Dublin, Ireland: Cliffs, Drinks & A Feckin’ Good Time

One of the many pluses to living in Europe on military orders is that Bryan is given 72s or 96s (three or four-day weekends) for national holidays, where he can travel anywhere in the European Union without having to use leave. With our first 96 falling over Labor Day, I was quick to look at flight prices and begin trip planning! After mentioning this trip idea to a girlfriend I met here, Jaime, I invited her to tag along for a weekend adventure of drinking around Dublin and seeing the sights of Ireland!

In preparation for our first trip outside Spain, Jaime and I knew we needed a shopping trip to prepare for the cooler northern weather! Bryan decided to tag along for some fall shopping in Jerez, where the man ended up with more European clothes in the shopping bags than I did! Jaime and I had tons of great laughs picking out outfits for Bryan to try on- and this man was a great sport! Zara for the win!

Then it was time for dinner (the real reason Bryan wanted to tag along), so we visited a Lebanese restaurant that served some delicious Baklava and an amazing appetizer platter!

August 31, 2023: Goodbye Spain!

With some new clothes to show off in Dublin, it was time to catch our plane out! So after a busy day at work, I picked Bryan up and we made our way to Sevilla for our first flight!

We had a short hour-and-a-half layover at 10 pm in Marseille, France, where we passed the time with French airport snacks and some reading/Twitter time. At 11:20 pm, we were in the air again and touched down in Dublin shortly after 1 am.

Flying Ryan Air does have its perks: it's cheap and it restricts us to a small under-seat bag, so we disembarked quickly and hailed a taxi to our Dublin hotel. Being $30 poorer and with only enough time for a 3-hour nap before our morning began, we hit the hay as quickly as possible!

September 1, 2023: Irish Countryside Day Tour

Our morning started early as we left our cute Irish hotel at 5:30 am to begin our tour of the Irish Countryside! Based on the recommendation of our tour guides, we grabbed a quick breakfast sandwich on our way to the bus meeting point before finding our seats and beginning our 13-hour tour!

Our first stop was at Obama Plaza, a gas station stop along the highway with a statue of the former president and his wife, Michelle Obama. While the stop itself was pretty lame, the tour guide did teach us some fun facts about the American government with Irish blood! We learned that 23 presidents have Irish Ancestry, including JFK, Clinton, both Bush presidents, Biden, and surprisingly: Obama!

The Obama Plaza was set up outside the town where Obama's ancestors live, and the locals love this story so much that they even wrote a catchy little tune that was played for us as we arrived at the plaza:

Yeah, it's pretty cheesy!

After Colum, our tour guide, taught us some American history, he also introduced us to some Irish politics. The current Irish President, Michael D Higgins, who apparently looks like the child of Dobby and a leprechaun (Colum said this, not me!) began his Irish political career as Ireland’s first Minister for Arts. While serving in this role, Michael D Higgins revolutionized Ireland's film industry and brought many jobs to the country. His first major achievement occurred when Mel Gibson didn’t have full funding for the filming of Braveheart, so MDH helped get the movie made in Ireland for lower costs.

As we continued our drive through the countryside, Colum taught us a ton about Irish culture and history! Here's a few fun things we learned:

• Ireland is a farming nation. They have 6 million cows- nearly 1 cow for every person in Ireland- and nearly 2 sheep for every person.

• Ireland produces over $6 billion euros for their economy every year through farming alone.

• We also learned the naming scheme for many Irish areas and buildings. Anything with Kil in the name means "church." Mac means "son of," and Fitz at the front of someone's surname means their family is of Norman origin.

So this means that the city of Kildare was named for its famous cathedral, MacDonald is the son of Donald (and my own relatives of McClain probably changed the spelling and were originally the family of Clains/Clans?), and Fitzgerald & Fitzpatrick families have ancestors that come from France (Normandy area!)

Colum was a fantastic tour guide who also pointed out "fairy trees" along our drive. These lonely trees can be spotted in vast fields, surrounded by rocks, that haven't been touched by the farm's livestock. These Fairy Trees seem to pop up in fields like magic, and since the animals won’t eat from them, the farmers won't touch them because they must be inhabited by fairies.

