August 2025: Our First Trip to Ireland: Day 8

Day 8: Saturday August 16, 2025

I was still awake fairly early this morning. Eventually we got up and got ready, and then met Dad and Laura downstairs for breakfast at Copper Alley Bistro.

Breakfast was good. I know I had pancakes with Irish bacon. I think we all enjoyed our food, although I was confused by how spicy the avocado mash that came with the pancakes was.

 
After breakfast, we headed back to the rooms to really get ready for the day. About 9:45, we met up downstairs and started the 13 minute walk to our first destination: Jameson. Jameson is on the north side of the River Liffey, and immediately after crossing the river, we understood why the advice is to stay south of the Liffey. At this hour, we didn’t feel unsafe, but we definitely felt safer South of the Liffey, and would not have been comfortable being out after dark North of the Liffey. I was glad I had NOT booked us at the Hampton Inn here (that we walked past), because although the hotel looked nice, the surroundings didn’t. Crossing the river was pretty though.

Now the main Jameson distillery is in Middleton, not Dublin, but they have a visitors center and small distillery here, so, with this crew, it was a necessary stop. We got there a few minutes before it opened, so we did some picture taking outside.

And then it opened…sort of. Turns out that while the website says that Jameson opens at 10, that’s really only for the first tour group. The shops and bar open at 10:30. So we did some picture taking inside and took advantage of the free wifi until the bar opened.

 
I’m sure Nick got some sort of old fashioned type drink. I got one of their cocktail specials, a Jameson Orange with lemonade, which we discovered is really more like lemon club soda. This was excellent (it’s on Nick’s agenda to re-create it at home!), and even Laura who cannot stand whiskey, got one after trying a sip of mine. I’m not sure what dad got to drink, but it definitely involved whiskey. There were more pictures taken and drinks were enjoyed. Slainte!

After consuming our drinks, we explored the gift shop, with the guys looking for anything distillery specific that was interesting (spoiler alert, they came up empty) and me doing some Christmas shopping for them.

Once we were done at Jameson, we started the 20ish mile walk back across the River Liffey and up a big hill to our next destination, the reason why everyone comes to Dublin, the Guinness Storehouse. There was much grumbling from the two that don’t Disney with me about the walking, but we all made it there unscathed.

It took us a little while to find the entrance to the Storehouse because the place is massive, but it also allowed for some picture taking along the way.

Once there, we were early, so we expected them to stick us in their holding pen outside, but they actually scanned our tickets and sent us right in. There was more scanning inside and we were handed multiple ticket things, before being sent on our way.

Now…our tickets… My dad is a regular at the local dive bar that’s just barely over the border into Manchester from my hometown. Bonsai has the best Chinese food in the area, great American food, cheap drinks, ridiculously large food serving sizes and is a total locals hangout. The regulars all know each other. Apparently one of the other regulars is a beverage distributor. He found out we were going to Ireland and snagged Dad free “VIP” (so he told dad) tickets to Guinness. We didn’t really care about the VIP tagline, we were just excited about the “free” part. I’d done some research when we got our hands on the tickets, and they were for the Stoutie experience, meaning we got the usual self-guided tour experience with a pint at the Gravity Bar at the top of the Storehouse, plus an additional pint halfway through the Storehouse with our faces printed on the head. Two pints per person plus the self guided tour, all for free. Not bad.

Our visit to the Storehouse started with a quick intro to the world of Guinness by a worker in kind of the center of the Storehouse. Then we were sent on our way to explore at our own pace. The Guinness Storehouse is massive, spanning multiple floors, supposedly built in the shape of a pint glass. The experience is pretty high tech, and very well done. We were here for several hours. There are a couple of restaurant areas halfway through, and we did get lunch. Nick and I shared a quattro formagi pizza, Laura had a margarita pizza, and dad had…food. The food was excellent. We got our faces on a pint at the Stoutie experience. And at the Gravity Bar, Nick and I tried our Guinness with black currant syrup. He’s someone who actually enjoys stouts. I’m less of a fan. But we both agreed that the black currant added a lot to the experience and totally changed the taste. We also enjoyed the views of Dublin from the Gravity Bar. 360 degree views from up here…I think 7 stories up. We enjoyed our time at the Guinness Storehouse, and we were very grateful for the free tickets!

