sarah abroadfoot: ireland. good craic!

i figured it was about time that i posted an entry on my foray to the emerald isle.

i went to ireland a couple of weeks ago for a full week. it was half term, so my friend pam and i decided that that was going to be our destination. fully excited well before hand, off we jetted. we landed in dublin on a saturday night, dropped our bags off in our hostel and then turned right 'round and went to the pubs. we were going to do a proper crawl, however we found the porterhouse and parked ourselves there for some guinness and some trad music.

all in all, that was quite the excellent night.

then we awoke without hangovers sunday morning, and wandered over to st. james' gate. the historic and marvellous guinness storehouse and brewery for a self-guided tour. we wandered through the process, reading and looking at the way that the black stuff was originally made before the days of mass production. got to sample some stout, then meander through the various other exhibits before arriving at the 7th floor. the gravity bar - a place where you get your free pint (with price of admission) and a panoramic view of dublin-town and the mountains in the distance. it was quite stunning, i must say. the rest of sunday was spent wandering around on foot seeing what we could see and gearing up for the main purpose of our trip, a 5-day tour around the southern parts of the island with shamrocker adventure tours.

through the haze of copious activities and many a round of guinness that week, i'm going to give my best crack at recounting the tour....

monday:
we departed from dublin and spent most of the day on the road. we had some stop-offs at the rock of cashel, blarney castle, where yes i did indeed kiss the blarney stone. apparently now i can bullshit my way through many things. to the mitchelstown caves, where i was put on the spot to sing a song in this massive cavern. the accoustics were unreal. just amazing. not echo-ey, more of a reverb than anything else, which any musician knows is otherwise considered the "talent booster". then on down to killarney where we were going to be staying the night. checking into our hostel took minimal time, then it was dinner and off to a show. pub theatre with the man, the legend, pa. this man could down pints of guinness and whiskey simultaneously it seemed while still managing to pull off a fantastic one-man act. the end of the show came and out came guitars where pa and our tour-guide sean did some jamming. aaand then it got passed my way. so another impromptu performance. excellent!

tuesday:
only mildly exhausted, but still keen to go, our rag-tag band of 29 misfits, 1 guide, and 1 wicked bus driver departed killarney, then went to killarney national park, where we shivered in the cold view of ireland's tallest mountain. quite beautiful! the rest of tuesday took us around the dingle peninsula, where pam, myself, and the 3 other canadians came as close to home as we could in europe (without including iceland as a country in europe). the views and scenery changed at every corner, from the sandy coomenoole beach, to the winding twisting roads along hillsides. it was beautiful! and talk about 4 seasons in one day, we went for lunch in dingle proper and on my way back to the bus, i believe it was sunny, then raining, then hailing, then sunny within a 5 minute span. ridiculous!
afterwards, we continued out of the dingle peninsula, on up across the shannon (a river) into county clare, the most superstitious county in the country. we were told to watch for fairy trees and fairy rings. fairy trees, we saw many of. no banshees though (thankfully) and no leprechauns (thankfully). we settled into our EXTRAORDINARILY nice hostel in ennis, cleaned up after a busy day of wandering through wilderness, and then set out to yet another pub for guinness, trad music, and general good times with our crew.

wednesday:
this day was spent mostly wandering around county clare. we saw the burren, the cliffs of moher, more burren, and a fairy ring. we passed through many little towns, and then landed in galway for the night. all of the things we saw and the places we passed by were nothing short of breathtaking. the burren with all of its rocks and glacial formations. the cliffs of moher, which you'll just have to scroll down to the photographs to see. just fantastic! that night we landed ourselves in galway for a two-night stay. we naturally all went out to the pub as a crew again. there was a live band - not bad. not fantastic, but not bad. a ton of fun with the shamrocker crew that night.

thursday:
touring around the connemara mountains was the purpose of thursday. we saw some amazing scenery, had the best irish coffee i have ever had in my LIFE, saw croagh patrick (mount st. patrick), climbed just enough of it to be able to say officially we were ON the mountain....at the base of it there was the irish famine memorial - which was very well done, and very sombre. so many things in connemara that were lovely! so many!
thursday night back in galway, i did not go out with the rest of the crew. this was not because i had begun to tire of their presence....but instead, i had managed to snag a last minute ticket to go see hayseed dixie. i had been told about their appearance in galway back on monday or tuesday, so i was hoping that there would be a spare ticket kicking around. sean, the guide told me about it. we found me a ticket in a really neat music/cd store, and then off i went! the concert was fantastic, the two of us and two of his friends were front row for pretty much the entire gig. it was ridiculous! then afterwards, the band came out and hung out with everyone who was still around! that was amazing! what better way to spend a night in galway, i ask you?! though the rest of the crew apparently had an amazing off-the-hook night, i was still pretty glad that i siezed my opportunity to go to the gig.

friday:
friday morning, we had a free morning, so a few of us girls wandered around galway. i replaced my many-a-time broken claddagh ring with a new one from the county that it originates in...and then onto the bus for the trip back to dublin. friday night in dublin, i was just planning on giving my liver a rest, when on the sidewalk on my way back into the hostel from grabbing some food, one of the guys from the tour shanghai'ed me and brought me to the pub where people who work for the hostel in dublin as well as shamrocker tours were all convening for a beverage. it was a good night filled with talking music, talking bands, talking instruments, talking travel, it was just a great way to end the week.

saturday:
now, our bus driver, also works for the dublin splash tour, in which you put on a plastic viking hat, and freeze to the core on a duck bus thing. you tour around dublin, roar at strangers on the street in true viking fashion, then plunge into the river liffey where the duck bus becomes a duck BOAT. such fun. though i must admit, i was very very very cold by the end. it took a couple of hot chocolates and a coffee to warm me up afterwards.
after that, back to the hostel, then on to the plane. landing at night in london-town dreading the fact that i had to work in just over 30 hours.

i spent a while nursing my liver back to not hating me.....and by a while i mean 3 days.

now for some pictures!