Rumor has it, if fairy trees are disturbed, then calamity follows the person who caused the damage...pretty superstitious!

Now as we enjoyed our travels with Colum, Bryan and I couldn't help but giggle like schoolgirls every time Colum would say "feckin." The way the Irish curse is hilarious and had us thinking back to our Hawaii tour at Kualoa Ranch, where our tour guide couldn't stop saying "too as well." Let's just say we will take the Irish version over any feckin' "too as well's" any day!

Just look at this stunning countryside!

As we made our way towards the Cliffs of Moher, Colum continued our history lesson with a brief overview of Ireland's colonizers:

Ireland has been invaded 4 times:

1. Back in 1000 BC, the Celts invaded and developed the farming techniques Ireland is famous for to this day.

2. In 795 AD, Vikings landed on the Western shores of Ireland and continued to wreak havoc on Irish cities as they sailed up rivers and claimed major shipping port towns.

3. Then in 1100 AD, the Normans invaded and built over 4,000 forts and castles around the country. The Normans are notorious for their "Fitz" names, as I mentioned earlier.

4. Lastly, in the 1600s, the English invaded Ireland and pushed the English language and Protestantism on the Irish people.

Knowing all this, the Irish still joke to this day that their biggest export is people: the Irish are known for migrating all over the world!

This brings us to our highlight of the day (heck, the whole trip!); The Cliffs of Moher. Throughout all these invasions, the Cliffs of Moher have survived as a protected natural cliff, home to numerous bird breeding grounds and a stunning view. Up until Colombus' big sail across the Ocean Blue in 1492, this cliffside was thought to be the "edge of the world." If you sailed past the horizon, you may just fall off an even bigger cliff into oblivion.

Most notably for Bryan, the Cliffs of Moher is a famous filming site for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, when Harry and Dumbledore travel to destroy a horcrux in the cave.

Don't remember? Watch the next 30 seconds of this clip to see the darker viewpoint of the Cliffs of Moher:

Being the giddy HP fan, Bryan was quick to jump off the bus and experience the cliffs for himself! As we disembarked our bus, it was overcast and raining, so our hike up to the cliffs was wet and dreary. After snapping our first few pictures, the skies cleared out and left us with a spectacular view and some stunning rainbows!

You may notice above in that last photo that Bryan and I bought a local artist's painting before leaving the cliffs. We also walked off with pins and a pair of Cliffs of Moher socks for our other collections! To say we were enthralled by this place is an understatement. Two hours here flew by!

Just watch this to get a taste of this breathtaking view:

We also climbed O'Brien's Tower just in time to watch the mist and fog clear and leave behind a bright rainbow over the cliffs! We couldn't have planned this better!

After the Cliffs of Moher, we boarded our bus and continued our journey to The Burren, a natural rocky park along the western coast. As we drove around this rock formation, we learned that this area used to be filled with rock-built homes that were abandoned during the Potato Famine.

Beginning in 1845 and continuing for a grueling 10 years, the Potato Famine devastated Irish families and led to over 160,000 deaths during the first year.

The British government offered relief, but in order to receive food people had to build roads or walls in terrible working conditions. If you couldn’t work you could abandon Catholicism or drop your Irish name and take an English name in trade for sustenance. Over 500,000 people died during this national disaster and over 1 million immigrated to America and Australia during this time frame.

Our next stop on our Irish Countryside tour was at a little church site with an Irish "leaning tower" known as the Kilmacduagh Abbey.

Let's test your learning from earlier: Kil (church) mac (family of ) duagh (family name!) See you are getting it! Irish naming schemes aren't that hard!

With gorgeous skies and friendly cows, this stop was great for stretching our legs and exploring the ancient church grounds.

Then we were off for our second-favorite stop of the day: the city of Galway, the city of the tribes.

When the Normans took over Ireland, they conquered all throughout the country and built those 4,000 castles and forts we mentioned earlier. The Normans in the East of Ireland maintained loyalty to the English crown, whereas the Normans out west became “native” and were later known as Celtic Normans. These Celtic Normans adopted the Irish lifestyle, married into Irish families, and eventually gave Galway city back to the Irish.

