I had previously booked tickets for the Guinness Storehouse (brewery tour) at 4pm. We were able to catch a cab from the airport to our AirBnB, drop off the luggage and catch another cab to Guinness (which is a little drive on the outer parts of Dublin) and make it about 10 mins past 4. It’s a self-guided tour, so no big deal.

The tour was pretty neat, highlighting one of largest and most exported beers in the world. The complex took multiple city blocks and is massive. Tour touched on each of the four ingredients to Guinness (water, hops, barley, yeast) and how Guinness treats, purchased and merchandises them throughout its long history. Fun fact: when Guinness was created in 1759, Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease with water rights because nobody thought it would ever be worth anything.

After the tour we went up to one of the three bars for a pint (or espresso martini) and bite of dinner. The views of the city (especially from the top Gravity Bar) are pretty remarkable. Dublin is beautiful!

After our dinner we caught a cab back home and immediately fell asleep.

Dublin kind of reminded us a bit of London in that there’s a high mix of old and new bldgs next to each other.

Front main gate to Trinity College.

Trinity College grounds

Because our tour guide had already purchased tickets in advance, we were able to skip the line to get in and see the Book of Kells and the incredible library.

The Book of Kells is one of the earliest illuminated manuscripts, and one of the most precious documents in the Western World. It would have cost an absolute fortune to create, and depicts the 4 Gospels. The incredible ornate detail is mind-blowing. Unfortunately, there are no photos allowed, but I did snag a picture of the alphabet used.

The Library was definitely the highlight of the day. It’s one of Europes highest vaulted libraries, and the subject of scenes in Star Wars and Harry Potter. Lots of pictures because it’s amazing, the smell of these 200,000 some books is unique and pretty cool. The Trinity College library is one of 4 copyright libraries in the world, they have the right to a free copy of every book in the world. While they don’t use the power, it’s remarkable to see all these old vellum, leather-bound books in this setting.

Afterwards, we walked through the city a couple of blocks over to see Dublin Castle, Dubh Linn Gardens.

No gargoyles like Scotland, but more carvings like these and angels on bldgs

After we departed our tour, I turned on nerd-mode and started Rick Steve’s audio guide CityWalk which took us past the City Council bldg, and over to Christ Church Cathedral.

We then followed my boy Rick’s tour through town over to the Temple Bar neighborhood- a touristy, bohemian area that boasts an incredibly high amount of pubs that I can imagine are quite rowdy as the sun sets. The famous namesake Temple Bar is in the middle of the area, a pint of Guinness here will set you back almost €13 (these guys are almost as high as Climate Pledge Arena back home.)

We then just wandered aimlessly. We have a couple other “Dublin Days” where I can go back to complete my boy Rick’s other City Walk tour. We walked through St George’s Gardens, and through the insanely packed Grafton Street- a blocked-off shopping district that reminded me of London’s packed streets and architecture again. As the sun set, the streets became exponentially busier. Dublin certainly comes to life at night!

Our guide had us pose with the Irish flag while on the train.

We had a stop in Mallow to transfer from the big fast train, to the smaller local train that would take us another hour to Killarney (total train time 4 hours each way).

We stopped in the towns of Newbridge, Curragh, Kildare, Poraoise, Templemore, Thurles, Limerick.

We had a small group of only 8 people (four of us were Americans, 1 Australian and 3 Irish). What had started as a nice sunny morning with scattered clouds quickly changed course to a rainy, foggy day on the coast which made photos very difficult and scenery hard to see. Some of the famous islands we were unable to see because of the thick fog (like Skellig Michael, a World Heritage site for the ancient monastic settlement carved into the stone of the island).

We were able to stop in many small towns for snacks, bathroom breaks, lunch etc. Our guide was very knowledgeable and gave us loads of info about the history of each town, it’s most famous citizens, their claim to fame etc. Very beautiful and picturesque. We stopped in one little town, enjoyed some Irish Coffee, stopped in another for some lunch in the pub. Turns out Khrystyan also likes a pint of Guinness!

We saw many beautiful churches, a couple castles, many old dilapidated and crumbling structures dating back to the 12th century.

On our way back, we travelled through the national forest, saw some wild goat (sheep are very common, not as ubiquitous as Scotland though). We passed through some very remote areas; one area didn’t receive power until 1978!! The area only received a single telephone line in the 90’s, internet in the 2000’s and are now part of Elon Musk’s StarLink test for high speed internet in very remote places. So hard to imagine that places like this could be without electricity until almost 1980!

