Keropie's Cuties: Dublin, Blarney, Galway and Mohr!

Well, having now left Ireland and finding ourselves within the warm and cosy home of Rod and Jules with some quiet time on our hands... Time to update the blog.

I’ll start with the flight out of Orlando, which had to route via Philadelphia to change aircraft for the flight across to Dublin. We were originally due to have a few hours stop over that we would’ve used for dinner and duty free purposes but thanks to a massive storm we ended up landing about 10 minutes after the Dublin plane was due out. Thankfully the Dublin flight had also been delayed, but we pretty much had to run for the flight and took some McDonalds on board (should be illegal, I know). The storm was the worst thing I have ever flown in, and for someone who is not a calm flyer at the best of times, kept me on the edge of my seat and nearly had me kissing the earth Pope style once we had landed. The subsequent take off also had me nervous but the rest of the flight to Dublin was pretty calm and we all slept through the best part of the flight.

We landed in Dublin around 11am, and upon collection of our baggage found that one of our bags (the one with all the cool stuff we had bought) had not found it’s way. A few wasted hours later they had located it in Philly still and arranged for next flight over and courier to the B & B we were staying in. We bussed it to the B&B and dropped bags before setting out into Dublin proper.

First afternoon was spent roaming through the Temple Bar district where we found one of the Trabant’s U2 used on stage during their Zoo Tv tour, also managed to find a T-shirt that I had tried every Hard Rock Cafe across America for in ample supply here, so picked that up, price wasn’t so great with the Euro conversion, but didn’t want to miss out this time. After a couple of hours of exploring we headed home for dinner and to map out a U2 tour for Aurora and me the following day.

The next day we wandered the city taking in various sites of city and visiting some of the sites that U2 played and recorded during their career. Around lunchtime the rain set in, and with us thinking that rain and Ireland go hand in hand we made the most of our limited time and continued our long walk across the city getting absolutely soaked. Turns out this was one of the wettest days on record and from all the reports from the locals not a normal summer. Still even though we got wet, Aurora still got to visit U2’s studio and leave a graffiti message on the wall for them. Unfortunately the band was not in, I think they were smart and skipped the Irish summer for one in the South of France.

On Wednesday we again traipsed the town, this time heading for Killmainham Gaol. Originally a gaol that housed a lot of ‘criminals’ caught stealing food and the like during the Irish potato famine, it was also home and in many cases last lodging for those convicted of orchestrating the Irish rebellion. Many of the leaders were condemned to death, but many went on to successful political careers in a free Ireland a number of years later. Was a fascinating place and had Ethan and Aurora discussing which prison they would prefer to end up in, Alcatraz our Killmainham, I hope neither :)

Later that afternoon we picked up the hire car and experienced some of the worst traffic ever. An hour to move 5km back to the B & B, got there eventually, then Ethan and I split from the girls to go see Muse play in Marlay Park. We arrived just as the band started playing and were quite far back but managed to slide our way up closer towards the end during the encores as people starting calling it a night. Any way the band played well, Ethan had a ball seeing his favourite band play, (he even danced a bit, though will never admit that.(It’s a boy thing) and the rain held out as we were a expecting a wet night and muddy pitch. A 2 hour plus trip home, with Ethan falling asleep on the way, we crawled into bed around 1am and awoke the next day ready for the drive out to Blarney......

Damien