Nowadays, Galway is known for its 18th-century vibes and their pubs. Colum told us that the Galway locals argue that Guinness tastes better the farther you are outside of Dublin, so we had to make our own comparisons.

So off to the pubs!

Our first stop was Garavan's Bar, Colum's recommendation for the best Irish Coffee and a delicious Guinness. Taking his recommendation to heart, we ordered one of both and were shocked to learn that I, Katie Kimble Johnson, enjoyed the Guinness over the Irish Coffee.

Yep, you read that right. The woman who only drinks Ciders and Gose downed Guinness in Galway, Ireland. Bryan was impressed by my tastebuds and was ready to steal the worn, leather chair he sat in because "it was the perfect vibe chair."

So to say we enjoyed this first stop is an understatement. For this to be our first Guinness tasting in Ireland, we were both pleasantly surprised by its smoothness and flavor. (And yes, that's coming from me!)

The next stop on our Galway drinking tour was the Skeff Bar, which met our Irish pub dreams to a Tee! With the overgrown flowers out front, to the wooden architecture inside, this place was delightful.

Needing to balance our palate, Bryan ordered a Smithwick's Red Ale; the oldest beer in Ireland, having been established in 1710; and I ordered a Bulmers Cider, based on the bartender's recommendation. We took it one step further and split a chicken "toastie" before returning to the bus.

As we completed our Irish Countryside tour, we hit a few more spurts of "Irish liquid sunshine" on the ride back to Dublin and were delighted with some prominent rainbows along the way!

After returning to the city center, we were exhausted. We stopped for a quick dinner at Three Storey, where we split a burger and each ordered a pint of Guinness to end our first full day in Ireland! What a success! Then we dragged ourselves back to our hotel and crashed for a much-needed night's rest!

September 2, 2023: Church, Library & Guinness

Saturday morning started with a coffee, a pastry, and then a visit to St Patrick's Cathedral, where we had a self-guided audio tour of the cathedral's history and famous congregants. Most known is Jonathan Swift, the author of Gulliver's Travels, who was notorious for having 4-hour long sermons and a pulpit-on-wheels so he could be moved closer to congregants who began dozing off during his teachings!

Our ticket for St. Patrick's Cathedral also included a visit to Marsh's library. This place was right up my alley and was a surprisingly fun visit! We learned that Archbishop Narcissus Marsh developed Marsh's Library in the 1700s as the first public library in Ireland. Although there were earlier libraries located in universities and churches, Narcissus Marsh wanted a place for anyone who was able to read. This man was well before his time, and his ideas established him as a founder of public libraries around the world!

Marsh's collection is comprised of his own collection and another 10,000 books that he bought from Edward Stillingfleet, a famous English preacher and theologian of the time. Looking to expand the library's collection further, Marsh hired Élie Bouhéreau, a French refugee, as the library's first librarian on the understanding that Bouhéreau's own book collection was to be added to the Marsh's library. While Bouhéreau was a very good choice for a librarian, as he was a published scholar, Marsh was more interested in the man's collection of books worth £500 pounds sterling. The simple trade: the Frenchman's books for a job and housing.

Walking through this library was surreal! I even laughed at the book cages, located in the final room of the library, that were designed in the 1760s as a way to lock in readers while they studied to prevent theft.

And here I am tearing out library security systems in every library I've worked in to make them feel more welcoming!

Bryan was a good sport and was entertained by the library worker who happily answered all questions. Bryan found the Early American History and Geography book exhibits interesting. Marsh's library has a large collection of maps and travel books from the 1500s-1700s, and these books showed the map development of America's coastline which Bryan found intriguing. It was also cool to see a copy of the first Bible printed in the colonies, alongside various pamphlets and writings enticing Europeans to travel to the Americas to visit the natives.

Continuing our book-loving adventures, we made a stop by a Gaelige bookstore, where we bought the only copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone they had in Gaelige. Did you know that only the first book has been translated into the Irish language? I guess if you want to read the rest, you have to learn English.

With a little time to kill, we stopped in The Landmark for a drink before sightseeing on our way to the Guinness Storehouse for our afternoon tour of the famous brewery!