Last part of the tour before our train trek back to Dublin was stopping at a beautiful waterfall, which really reminded us of home. The small walk through the woods looks just like the PNW.

And lastly, ending back in Killarney with another beautiful church.

After we got back in Dublin, we then took the tram to pick up some dinner (loads of public transport today) where I noticed this funny sticker.

Great, long day going through some beautiful countryside, coastlines and remote areas of Ireland! Off to bed!

We then wandered to the National Museum of Archaeology where we saw some fascinating artifacts dating back to 3000 BC! Highlights of that museum was the Brooch of Tara (very ornate brooch with a 7” pin!). With so many bogs in Ireland, things that get buried in them get mummified and preserved (due to the very low acidic pH). Because of this, we saw lots of extremely intricate religious artifacts, loads of old Viking swords, arrows etc. Something really unique and honestly a bit haunting were the bog bodies- 4 extremely well preserved mummies of people from centuries ago where you can still see their hair, teeth, skin texture, musculature and veins running through their arms. It was disturbing and cool at the same time- being able to look at someone who had passed (in a couple cases: murdered) and perfectly preserved from hundreds of years ago.

After the museum, we wandered around the city and found a good whiskey shop and tea shop.

We walked through the Powerscourt Estate- a Victorian-era mansion turned shopping center with antique shops, fashion clothing stores and a restaurant.

We grabbed some incredible dinner at La Maison, a well-appointed French restaurant in between Trinity College and St Stephen’s Green.

Citrus cured salmon starter

Coq au vin

Soaked poached pear with ice cream

Creme Brûlée

After the sheep farm, we stopped at an ancient monastic settlement dating to around 1100, Glendalough (“Glen-da-lock”). Here we got to wander among the many buildings, towers, old cemetery and take a walk through the woods to see a pair of beautiful lakes.

From Glendalough, we continued our drive through the Wicklow Mountains, stopping at Wicklow Gap for a couple pictures.

We then continued on our way to Kilkenny, driving through some beautiful Irish countryside- highly resembling something out of the Shire.

On arrival at the city of Kilkenny (population 25k), we had a little over a couple hours to explore and do whatever we wanted.

We started with some lunch at a small pub where we grabbed some delicious seafood chowder and another pint of Guinness.

We explored around the towns streets and shops, walked around their amazing Cathedral and made our way to Kilkenny Castle, where the locals had a farmers market out front. We bought a hand-carved bird made from two different kinds of petrified bog wood that’s over 8,000 years old! We did a quick walkthrough of the inside of the Castle and hopped back on the bus to head home.

This fireplace is hand-carved from carrera marble from Italy.

After this, we stopped at The Burren, a very unique landscape. Nothing like it in the world (or so we’re told). Essentially it’s a completely barren land of limestone rock that has a ton of cracks, holes and fossilized shells etc in it. There’s native plants here that only grow in this specific area of Ireland.

This stop was in the middle of the Atlantic Way route which is essentially a long scenic coastal route- quite gorgeous scenery as we passed some shire-like gentle rolling green hills with farms.

We made a quick stop at Kilmacduagh Abbey, a 7th century monastic settlement ruin with another beautiful cemetery. We’re told that there are 7th century graves still visible, but I wasn’t able to find any. The really old graves are basically just small pieces of jagged rock coming up from the ground having been eroded with 1400 years of weather. I think it’s interesting that there still new graves here as well, with locals being buried here in the last year or two. Some great examples of Celtic crosses here.

By the way- the white discoloration of stone directly under the windows of the tower are due to the monks dumping buckets of their waste down on invaders.

After the Abbey, we made our way to the medieval city of Galway. Galway has a sizable population, located right along a swift-moving river, and was a major merchant thoroughfare in its day, with a busy port from Spain, North Africa etc. They still have the “Spanish Arch”, and Latin Quarter as big sights for us tourists. Khrystyan and I wandered around the city for a couple hours, popping into a super cozy pub for a steak sandwich and pint of Guinness (noticing a theme here?)

Spanish Arch at the end- google it’s significance :)

Latin Quarter of shops

We then walked a block over to the General Post Office (GPO) building. In the 1916 Irish Rebellion, this became ground zero for the battle for independence. The Proclamation of the Irish Republic was read at this site for the first time. To this day, there’s still quite a few bullet holes in the building from the shooting and carnage that took place. There’s a museum here, we didn’t walk through, rather we walked inside the post office area and gift shop looking at the old photos of what Dublin and the GPO building looked like in 1916- a destroyed battlefield.