The Guinness Storehouse was touristy, obviously, but I definitely understood why it’s a must-do in Dublin. While I recommend focusing on other parts of Ireland over Dublin, if you do spend time in Dublin, go to Guinness, whether you have to pay for the tickets or not.

When we finished at Guinness, we took about a 15 minute walk to Teeling Distillery. This stop was very much for dad. It had warmed up to about 72 degrees fahrenheit, so, there was, of course, much grumbling about the walking. Good grief! We took some pictures and did a quick pass through the store here, but ended up not staying long at Teeling. While air conditioning was really only truly good at the Guinness Storehouse and in the hotels we had stayed in, it was REALLY bad here, and their tasting room was on the second floor.

 
From Teeling, we started walking back towards the hotel, stopping to check out Fallons, a pub dad had wanted to go to, along the way. This turned out to be a VERY small pub, and apparently didn’t have the feel (you know…sitting at the bar) that dad wanted, so we looked in and then continued on our way, back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, we took naps, started packing and then discovered that the reason Dublin was SO peopley this weekend was because the Oasis reunion tour was in town. They played two sold out shows at Croke Park, each with close to 90,000 people in attendance.

Naps taken, we met up with dad and Laura for dinner, across the street at Bull and Castle, where they’d eaten the night before. We sat upstairs at the bar (obviously), which has a more limited menu. I had a burger and my final Orchard Thieves cider of the trip. I think Laura also had a burger. Dad probably had a salad of some sort and Nick had a steak. And dad had all of his favorite prohibition era American cocktails. We were here for a couple of hours. The food was good and the bartender was outstanding. The company was questionable though;) Laura told me at one point that the trip was “about what she had expected”, which I’m pretty sure was not a compliment of my tour guide skills. I will say, though, that of Dad and Laura, she, oddly enough, had been the easier of the two to travel with. That was not what I’d been expecting.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel, where I know I crashed hard.

August 2025: Our First Trip to Ireland: Day 7

Day 7: Friday August 15, 2025

It’s moving day again! On to the part of the trip that Nick and I were least looking forward to and dad was most looking forward to.

But first, breakfast! After getting ready, we met at the hotel breakfast around the time they opened. We all enjoyed this breakfast again, and agreed it had been the best of the trip.

After breakfast we headed back to our rooms to get our luggage. This was interesting on the second floor, since a tour company was heaping luggage carts with the luggage for everyone on their tour. But we navigated well.

When we got back downstairs with our luggage, Nick hustled to the car park to get the car before the tour buses rolled in while I checked out. Laura and dad appeared shortly after, and we met Nick out front, where we loaded up the car and set off for Dublin.

The drive back to the Dublin Airport was pretty uneventful. The first part was a lot of local (tiny) roads, but eventually we reached the motorway, and then it was much easier driving. We stopped once at a service plaza and found it to (unsurprisingly, given the ones we’d seen on the drive to Northern Ireland at the start of the trip) be pretty much exactly like the service plazas in the States and then filled the gas tank close to the airport.

When we got to DUB, we followed the directions the rental car company had given me and pretty easily found where to return the car. Given the damage, we expected the process to take awhile, but it actually was pretty quick. He took pictures and a description of what happened, joked with us about the roads and car parks, and explained that they’d take an estimate deposit that would exceed the work, and then when the work was done, they’d refund whatever excess there was. And all documentation would be emailed to me so I could submit to the credit card company insurance. And honestly, the estimate was less than I expected, so while still painful, that was a relief.

