Ireland the Speed-Tourist Way

Ireland is a land rich in Celtic history and it seems like wherever you go, you are tripping over ruins or discovering new information about history. Unlike England or other parts of Europe, however, you may have to dig a little bit harder to find well-preserved sites, as hundreds and thousands of years of living history has been absorbed into present-day Ireland. The people are wonderfully friendly and the road signs are not as bad as people claim them to be!

Clonmacnoise - see a historic religious site deep in the Irish heartland on the beautiful River Shannon. Well worth the drive.

Giant's Causeway - this top tourist attraction is a nature-crafted spot of geological distinction on the north shore of Northern Ireland.

New Grange - experience this ancient neolithic tomb and ponder what it took men to build this 500 years before the Pyramids of Giza were constructed - less than one hour outside of Dublin

Dublin Literary Pub Crawl - a fun night out in Dublin experiencing the city's history - both prosaic and of the pint.

If you are coming to see the natural beauty and historical sites of Ireland, you are better off flying into Shannon instead of Dublin, as there are more name-brand hotels around Shannon Airport and most historical/geographical sites are in the western parts of the country.

Quick Tips:

The Euro (€) is the currency standard in Ireland. Most smaller towns do not have banks or even ATMs. It is very rare to find anybody who will accept traveller's checks, regardless of the currency (, €, £). You will need to hunt for a bank, credit union, currency exchange or the occassional post office that is willing to cash them for you.

In Northern Ireland, the currency in use is the British £. Again, it is hard to find people willing to accept travellers checks, but people are more flexible about accepting € instead of £. While the British pound sterling is accepted anywhere in Northern Ireland, you will find that NI has its own version of the pound sterling - and these notes are not accepted for use in Great Britain. Exchange rate fees may run as high as €2 per €100 exchanged.

The most common form of accommodation in Ireland are B&Bs. Only in larger towns that rely more on tourist trade will you find more "standard" hotels, and only in the largest cities such as Dublin, Shannon, & Belfast, will you find "name-brand" hotels such as the Westin, Radisson, Holiday Inn, etc.

Best Way To Get Around:

You will see far more of the country by private car than you can by bus or train. In both the Republic and in Northern Ireland, they drive on the left. Standard ("stick shift") cars are cheaper to rent as well; a standard rental at €400/week would run €1,000 if it were an automatic.

Book your car rental ahead as early as possible. Be sure to confirm whether your rate is quoted in , €, or £. Ireland has extensive insurance requirements; make sure that your online booking includes these. Be certain to bring a printout of your online booking with you when you pick up your car! We had an agent who mistook our rate of for €364. She proceeded to convert that rate to dollars (at a time when €1=.17) and attempted to add €80 in insurance fees on top of that. Our printouts proved that our rate of included insurance, was eligible for an upgrade, and was priced in , not €.

We found the buses around Dublin were easy to deal with. Buses accept coin ONLY! Dublin is easiest to deal with via a combination of walking and buses.

We stayed at the Holiday Inn at Dublin Airport for a couple reasons: 1) they had a complimentary shuttle from the airport; 2) they were on airport property and therefore handy for a trio of jet-lagged tourist arrivals; and 3) my father prefers to stay in brand name hotels over B&Bs or "unknown" local inns. The Holiday Inn offered breakfast available and it is, after all, a trusted hotel chain.

In the US, anti-smoking regulations are everywhere, so as non-smokers, we were startled to walk into the lobby and find so many people seated in the waiting area smoking. This was a lesson to be kept in mind for the rest of our trip throughout Ireland.

The massive power outage which had happened the day before in the eastern US influenced far more than the US; various travellers were stranded due to airports being closed, so although we had made sure the reservation said "early arrival," there were no rooms available, and we had to sit in the lobby and wait nearly three hours for a room to be available. I was jetlagged and ill, so it was miserable to sit in the smoke-filled lobby and wait.

While the Holiday Inn is clean and tidy, it is an older hotel starting to show its age with a vaguely tired air. And although they knew that three people would be staying in the room, and had had to make up the room while we waited, the foldout bed was not ready and we had to wait half an hour for housekeeping to bring extra sheets, towels and pillows so I could lie down. Both the bed and foldout bed/cot could have used new mattresses. At least the linens were spotless white.

Our room included two breakfasts per day, which was good, because the breakfast buffet ("Irish breakfast") was pricey otherwise. The buffet was not bad, with fresh fruit, eggs, Irish bangers and mash, and more available.

They also had a nice little pub off the lobby where they had a live musician, and which was not a bad place to grab a beer.

