The Home of Guinness

In an effort to get away for a few days we planned a last minute weekend to Ireland to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Cora had never been and we both really wanted to go to the 'Home of Guinness' so it was a perfect option. We flew into Dublin and then rented a car to drive down to the southwest of the country before flying back from Cork.

As it was so last minute we didn't check to see what might be happening that weekend in our chosen locations so we had a few surprises.  We arrived in Dublin early on Friday morning and were treated to an entire city geared up for the Notre Dame v. Navy 'Emerald Isle Classic'.  We had literally walked into a college football tailgating weekend. The Irish had gone all out to welcome fans from both sides and there were flags flying everywhere from various pubs, bars and hotels and there was even a shop selling game merchandise to all the fans. We dropped our bags and waded into the masses. Dublin is a wonderfully compact city and we spent the morning wandering around Trinity College and the Temple Bar area before making our way to St James Gate Brewery.

This was really a bit of a pilgrimage for us. Although our Guinness was not from Ireland, nor did he ever set foot on the island, his name was Guinness St James for a reason. We spent a long time wandering the various exhibits and had a nice little lunch before going to the 7th floor Gravity Bar for our 'free' pint of Guinness. The view was great, the Guinness was better and the crowds of Americans made it feel like a sports bar. It wasn't the exact experience we were expecting to have, but we both really enjoyed spending the time at the Home of Guinness.

We spent the rest of the day wandering the various Dublin neighbourhoods and then having a lovely Italian dinner before ending a very long day by standing in the street listening to a live band and enjoying the warm summer evening with a drink.

Driving out of Dublin we figured the rest of our time would be spent in small, sparsely populated towns and villages hugging the rugged Irish coastline. We were mostly right, except we drove to Dingle Town on the evening after its annual marathon! So we went from 35,000 Americans asking us who we were supporting to a 3,000+ marathon runners asking what our time that day was! The atmosphere was very festive and we again had a lovely meal out and then went to a couple of different pubs for some good Irish music. It was lovely to stand in a cramped Irish pub listening to traditional music while the rain hammered away outside.

The coastline of the Dingle and Kerry peninsulas is breathtaking and we took advantage of having a car to drive along some very small and windy roads - shared occasionally by patriotic sheep!

We preferred Dingle, because it was more wild, rugged and with fewer people/cars. We drove the Conor Pass on Saturday evening literally in the clouds, not being able to see more than twenty meters in front of us! Going back the next day we were treated to lovely views of both coasts of the peninsula - perfect for a picnic lunch.

We explored quite a few out of the way tracks, once even finding ourselves on a rutted, unpaved farm track that wound its way back up a hillside - the local farm dog looked quite intrigued to see us coming from that direction.

We ultimately found a wonderful spit of land that afforded a beautiful sunset with the Skellig Islands in the distance. We huddled up against the harsh Atlantic winds and watched the waves thunder and swirl around the jagged rocks below us.

We wanted to leave a bit of Guinness in Ireland and this seemed the perfect place - facing West towards home, surrounded by water and deep in the natural settings he loved to explore alongside us. It was hard to scatter his ashes - to let go really - but we know his spirit is free in that wonderful place.