That whole process took less than 10 minutes. We rejoined dad and Laura who had made their way towards the elevators to the terminal, and then we worked our way through the arrivals hall back outside to the taxi stand. Here there was a decent line, but it moved efficiently. They had a system, with a couple of people directing groups to appropriately sized taxis. We ended up in a Volkswagen van. Our taxi driver was chatty in a good way, and he gave us some tips while navigating traffic and streets that convinced me Boston roads must have been modeled after Dublin’s. We ALL were glad that the rental car had been returned and our driving was done for this trip!

We made it safely to our final hotel of the stay, the Harding Hotel, where our taxi driver very strategically unloaded and placed our luggage to prevent it from rolling down the hill (he’s clearly unloaded luggage here before!), and then we headed inside to check in.

It was still well before check-in (1:30 pm?) so I fully expected we would be storing our luggage. But surprisingly all of our rooms were ready and after a few minutes, we all were headed upstairs to our rooms. I think Nick and I were in 510. Dad and Laura were both on other floors. Nick and I found our room easily enough. Nick described it as “quaint”. For a room that looked old, I was really impressed by how clean it was. We both were more than satisfied with this room.

After ditching the luggage we headed downstairs to meet dad and Laura. We then headed further downstairs to Darkey Kelly’s for lunch. Getting seated was a bit of a process, but once we were seated, lunch was very good. I know dad and I both got the ham and cheese sandwich (panini really) which combined mozzarella and cheddar with the ham. I thought it was the best ham and cheese sandwich of my life to be honest. Combining those two cheeses with the ham was brilliant. I also had an O’Hara’s cider, which was better than Bulmar’s or Cronin, but still not as good as Rockshore and Orchard Thieves. Nick probably had bangers and mashed. Laura…no clue. But, overall the food was good, and more importantly did the job. We were hungry!

After lunch we set out to explore Dublin. The first stop was one for Dad, the Carhartt WIP store, or as the rest of us were calling it, Bougie Carhartt. As NH folks, we all appreciate Carhartt quality, but Dad is all about Carhartt. There is very little in his wardrobe that isn’t Carhartt. I’m pretty sure he was even wearing Carhartt at my wedding. So, he was excited to hear about the new designer Carhartt line, Carhartt WIP, that is in some cities, including Dublin. However, this stop was a bust. Seemed more like a display of (this part the rest of us had assumed) their bougie Carhartt clothes than a store to really stop at. Not sure if it functions like a shoe store where the stock is out back or if you have to order the stuff, but even dad basically walked in and walked out.

 
From here, we walked towards our next destination, very early, passing the Molly Malone statue along the way. When we found the Irish Whiskey Museum a block or so later, we were really early so we shopped in a couple of the stores close to the museum and then hung around outside the museum, taking in…Dublin. I think most of us came to the same conclusion pretty quickly. Dublin is basically Boston, with better architecture, thicker accents and double decker buses. They even have duck boats. It’s crazy peopley here too.

Eventually it was an appropriate time to check in for our “tour” at the Irish Whiskey Museum so we headed inside. This was about a 30 minute guided tour experience talking about the history of Irish whiskey overall, followed by a whiskey sampling at the end. The museum part was pretty interesting and well done. The whiskeys at the end were pretty terrible.

 
From here, it was time for the quintessential Dublin experience. We walked a couple blocks and very easily found Temple Bar. So did, apparently, thousands of other people. It was nuts around here. We walked in to say we did. The music was good, but the crowds were intense.

 
Our next step was basically next to Temple Bar. It was the Whiskey Reserve, and, while we all enjoyed it, it was definitely up Dad’s alley. Quiet and a massive selection of whiskeys, with a decor of rare whiskeys. Dad and Nick had…whiskey. Laura had a vodka and soda water. And I had a very American Malibu and Coke.

 

Drinks enjoyed, we headed back to our hotel, marveling at how peopley Dublin was this weekend. Back at the hotel, we listened to the near constant ringing of the bells at Christ Church Cathedral, which was across the street. I discovered that on Fridays they do bell ringing practice at the cathedral.

The bells did not stop me, however from crashing hard. I was TIRED. We even missed texts from dad about going out for a late dinner, which honestly was totally fine. Both of us crashed early and dad and Laura apparently found a good dinner across the street.