Overall, however, we were not pleased with our stay, and when we returned for our final night in Dublin before flying out, choose to stay across the road instead, even though the accommodations cost us more.

Dublin Airport Holiday Inn

Holiday Inn Dublin Airport, Dublin Airport, Dublin, Ireland
Tel: +353 18080 500, Fax: +353 1844 6002

The Great Southern at Dublin Airport was built in 1998 -- a member of Ireland's oldest chain of hotels -- and is a four-star hotel which is designed with the business traveller in mind. Like their neighbor, the Holiday Inn, they offer a courtesy shuttle, but the Great Southern was dramatically different from the HI from the bright airy cleanliness of the lobby, to promptness of check-in, to the modern -- and soundproof (very important for an airport location!) rooms. In terms of quality, the Great Southern was at least on par with many Hyatts that I have been to in the US.

After a rough night's sleep the evening before, we couldn't deal with staying at the HI again, so we stopped by the Great Southern and happily found they had a room available. Although it was almost €30 more expensive than the Holiday and didn't even include breakfast, we didn't care -- it was THAT much better.

The staff was absolutely lovely, very friendly, very helpful, very prompt, from the front desk to the bellhops to the shuttle driver.

The room was lovely, with a super bed, and even the rollaway cot was comfortable! It was a very nice way to spend our last night in Dublin.

Although in general, if you are a tourist, I would recommend staying directly in the city itself, I would far and away recommend the Great Southern if you need to stay near the airport for any reason. But if you are a tourist, the Great Southern is right on a bus line that will take you downtown in about 20 minutes and which will stop by the River Liffey close to the Needle. It was very handy for us to go to/from downtown from this hotel.

Although I did not partake of very many of the extra facilities here, they did have some very attractive conference space and a couple of nice restaurants.

I would readily return to Great Southern, or be willing to try their properties elsewhere based on this stay.

Website

Records for the Roadside Tavern in Lisdoonvarna date back to 1865, but it was first registered as a public house (pub) in 1890. For many years, the Roadside was run as a combination of several elements, including a bakery, grocery shop, guest house, and bar. In 1897, Christopher Curtin took over the lease on the property and eventually purchased it in the 1930s. To this day, the Curtin family still runs the Roadside.

The Roadside is of particular fame locally, not just due to its history as one of the oldest pubs in Co. Clare, but as a popular place to enjoy local music nightly. They host musicians seven days a week, and you never know who might just drop in for a bit of craic and playing.

We went to the Roadside on the recommendation of our B&B hostess. It was very easy to find - a bright red building on the main street just off the town square, next to the Burren Smokehouse. The Roadside makes great use of the Smokehouse's fresh fish on their meal menu. Plaques at the door show that the Roadside was the winner of the Traditional Irish Music Pub of the Year Award Presented by Irish Music Bars Guide to Ireland (2002) and also that the Roadside has won Dining Pub of the Year.

The initial entry room, where the publicans are, is a bit dark, the walls and bar area papered with beer labels, postcards, and other tidbits. To the left is an area that seems to be a newer, expanded area, with bright woods and colors. We grabbed some seats in the dining area and soon found ourselves talking with a father and son who had just come from several days spent bicycling and hiking in the Aran Islands, not too far off the local coast. They spoke warmly of their experiences and made me wish we had time to visit there!

Service was good and the food came out fast and hot. We had a variety of fish and chips, salmon plate, and sandwiches, and some soups. The prices were quite reasonable and the quality in return was very good, the fish very fresh and tasty. With the good atmosphere, and the fiddler warming up, it was a pleasant place to spend dinner.

Food served 12:30 to 3pm year round; 12:30 to 9pm May through September.

My mother and I have loved Waterford Crystal for years, so the Waterford Crystal factory tour and showcase was definitely an item on our mostly-unplanned tour agenda.

Waterford is located in Kilbarry, which is actually just west of the actual city of Waterford (in and of itself, an interesting place to visit). The visitor center includes a restaurant, currency exchange, gift shop, and tourist information, as well as the Waterford showcase/sales center. The center is open daily except for two weeks around Christmas/New Year's. The Waterford factory is the fourth largest tourist attraction in Ireland, hosting over 100,000 visitors per year.

The first Waterford factory opened in 1783 by George and William Penrose, originally known as Waterford Flint Glass. Even in the early days of Waterford glass, it gained a reputation for quality of product that today remains one of the benchmarks in the glassmaking industry.

