Emerald Isle
Hey everyone,
For the past week, I’ve been in Ireland! It was a truly unforgettable experience and I can’t wait to go back at some point in the future. It was my first time in the country, and I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t visited before. I was there to see the University of Notre Dame Fighting Irish destroy the United States Naval Academy in American football. That’s a bizarre sentence to say out loud. I only scratched the surface of what to do in Ireland, but I figured I’d provide a few tidbits about my travels before I get into a Useless Observations newsletter on Monday. Enjoy.
Everyone I met in Ireland was so welcoming and inviting. They would go out of their way to recommend places to check out, and I managed to get to a few, but there are so many more I still have on my to-do list for the next time I travel there. My top recommendations are the Cliffs of Moher, Harkin’s Bar & Bistro, The Cobblestone, The Brazen Head, Gus O’Connor’s Pub, and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral.
We flew into Shannon Airport and made our way from the west coast of the country to Dublin on the east coast. We spent two nights in Lisdoonvarna in County Clare, but we made our way to a bunch of towns along the way. We stopped in Burren, Gort, Galway, Doolin, and Athlone.
Visiting Athlone in County Roscommon was probably my favorite part of the trip. We went to see my wife’s extended family, which included her great-aunt and many second and third cousins. It was amazing to break bread with them, have some tea and sandwiches, and learn about their daily lives. It was a nice change from the hustle and bustle of the trip, and also great to hear about turf and the ups and downs of farm life.
Driving on the other side of the road isn’t as big of a deal as I thought it would be. I had more issues driving on the narrow country roads. At several points on the trip, the GPS would take us on a shortcut through someone’s farm and we would be on a road no wider than a tractor and have to make a judgment call as another car would be driving 40mph in the other direction. Sometimes there would be a shoulder or extra pavement for one car to pull over, sometimes there was a driveway to utilize, but most times you would have to pull into the brush and hope the other car did the same.
Ireland refers to its downtowns as city centres. Unless you’re on a highway or in a city centre, the road will be covered on both sides by hedges. It’s illegal to trim hedges during bird nesting season, so you often find hedges sticking out almost to the road, and there were a few scrapes on our rental car when we returned it. At one point, while pulling over to avoid a tour bus careening down this narrow road at us, the car in front of us pulled into the hedges and was left with a missing hubcap and flat tire. Ireland’s doing all of this nonsense for birds and they aren’t even real, but I digress.
My biggest pet peeve of the trip was that Dublin didn’t seem prepared for how to handle crowd flow for the 40,000 people who came over for the game. For example, I was unable to access the official merchandise store on (Notre) Dame Street because all four sides of the building had security preventing entry and using them as exit-only sidewalks. Someone has to communicate that you need at least one way for people to enter if you want to have customers in your store. There was also the fact that after the game ended, local police stopped traffic in all directions for up to a mile away from Aviva Stadium. I assume this was to allow foot traffic, but it caused more of an issue because all of the fans were stuck in very close proximity to the stadium without any way to get cabs or public transit back to their destination. Hopefully, this improves before next year’s game between Florida State and Georgia Tech.
I enjoyed the Jameson factory and tour way more than I enjoyed the Guinness storehouse and tour. The Guinness tour was more about the process of making beer than anything specific to how Guinness is made, and because I have friends who have home-brewed beer in the past I was already familiar with the process. However, the Jameson tour was more about how the making of Irish whiskey intertwined with Ireland’s history, struggles, revolutions, and ultimately redemption. Guinness had a higher production value and felt more entertaining though, as where it lacked in history lessons it made up for it via live music and performances.
The last thing I will mention is that from a music and fashion perspective, the country is definitely in its own bubble and isn’t following closely along with American trends. The latest song I heard was Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off” performed at Guinness by a harp player, and that song came out in 2014. Everything else was in that sweet spot of 2003-2013. From the flood pants, to the music, to the electronics, it felt like being in a time capsule which added to the experience and mystique of being in a foreign country.