In two weeks I’ll be heading off to Ireland for my first trip since COVID. Going with my daughter who has traveled frequently for business and vacations since 2020. She says she always masks up for the trip out but then removes her mask coming home. I’ve done some research on the air filtration on Air Lingus and it turns out they have hospital-grade air filtration technology that removes 99.97% of airborne particles, including bacteria and viruses. We also splurged this trip and are flying business class so we won’t be scrunched up and I feel pretty safe about flying.
This is the second time I’ve been to Ireland, the first since I received citizenship. Last time was in 1999 when my brother and his two girls and my daughter and I visited Dublin, Cork, Killarney, and Galway.
Just for the fun of it, we’re going to be looking at some small properties for sale, just in case we do need to beat a hasty retreat out of the county after the elections. As I’ve written here before (or perhaps just noted in comments) my daughter is eligible for Irish citizenship by association and she’d love to be able to work in the EU.
What follows is a preliminary itinerary of our trip.
We kick off the visit with a few days in Dublin, staying at the Marlin Hotel near St. Stephens Green, which is within walking distance of most everything we want to see in the city center: Dublin Castle, Grafton Street, Temple Bar and Trinity College, for an exhibition of the Book of Kells. Exciting that there are numerous restaurants in Dublin which offer gluten free dining. Really looking forward to breakfast at LEMON CREPE AND COFFEE CO! On the advice of a comment made here last week, we’re definitely not going to miss a visit to the Palace Bar whose history dates back to the Irish Revolution.
Next up, we’re taking the train to Galway, where we have rented an Airbnb in city center. First order of business will be shopping at the Evergreen Health Food Store in Eyre Square for a few staples: eggs, gluten free bread, jam, butter, some cheese, greens, coffee and tea.
The city’s hub is 18th-century Eyre Square, a popular meeting spot surrounded by shops and traditional pubs that often offer live Irish folk music. Nearby, stone-clad cafes, boutiques and art galleries line the winding lanes of the Latin Quarter, which retains portions of the medieval city walls.
We’re not going to take the time to visit the Aran Islands or the Cliffs of Moher, but rather we’ve rented a car and will be doing day trips, particularly to Limerick, Tipperary, and The Burren
An unexpected body of evidence is beginning to emerge that unmasks Ireland and, the Burren in particular, as a significant influence on Tolkien’s creative imagination.”
One of Campbell’s most significant contentions is that Irish myth and the landscape were deeply embedded in Tolkien's original concept for his imagined secondary world of Middle-Earth and that this conceptual inspiration, in the wake of Tolkien’s visits to Ireland, became copper-fastened during later revisions and rewrites. www.irishcentral.com/...
Next up is Northern Ireland where we will drive the Wild Atlantic way, stopping off at the Cliffs of Sligo, Donegal, and Derry (the only walled city remaining in Ireland) before heading to our Airbnb near the Irish Sea in Ballycastle. We’ll replenish our groceries at the local Coop and consider dining out that evening at Macroni’s Bar and Bistro. The next morning, my daughter is off for a day horseback riding with Bespoke Equestrian while I relax at the Salthouse Spa where they also serve an afternoon tea! I’m going to have to take a taxi there as from what I hear it is quite a trek from downtown Ballycastle.
We leave the next morning for Belfast, driving past the Mourne Mountains, which supposedly inspired the setting for C.S. Lewis’ Narnia. Then it’s back to Dublin for a night, where we meet up with a friend of my daughter’s from Nicaragua.
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share a virtual kitchen table with other readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by to talk about music, your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper…. Newcomers may notice that many who post in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table and hope to make some new friends as well.