There’s a reason they call it the Emerald Isle. It’s incredibly green. I saw this for myself last week. I suppose I’ve found Irish culture interesting for a while now, and that fascination has only grown in recent months. So, feeling froggy, I got on Google Flights out of simple curiosity to see how much flights were. Thirty minutes later, I had a flight booked to Dublin.
At first, I was okay with the idea of going it alone. Ireland is a very safe place. But my friend Sawyer heard about the trip and was just crazy and wanderlusty enough to up and decide to go with me on a whim. Which was a good thing. In the four hours after landing in Dublin with no cell service, navigating the Irish neighborhoods, figuring out the mass transit system, and asking strangers for directions to St. Patrick’s Park where we met up was a lonely, stressful experience. I would have hated being there by myself.
The River Liffey flowing through Dublin. Canon Rebel T7i.
One of the many ruined structures we happened across. Canon Rebel T7i.
I could bore you with the transcript of our trip, but instead, I’ll give you the highlights and let the photos I took speak for themselves. Here are some of the coolest things we did in Ireland:
Rented a car and drove on the wrong side of the road.
Had Sawyer and I not been brave enough to drive in Ireland, we would have missed out on some of the best scenes of the whole trip. I was anxious about driving on the wrong side (the left side) of the road. Sawyer was anxious about driving on the wrong side of the road and driving stick shift. I gave him a quick lesson in Cong, and he learned quickly (if not a little stressfully) after that. He was a seasoned professional by the time we turned the car in.
Sawyer at the wheel of our rented Peugeot. Canon Rebel T7i.
The roads in Ireland are so narrow that it was all I could do to hug the inside dividing line and keep my outside wheel out of the puddles and potholes. Some roads are so narrow that you have to back up a ways to get to a wide spot if you meet another vehicle, such as an asphalt patching truck in Northern Ireland. After three hours of this sort of driving my first day out, I was completely exhausted. It took some time for blood to flow back into my knuckles.
Driving through a town. Canon Rebel T7i.
Country roads. Canon Rebel T7i.
Drove to Cong, where The Quiet Man was filmed.
I’m a classic movie nerd. One of my favorite movies of all time is The Quiet Man, a movie by John Ford starring John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. In the 1950s, it wasn’t common to film on location, especially with bulky Technicolor cameras, but John Ford, who was from Ireland, was determined to film this movie in his home country.
Getting to see Pat Cohan Bar where Sean Thornton punches Will Danagher through the wooden door was a big deal to me, even though we couldn’t eat lunch there (I didn’t do my research and found out that the bar was closed the day we were there). As a consolation prize, I bought a woolen cap like the ones they wore in the movie and a refrigerator magnet. That’s the same as eating inside Pat Cohan, right?
Pat Cohan Bar in Cong. Canon Rebel T7i.
Saw a brilliant Irish rainbow.
It rains nearly every day in Ireland. There’s also sunshine nearly every day. That’s what makes the grass so very green. It also is the perfect recipe for huge, brilliant rainbows to form in the heavens. Driving back to Dublin on our first day through the country, we saw an entire rainbow from one end to the other, and a double rainbow a few minutes later. We gawked at it like small children. There was no pot of gold at the end.
Rainbow over the road. Canon Rebel T7i.
Got stared at by blue-collar Irishmen in a bar.
In America, most bars also serve food of some kind. Being late in the day, we stopped at a roadside hole-in-the-wall called Paddy’s Bar, hoping for some grub. Inside, the restaurant was dark and the tables empty. The only light was at the bar, where a dozen Irishmen sat chit-chatting, pints in hand. The conversation abruptly stopped and all eyes turned to us as we walked in. After an awkward few seconds, Sawyer finally plucked up enough courage to ask the bartender if they served food.
“Lemme see, what dee is ut? Wednesdee? Noo, we don’t be sarving any food on Wednesdee. Wuch, way err ya headed?”
“Uh, that way,” Sawyer said, pointing vaguely in the direction we’d been pointing the car.
“Ah, you’ll want ta be goin’ down the road ta Bridge House. They’ll be sarving food.”
“Okay, thanks.”
It was the most Irish thing that happened the entire trip.
A corner building with clock in Dublin’s City Centre. Canon Rebel T7i.
The Temple Bar area in Dublin. Canon Rebel T7i.
Street scenes in Dublin. Canon Rebel T7i.
Visited Giant’s Causeway.
Giant’s Causeway is a natural wonder of Ireland formed by volcanic activity a long time ago, creating the most interesting hexagonal pillars of rock jutting out into the ocean. At least, that’s the scientific explanation. The mythical explanation is that an Irish giant challenged a Scottish giant to a fight, and bridged the gap between the two land masses (you can literally see Scotland from Giant’s Causeway) with stones in the water. Later, after some trickery, the Scottish giant destroyed the newly made stone bridge to prevent the Irish giant from crossing to his side. While the whole “volcanic activity” thing might be more accurate, I like this explanation better. It’s more colorful.
Giant’s Causeway at sunset. Canon Rebel T7i.
Partook in the Eucharist at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral was founded in 1191 in what is now the heart of Dublin as a Roman Catholic cathedral, but is now the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland. Sawyer and I thought it would be something special to go and partake in the Eucharist with fellow believers while we were there in Ireland, and we were right. In case you were wondering, they are a “one-cup” church. Sawyer and I didn’t sit at the front, either.
Ate a full Irish breakfast at an irreverent cafe.
After St. Patrick’s Cathedral, we went looking for an authentic Irish breakfast, something that eluded us during the road trip portion of our stay. Once again, Sawyer came through with the Google reviews and found a place called Stage Door Cafe. We almost didn’t stick around, because there was a bit of a line (or “queue” as they say), and the man taking orders was a bit abrasive at first. Once we got in, however, we had the best eating experience of the whole trip.
The restaurant was decorated with the occasional lewd statue, and the cook, a jovial man with a red and white beard, spoke in terms that would make a sailor blush. But he spoke with a smile and struck us as the kind of guy who only made fun of you if he liked you, and he made fun of everyone, particularly Germans.
An Irish breakfast. iPhone 13.
Were incredibly lucky at Killmainham Gaol.
Having checked everything off our original itinerary, we found ourselves needing something to round out the last day of our trip. I really wanted to learn more about Irish Independence, and Sawyer found out that visiting Killmainham Gaol, a no-longer-used prison, was one of the top rated things to do in Dublin. So we made the long walk from Dublin City Centre to the outskirts of town, to the prison where so many Irish political prisoners had been held. When we got there, we found the tickets were sold out for the day.
But we had to go the bathroom, so the doorman gave us passes to the free museum inside.
We wandered around the museum exhibits for a while, reading about the 1916 Easter Rising and the ensuing fight for Irish independence from Britain, when a compassionate tour guide between engagements rounded everyone without a pass up and asked us if we wanted to see inside the prison. We, of course, said yes.
Inside Killmainham Gaol prison. Canon Rebel T7i.
There are so many more things I could write about the trip. The vivid green memories will last in my mind for a long time. If you ever get the chance, I would highly recommend it. It’s worth the jet lag you’ll feel when you get home and start blogging about the trip.