cork city centre. Cork was a nice city. We randomly stopped at a graveyard because Bob wanted to show us where the people from the Lusitania were buried. Bob was our tour guide who was an old man completely full of blarney. I loved him and he was highly entertaining, but he didn’t add any information of value to the tour. It was funny at one point when he asked if people knew what blarney was and some man yelled out “Yeah, you’re full of it!”

We stopped in Cobh (pronounced Cove), which is a nice village on the east coast of Ireland. We went to a beautiful cathedral there, then a museum about the Queenstown story. It was basically about how Cobh was the major area of emigration, and that is where most people left for America. They talked about an American wake, which is also a great song by the Elders so I liked it. We wandered around Cobh for a little while before catching the train back to Dublin.

On the train back Anthony made friends with a couple sitting near us who were from New Zealand. I now know everything there is to know about New Zealand and about being a butcher. Strangely they had never heard of Flight of the Conchords.

When we got back to Dublin, our dad’s cousins Phyl and Tom met us at the train station. Tom owns Harry Byrnes Pub in Dublin. They look us out to a great dinner at Le Bistro, and it was really fun talking to them. I had only met them briefly in the past at a funeral. They enjoyed talking to Anthony about Chicago. I hope to meet up with them again some time before I leave. Afterwards we went back to the hostel to sleep since we had to get up at 5:15the next morning.

The next day started out the same getting to the train station and taking the train. This time we went to Limerick where we met a bus. We took the bus to Bunratty castle. Bunratty was a pretty cool area, but the boys thought it was too touristy. My favorite part was having tea in the Tea Room.

Next we went to the Cliffs of Moher, which were beautiful. I had a picture of them as my background when I was waiting to come to Ireland, so it was cool to finally see them in real life. I have to say our cliffs on the Aran Islands are still my favorites though.

After that we stopped at the Burren, which was also cool. We then continued a gorgeous bus ride around Galway Bay to Galway. When we got to Galway we checked into our hotel, which was really nice, and explored the city on our own. Then Anthony decided to have a cheese party and bought fancy cheeses and made us eat them. Next we chilled for a while then went to the pub across the street, An Pucan. That was a cool pub, and they had a traditional music session complete with two Irish dancers. Anthony was very impressed by that.

The next day we met the next bus, which took us to Connemara. We had our best tour guide that day because what he said was valuable and he didn’t talk nonstop. Our guide the second day, Peter, was the worst. We saw the bridge from “The Quiet Man”. We stopped at a village at a pub where “The Field” was shot. We went to Kylemore Abbey, which was gorgeous. That day wasn’t as filled with things to do and see, but the landscapes were definitely beautiful.

On the train back to Dublin we sat with an Irish girl named Sarah. Anthony bombarded her with questions the entire way back. A guy sitting next to us across the aisle moved because he was annoyed by us. It made the ride go fast though. Then we traveled back to campus by LUAS and bus.

On Saturday we had lunch at Cassidy’s and then went around souvenir shopping. That night we went pub crawling, starting off at O’Neill’s with all the ND kids, then going to the Bank, Blarney Inn, and O’Donoghues. It was a good last night in Dublin for them.

They left early this morning, and I’m exhausted from the week! I think they had a good time, and we got to see a lot of Ireland, which was awesome.