Cead mile failte Ireland!

Translated from Gaelic to mean, "a hundred thousand welcomes!" Mom and I spent the last 4 days touring Ireland and soaking in as much of the Irish customs as we could absorb in that short time.

We didn't have much time in Dublin but the city tour gave us a quick overview of the city and its history. From the start, it was clear that Guinness and Jameson would be a central theme on this trip - the Irish like their drink! Both Guinness and Jameson are huge patrons of Dublin. In fact, I believe they said that Guinness money was responsible for the restoration of St. Patrick's National Cathedral, which is an Anglican Church, and Jameson Distillery supports the Catholic St. Mary's Church. Christ Church, used by King Henry VIII as the Anglican Church of Ireland, was rebuilt in the 1870s with funds used by another distiller, Henry Roe.

Our first night in Dublin we visited the Merry Ploughboys Irish Pub for dinner, drinks and some authentic Irish entertainment. SLAINTE - to your health! I could pass on the Guinness but discovered that I really like the Irish Ale Smithwick's (pronounced without the w). The Merry Ploughboys played and sang all of the traditional Irish songs and the audience participation was a must if you didn't want to end up on the stage in the spotlight! We also saw a troop of Irish dancers that really made the place rock. Some of it reminded me of Spanish dancing.

We met some interesting tourists. For example, during our Merry Ploughboys dinner, we were seated at long tables with benches. Mom was exchanging the usual small talk with the man across the table from her - things like what is your name, where are you from, how long are you in Ireland - when out of the blue he leans over to her and says, "I race pigeons". I don't think she quite knew how to respond to that! We eventually learned that there are about 30 others in Illinois that compete in this hobby. The pigeons race home from as far away as 500 miles and their times are captured on a computer in their coop. When I asked him if he needed special birds for this he told me that one of the men in the organization had traveled to Scotland to get the eggs so they could raise the birds for their sport. The trouble with this is that it is illegal to bring the eggs to the US so the guy's wife had put the eggs in her bra! Apparently, this served two purposes: keeping the eggs warm and effectively smuggling them through customs. At home, we are more apt to pelt pigeons with bb guns to keep them from leaving their mark all over our front walks!

From Dublin, we headed toward Killarney. Along the way, we visited the Blarney Castle and took in lots of lush green countryside, historic buildings, and ruins. From Killarney, we visited the Ring of Kerry with its incredible scenery including ocean views, lakes, National Park and sheep country. We went to a demonstration of how the sheepdogs work and it was amazing! Anyone that owns a dog should visit this guy for training tips. The control he had over the dogs, and consequently the sheep, was just unbelievable. We also saw all the different variety of sheep used to produce various wools.

Finally, we went to the Cliffs of Moher. This is exactly what you picture when you think of Ireland. My mom said that the walk along the cliffs reminded her of the Great Wall of China when she was there. We took a million pictures here but none of them do it justice. Go see for yourself if you get the chance!

For dinner the last night we went to a madrigal kind of medieval dinner at Bunratty Castle. We ate the food with our hands while being entertained by traditional Irish singers accompanied by harps and violins (or fiddles?). If you have been to the Renaissance Festival you will get a picture of the costumes. The quality of the entertainment was quite good and the castle made a very authentic backdrop. It was a fun way to wrap up the trip.

Our last night in the hotel was almost comical (but not at the time). The hotel was full and we were put in a handicap room located in a remote hallway separated from the main hotel that clearly hadn't been used in awhile - spiders/spider webs, sewer smells emanating from the drains in the bathroom, lack of lights....not great. From there we were just looking for things to complain about to each other. The night was capped off by the alarm sounding in our remote hallway at 2 in the morning. Finally we called the front desk to ask if we should be concerned about the alarm going off in our hallway and they didn't even know about it! The upside to the whole thing was that Mom and I had a wonderful 2 hour chat in the middle of the night about all kinds of things. There is a silver lining to everything.

Tomorrow we are heading to York with Mike and then on to Scotland next week.