We then took a tram ride to the outskirts of town to go to Kilmainham Gaol- the old jail used to imprison the protestors, fighters, activists and anyone who opposed the English empire, for over 100 years (from the 1798 rebellion to the 1916 Easter Rising, to the ensuing civil war). This was actually a very moving place, sort of haunting, and very interesting. The 14 leaders and signers of the Irish Proclamation of Independence were all captured, imprisoned and killed facing the firing squad here. All in all, the English used the firing squad (12 soldiers with rifles, all shooting the prisoner at the same time) countless times. We took the tour here, walking through the same halls, cells and the walls where the rebels fighting for their independence were shot. The exhibits had the prisoners letters to their mothers and wives they wrote before they faced the firing squad, along with other artifacts like photos, wedding rings, weapons etc. I had a little bit of an understanding of the 1916 fight for independence, but this was truly moving and I really learned quite a bit. The jail is a somber National Monument and reminder of how brave some humans can be, and how far others can go in times of war.

If you’re able to zoom in and read the letter, I would recommend you try. Last letter of a man to his newly wed wife before he was shot.

Since we left the jail in such a somber mood, we decided we needed to go somewhere to lighten things up a bit. We walked about 15 mins or so up the road to the Dublin Zoo. Nice size zoo, they have 5 red pandas that were all super active! Seattle only has one, and he just sleeps in the back almost every time we go. We also got to see a snow leopard, dhole, lions, tigers and the highlight: while eating a snack in the big outdoor cafe area, a large crane swooped down and stole a little kid’s chicken tender! The mom (along with Khrystyan and I) started laughing while the little kid was sitting there crying. Hilarious.

Snow leopard

We then went back to the room, relaxed a bit more, and went back to the Italian restaurant up the road again and had some great dinner.

We then went to the Giant’s Causeway and spent a couple hours there. This was super cool and completely unique to this one corner of Northern Ireland. Formed millions of years ago by volcanic activity, thousands of hexagonal basalt columns are pushed together and line a small section of the Northern Ireland coastline. Lots of photos incoming!

We then drove a few minutes up the road to stop and take some more pictures of the beautiful Northern Ireland coast.

The coast of Scotland is visible from here as it’s only 12 miles away.

Next stop was a place called Dark Hedges for a quick photo stop. The Stewart family planted these trees to impress visitors on their way to the mansion. Difficult to get good photos with so many people. This would also be known as The King’s Road for any Game of Thrones fans out there.

Next was a stop in Belfast for 1 hour 45 minutes. I had heard from my boy Rick that the Black Cab Tours in the city are very good, so I had booked one on our way. Quick history lesson here so the next bunch of photos make a bit more sense. Belfast was ground zero of “The Troubles” of Northern Ireland from the 1970’s-1990’s. This was at its most basic form, due to Northern Ireland remaining a colony of the British Empire. The British are Protestant, Irish are Catholic. With the close quarters of the city, violence erupted, with thousands being killed via constant bombings, shootings etc. There was a civil rights movement here as the Irish Catholic’s were a large minority not receiving the same treatment and opportunity at their British Protestant neighbors. Now- there was quite a bit more to it than that, but at its most basic sense that’s what was happening. The Black Cab Tours are run by a group of now older men who were alive and around during The Troubles of the time, and they drive you around recalling stories and their firsthand experiences of the time. It’s very unique, and obviously not something that will be possible for much longer. While Kilmainham Gaol was very sobering yesterday, this was a new level. Walking and driving the streets of Belfast for 90 mins with an older gentleman showing us buildings that were blown up, recalling his friends and members of the community and even folks he considered family killed- first hand- was extraordinary. So below- you’ll see countless murals either trying to unify- or divide- a city that is still to this day literally divided with the “Peace Gate” and 30 foot tall barbed wire fence. The gate closes every night at 6:30pm to the British Protestant neighborhood. We even saw new murals of a local group trying to incite some division, they had painted two of their members holding semi-automatic rifles essentially announcing they were now armed. This was such a cool experience, our driver showed us a bunch of memorials, murals and even recounted meeting Mother Theresa when she spent 18 months there trying to help.

At the end of the tour, we walked through the Belfast city center where I snapped a couple photos of some beautiful bldgs and their City Hall. Has to be one of the nicest City Halls I’ve seen?

We had a great time, with some great food and tea. The bus drove around Dublin for a little over an hour providing some limited tour dialogue in some famous bldgs etc. It was a great time!

We then wandered around the city for a bit longer before making it back to the room for a nap and some laundry.

Time for our last dinner, Guinness and night in Ireland.