Kevin and Debby in Ireland

Don't be afraid...

to try pubs
to pick up hitchhikers
to ask directions: everyone will be happy to help, and it starts some good conversations
to start conversations: we had a wonderful discussion of castles and folklore with some older ladies we just said hello to on the sidewalk.
to explore unmarked castles, ruins, towers, monasteries (e.g., Quin Abbey near Ennis)
to try Guinness
to be known as an American -- Americans are quite popular, just about everyone has relatives in America
to inquire about relatives

DO be cautious...

In Dublin -- watch purses, passports, lock car. Consider staying out of town (there is a good train system in). Dublin is a real city and a modern city, and one with its share of modern day problems. They're not kidding you when they warn about crime, etc., though it's probably way safer than New York.
Kids in rural areas have been known to revolve the directional signs for fun.

Wear and bring...

something warmer than whatever you expect. Expect at least a few clammy days. However, you'll be in a great location for buying some great, very warm Irish sweaters!
subdued colors if you want to blend in (except in Dublin)

Things to know

Are you on your honeymoon? If flying Aer Lingus, make sure your reservation notes that
On bright overcast days (i.e., most days), compensate cameras accordingly
Bord Failte (tourist board) offices (in most towns) are very helpful, friendly and honest, but only if you ask for help. They can help you plan an itenary, or will make reservations at a B&B for you.
Bord Failte also has guides for individual things you might like to do, and for each county
Get literature from the Bord Failte office in New York before leaving. Some of the booklets they give away for free in the U.S. have a fee in Ireland.
Pronounce that as "Board Fell'chuh". "Failte" means "welcome", so it's the welcoming board! You see the phrase "Caed Mille Failte" everywhere, meaning, "one hundred thousand welcomes".
The "Real Guide" to Ireland is your best bet for a down-to-earth Irish adventure. Look for guidebooks that cover the whole country; some cover Dublin to excess, while slighting everything else. Another excellent guide: Bord Failte's "Ireland Guide"
Dublin is a modern city (in spirit, that is), unlike most of the rest of Ireland. Bright colors and a wider range of modern restaurants and modern things to do are in Dublin. But our own visit to Dublin was somewhat less than we had hoped for: it didn't help that a steady -- not merely "soft" -- rain fell throughout our stay in Dublin, and that a garbage strike was adding a certain aura to the place as well.
Among smaller cities, Killarney is pleasant, with some good shops and restaurants but it's very tourist-oriented. Galway is a good compromise: it may be bigger than Killarney, but it copes better with holding onto an identity in the face of tourism. A reader of this page adds:
One small quibble...Killarney IS touristy, but, compared to tourist areas in the U.S., it's unspoiled! We're going to use it as our travel base on our trip...
The most Irish Irish pubs, restaurants and scenery will be in smaller towns. The Connemara, Dingle, and Doolin are the places for traditional music, etc. If asked to choose just one of those on a limited time budget, we'd pick Dingle. It's amazing how many people rhapsodize about their time spent on the Dingle peninsula.

Driving in Ireland

If driving, you won't get as far as fast as you think
Ireland has the lowest traffic density in Europe (7 miles of road for every registered vehicle), but be careful on curves.
Plan for a day or so to adjust to driving on the left (and then watch out for the Irish driving in the center and the Americans driving on the right!)
Buy a good map as soon as you arrive, or before. The roads are very convoluted, and the map they give you at the rent-a-car just won't do. (We highly recommend the Michelin map, #405)
It's a personal preference, but we can't imagine going back to Ireland without renting a car. (Or, if we were 15 years younger, just hitchhiking around.) Too much of the "good stuff" is hidden away in obscure towns and back roads.

Accommodations

Get wired into the B&B network: when you find a good one, the keeper of the house will recommend you to another good one in the next town
Good B&Bs will also have business cards of other good B&Bs in other towns take them!
B&Bs are the best way to get tips, meet people (there are many Irish tourists as well as foreign visitors), and generally have good conversations
Make sure you get the B&B directory from Bord Failte

Our favorite B&Bs

Kinsale: Old Presbytery -- great fun, interesting place, right in town (can walk to everything)
Dingle: Mrs. Houlihan (easy walk to pubs, restaurants)
Killarney: Fair Haven (Mrs. Teahan)
Waterford: Foxmount in Halfway House (Mrs. Kent) -- More of a formal English inn than a B&B, but still great fun and our best meal in Ireland! Phone 051-74308
Carrick-on-Shannon: Mrs. Nolan

Pubs

Open evenings until midnight (or at least that's when they lock the doors! Actual festivities sometimes continue past midnight.)
Dingle: Flaherty's
Kinsale: Shanakee (a fun bar, with pass-the-mike singalong, mostly Irish patrons). Don't miss!
Update: One reader of this page passed along these notes:
My wife and I visited Ireland in 1994 and had experiences very similar to yours. We had a great time at the Shanakee in Kinsale. They have a room in the back where locals do Set dancing (not step dancing). Its very much like our square dancing but without calls. I miss the place so much that I surf sites just to remember. I found yours, by the way, by searching the word "gaeltecht". Thanks for sharing your memories.
Doolin: we only visited during the daytime, when it was dead quiet. We hear that the best traditional Irish music in the world is here, at night.
Killarney is pretty touristy. The worst place is Laurel's, which caters to the bus tour trade.