I won't lie, I signed up for this tour just to prove to Bryan that I could drink a Guinness, while he was excited to tour the legendary building itself. I can say I was shocked at how much I enjoyed learning about the drink, the brewing process, and the history of the advertising world through this well-designed museum tour!

Here are just a few fun facts we learned during our tour:

• Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease on the plot of land in Dublin, Ireland back in 1759. This man had a vision and he was willing to bet his future, and the future of his entire family, on this vision.

• Arthur was married to Olivia Whitmore and together they had TWENTY-ONE children. While only 10 survived to adulthood, Arthur and Olivia faced much turmoil as they grew Guinness into the legendary company it is today.

• Within 50 years of opening their beer factory in Dublin, they had doubled in size.

• By the time the company hit its 100th anniversary, they were shipping a million barrels of Guinness out of Ireland a year.

To say Bryan enjoyed himself is an understatement! We even took a break and split a bowl of Beef & Guinness Pie, where we experienced some Irish dancing along with a pint of the famous "brown gold."

We didn't realize we would spend the majority of our afternoon at the Guinness Storehouse, so by the time we left, we had just a short hour before our night tour. We found another local pub to grab a drink and split some more food while we waited for Jaime to join us!

To end our fabulous day, I booked the three of us for a Dark Dublin City Tour, where our tour guide explained some of the darker sides of Dublin's history while we explored the famous sights of the city. We learned about gory beheadings, witchcraft (or just businesswomen ahead of their time), Jonathan Swift's sarcastic comment about eating babies to help the economy, Billy in the Bowl's serial murder streak, and Vikings that encouraged the growth of brothels in the city!

While a little more gruesome than we normally go for, this city tour was definitely memorable. Our guide also recommended the Brazen Head Pub, known as the oldest pub in Dublin (second-oldest in Ireland- but don't mention that if you visit, it's a touchy subject for the bartenders.)

September 3, 2023: Irish Pubs & Whisky Tours

Our final day in Dublin started with a short stroll through St Stephen's Green on our way to get another coffee and breakfast sandwich. As we walked through the city to our first major stop of the day, I couldn't help but pause and snap photos of this beautiful city. The unique charm of Dublin is filled with Gothic & Georgian Era architecture, charming front doors, and colorful stoops filled with flowers. I love it!

At 11:30 am, it was time for our Whiskey Museum Tour! We learned a ton about the Irish whisky-making process and how it influenced the world. Here are a few fun facts:

• Scottish whiskey is aged for 3 years. Irish whiskey has to age for a minimum of 3 years and 1 day to make it better (and to be slightly petty with the Scots.)

• All Irish whiskey is aged in either bourbon wooden barrels from the USA, or in Sherry wooden barrels from Spain. Way to recycle, Ireland!

• 60% of a whisky's aroma and flavor comes from barrels the whiskey is aged in.

• Uisce beatha (sounds like ishka baja) means "water of life" and was the original name of whiskey. (Notice the similar sounds of "ishka" and "isky.")

• When Bram Stoker visited Dublin, he learned about methanol poisoning, which would put people in a coma for 3 days after drinking impure whisky. It was common at this time for grave robbers to find claw marks in coffins after people were buried, and later awoken, only to try and dig their way out of death. This inspired Bram Stoker's writing of Dracula. (Also, Bram Stoker visited Marsh's library during this same visit and studied maps of Translyvania....thus more influence on his vampire tale!)

Eventually. it was time for our tasting, and we learned even more!

• Single malt whiskey means the bottle contains one single type of liquid from one distillery. The first whisky we tasted was a single malt whiskey: Busker Irish Whiskey.

• Blended Whiskeys are made from at least two different distilled whiskies and normally contain a mixture of malt and grain whiskey.

The last three whiskey tastings we had were all blended whiskeys. Powers had a cinnamon & white pepper smell, with a vanilla & fresh fruit flavor, and was MUCH easier to drink than the first.

The Irishman was our third tasting and had a more vanilla taste, while the last tasting was from Knappouge Castle, which was 86 proof and had a peppery smell with mild notes of fruit and spice in the flavor.

Now, I'm not sure if you can tell, but. I wrote all that while our guide explained what we *should* be tasting. In reality, it all tasted like fire and just seemed to get easier to drink with each tasting because our taste buds were already fried.