Stuff to see: OLD

Newgrange (easy drive NW of Dublin): A must-see! We thought this was the most astonishing thing we encountered -- a 5,000 year old burial structure in fairly intact condition, with very significant astronomical alignments. Picture it like this: Like Stonehenge, it's a wonder of antiquity, except that it's in much better shape, you can actually walk right down and into it, and stand where people did 5,000 years ago, and see where the sun will shine on the winter solstice, and then only! Absolutely astonishing! The only way to account for why everyone knows about Stonehenge but nobody knows about Newgrange must be that Stonehenge has a much better PR firm.
Glendalough (SW of Dublin): St. Kevin's hermitage. Very pretty, verypeaceful, with high cross, round tower and other ancient structures. Another excellent day-trip from Dublin: Glendalough is very pretty, and has genuine historic/religious significance. There is a round tower and a high cross: two of the items that should be on everyone's checklist of things to see in Ireland. Also St. Kevin's Church (a ruin) and a place called St. Kevin's bed. The legend goes that St. Kevin (a hermit) lived by himself on a rock shelf above the Glendalough valley for a decade or so. But he was visited by one Kathleen who tempted him with "eyes of unholy blue". He was so enraged by her temptations, that he threw her from the cliff. (How come they never told the really good stories like that in the lives of the saints when I was in Catholic grade school?) St. Kevin was later visited by a fate that must seem even worse to a hermit: they built an extensive monastic community around him!
Staigue Fort, on the Ring of Kerry drive. An impressive and very ancient stone fort. Follow maps carefully, the signage is minimal
Book of Kells and St. Patrick's, in Dublin. As long as you're in Dublin, these are the must-sees there.
Clonmacnois, near Athlone (unfortunately, this is kind of out of the way for most visitors. Our relatives live in Athlone.)
Charles Fort, near Kinsale. More recent (only a few hundred years old!)

Stuff to see: MODERN

Waterford Crystal factory tour: a very nice surprise. You can walk right onto the shop floor.
Dublin: A city that will leave quite different impressions, good and bad, on different people. A reader of this page recently (1998) sent us this update:

Traditional

Check Bord Failte and other literature for local festivals (e.g., we went to "An Tostal" in Drumshanbo) and market days (e.g., a weekly event in Kilrush)

Dining in Ireland

Hot foods are served very hot; cold beverages are served warm
Bring cookies: you'll have a tough time finding American-style munchies in the rural areas
Based on our B&B experience, the national food of Ireland is Kellogg's Corn Flakes
Hope you like eggs (fried), bacon, sausage, dry toast, milk and orange juice.
The best meals we had were at Foxmount, near Waterford (see "accommodations")
Kinsale, a quite interesting town on the coast south of Cork, has a reputation as the fine dining capital of Ireland.
Galway has a good selection of good restaurants
B&Bs sometimes serve meals, and sometimes they're very good. Check to see if yours serves dinner.
We liked Foley's in Killarney. There was an older lady singing sweetly with the piano. She did a wonderfully soulful version of Sloop John B!
"The Mill House", somewhere near Macroom on the road from Killarney to Kinsale
"Crook Log House", just west out of Galway

Dublin is a different story altogether, I hasten to add. It's modern, and there should be something for everyone.

Shopping

Galway: many good stores (and other things to do). Especially liked Padraic O'Maille. (And I'm pining to visit Kennys Bookstore on our next Ireland trip.)
Tralee: a delightful town! Many stores, restaurants. (Look for the wall mural of St. Brendan discovering America -- really!)
Dublin: specialty stores north of river, department stores south of river
Killarney: good stores, but rather touristy
Avoca mills, in Avoca, south of Glendalough. You can walk through the textile mills (just ask).

"Corny, but it works..."

Medieval banquets: pricey and a tad silly, but fun
Blarney Castle: surprisingly interesting. Some of the guidebooks says Blarney Castle is unpleasant and crowded, but they must be talking about the heart of the vacation season. It was a kick to actually see (and kiss) the Blarney Stone. As to whether or not you WANT to kiss the stone, that's another story. You have to bend over backwards and let yourself be lowered by attendants over an edge. (No, you can't fall, I think.)

Scenery

The whole island!!!! (In our first view as we descended, we were struck by how intensely and genuinely green everything was!)
The really gorgeous and classically Irish part of Ireland is the west coast: The Ring of Kerry, the Dingle Peninsula (the tourist literature promotes the R of K, we liked Dingle better), the Burren, the Cliffs of Moher, and Galway and the Connemara.
Killarney National Park -- breathtakingly beautiful. If you're staying in Killarney, you'll probably pass through this area on any trip to the west.
Muckross House and gardens, just out of Killarney (you can park directly at the house, despite many encouragements to park earlier and take a ride up). Bring film!
Cliffs of Moher
The Burren (there is a good visitor's center as well)
Dingle peninsula: stay here if you can. Great scenery, excellent restaurants, pubs. See Conor Pass on the way to Dingle town, also shipwreck and rocky coast at far point, Sleahead. Also, Gallarus Oratory (tiny, ancient).
Conamara
Dingle and Conamara are in the "Gaeltecht", the Irish-speaking area. Some directional signs in Conamara are in Irish only, especially when you get as far out as Clifden.

Things we didn't do (but want to do on our next trip)

Donegal (sounds wonderful!) and Mayo
Spend more time in Doolin
Aran Islands
Nightlife, theater, restaurants in Dublin
Visit the parish my grandfather came from, Rahara in Co. Roscommon

Final Observations

All dogs in Ireland are black-and-white
There are no leashes in Ireland

kevin@shsmedia.com

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