Since we were close by, we walked over to Trinity College, which is famous for housing The Book of Kells in their library. You know me: I wanted to tour another library, but the library is currently under restoration and all the bookshelves are empty for this renovation. So we saved the $26/person and just took pictures from outside. Even the librarian doesn't want to see empty bookshelves.

Then it was time for more pubs, and our first stop had to be the famous Temple Bar! Known for their lively performances and good drinks, the Temple Bar did not disappoint! And look at it: it's the cutest pub in Ireland with all the floral growth and bright red awnings!

After enjoying some live Irish music at The Temple Bar, it was time for more street exploration, as we made our way into the less touristy parts of Dublin on the northern side.

While I am known as our trip planner, Bryan did his own TikTok research and stumbled upon a video where locals were asked their favorite pub in all of Dublin. The vast majority said Walsh's Pub. So Walsh's was added to our must-visit list!

Now, looking back, I think this was all a ploy for Bryan to watch the Manchester United-Arsenal game, but Jaime and I both agreed this place was cute, full of locals, and a perfect stop for a drink! Jaime even confused the famous "snug" room for "snogging," when she took our photo below. I gotta say, while we died laughing after the fact, it turned out pretty cute to "snog in a snug!"

It may seem like we came to Dublin just to drink in every Irish pub we could find, and you wouldn't be far from the truth! While we still fit in a lot of sightseeing, experiencing true Irish pubs was such a memorable experience! Having Jaime along with us made it that much more hilarious. Our two days around Dublin were filled with laughter and poking fun at Bryan- what more could I want!?

And for those who are concerned about our fur babies, Hugo and Reynolds didn't miss us one bit! We hired a new dogsitter, Miss Jessi, who came highly recommended by the Rota Military Facebook Page. Jessi is a Spanish local with vet assistant experience, so she was confident giving Hugo his daily liver meds, and her love for the pups shown bright in the videos and photos she sent us every day!

Just watch these two clips of the pups on their nightly and morning walks! I love how she caught both dogs' personalities!

Ok back to Dublin! Our final tour of the trip was to the world-famous Jameson Distillery on Bow Street. During this tour, our knowledge from the Whiskey Tour earlier this morning came in handy, while the Jameson tour guide used interactive video elements to bring the whiskey-making process to life.

Here we learned:

• Jameson Whiskey sold 10.4 million cases of whiskey last year and shipped 120 million bottles worldwide.

• During the 1916 Easter Rising one of Ireland's numerous rebellions), the distillery was closed for 2 weeks, but workers were paid their full compensation during the closure to support their families. The Bow Street facility was actually used as a rebellion fortress during that 1916 Easter Rising, too!

• In 1966, Jameson Whiskey incorporated itself alongside a few other famous whiskey brands of the time to form the Irish Distillery Group. This group was developed to protect and grow Ireland's whiskey name around the world and included whiskey brands like Powers (that we tasted this morning!)

• Today, Jameson's main distillery is located in Cork, Ireland and the compound takes up over 5 acres of steel and brick buildings to produce this world-famous liquor.

After another 3 whiskey tastings of fire down our throats, we were ready for a good Irish dinner, and Slattery's was the PERFECT last Irish meal! Jaime, Bryan, and I split the Irish lamb stew, the traditional chicken supreme, and the steak sandwich with loaded fries. I'm just happy I remembered to snap photos of this food because it was some of the best food we had in Ireland!

September 4, 2023: Returning Home

Eventually, every great trip has to come to an end, and our Dublin trip ended Monday morning with us catching an airport bus to Dublin International. With our RyanAir bags in hand, and just praying the flight attendants wouldn't say anything about me carrying our painting separately (thank goodness we snuck through!) we made our direct flight home at 11:45 am and were home, loving on our babies by 5:30 pm.

As I type these last few lines, I realize my entire day has passed with blog-writing. Now I'm off to pack a suitcase for our next trip.

Yep, we leave for our next adventure in just a few hours. Nothing like a 36-hour break at home to wash clothes, write a blog, and head back to the airport for another European Adventure!

Next Stop: My Birthday in Iceland.