The tour, which takes roughly an hour, starts at the visitor center and begins with the Times Square Experience, where you find out about the work it took Waterford to create the specially-commissioned crystal glass ball used in the millennium celebration in New York City. They even have a replica of the millennium countdown crystal ball, which is pretty impressive to see.

Next, you are escorted to the blowing room, where you witness master glass blowers at work. To reach this level of proficiency takes years -- in fact, to become even the lowest level of glass artisan here takes literally anywhere from a couple years to 10+ years (to become a master engraver, for example, takes 10 years). The general apprenticeship is eight years!

Along the tour, you walk past a variety of pieces, ranging from showpieces, to special commissions, to pieces their craftsmen have made to demonstrate their skill, and samples of their most popular lines of glassware. Pieces may take from just hours to up to days to complete.

Near the end of the tour, you pass through the cutting room, where you will see cutters at work, making the famous crisscross cut designs. These artists have amazingly steady hands - and, like every stage of the Waterford process, if something is not up to par, it is destroyed.

Your final stop on the tour is, of course, the retail showcase, but it's like visiting a museum with all the magnificent crystal on display. If you don't want to take the tour, you can still visit the showcase for free.

I found the tour quite interesting, especially after having been to Murano (Italy) the year before. It is really amazing to watch the speed and precision with which these master craftsman work -- well worth the visit if you are in this part of Ireland!

If you had to guess at what the number one tourist attraction was in Ireland, would you guess that it is... a brewery?

Guinness Storehouse (www.guinness-storehouse.com) opened in November 2000, in what was originally one of the factory buildings. In March 2004, Guinness welcomed their 2 millionth customer - an annual draw of 750,000+ visitors/year! The Storehouse won the prestigious Themed Entertainment Association Award (THEA) for 'Outstanding Achievement' by an International Visitor Center in 2003 - it really is quite a handsome exhibit, 4 acres over several floors, with a central atrium shaped like a giant ale glass. They are located a short walk or bus ride from the city center, and have free parking.

Guinness was founded in the mid-1700s by Arthur Guinness, using a £150 legacy left to him by his godfather, the Archbishop of Cashel. It was run by the Guinness family for 227 years. Guinness treated his employees well, with wages 10-20% above local average, guaranteed widow's pensions, paid vacations (unheard of at the time), and provided free benefits like medical care, homes, education etc, plus free beer - truly a man ahead of his time.

We only had to wait in line twice: 1) for tickets (€13.50 adult/€30 family/€9 students + seniors), and 2) to get our free drink at the Gravity bar afterwards. They're open 9:30am-5pm daily (till 9pm July/August), and only closed 4 days per year.

The tour is entirely self-guided with a beautifully designed brochure that guides you through the museum. While there is a fairly logical progression to the tour, starting at the lowest levels and how Guinness is made, working up through different aspects of the Guinness experience, you are not forced to take them in a particular order. Stairs, elevators and escalators connect the various levels.

If you follow the layout, however, you start out by learning about the main ingredients in Guinness: barley, water, hops, and yeast. The first two floors of the exhibit are rather deafening due to the waterfall, but this is a trendy museum and quite unique among brewery tours.

On the higher floors, learn about the history of Guinness, see some of their advertising (both print and televised). One of the highlights for me was seeing the gorgeous antique harp which has lent itself to the trademark of Guinness: a golden harp on a dark background.

Once you have had your fill of Guinness history, head up to the top floor to the Gravity bar, where floor-to-ceiling windows provide a 360-degree view of Dublin and beyond. The acrylic token they give you back also has a dime-sized sample of Guinness embedded in it; it's a cute souvenir.

If this hasn't been enough Guinness for you, stop downstairs on the way out and stock up on Guinness-branded things ranging from T-shirts to jewelry to pure kitsch, or even the Guinness-infused chocolates. (They're quite tasty.)

The Archbishop would be proud.

No tour of Ireland can really be complete without a visit to Blarney Castle, located just a stone's throw (groan, pun - ok, 8km) northwest of Cork.

What visitors see when visiting Blarney Castle today is actually the third castle to have built on this site, erected in 1446 by Dermot McCarthy, who was King of Munster at the time. It stands atop a mound of rocks and caves, surrounded by lush rolling countryside. The castle is actually in ruins, of which primarily the shell of the keep remains standing, with some lesser structures such as the round tower still fairly intact.

The famous stone which is so popular with visitors is actually embedded in the ramparts, some 126 feet above ground. There is no definitive record of how the particular slab of rock came to be present at this castle. Legends range from it being the stone named as "Jacob's Pillow" in the Bible, to it being associated with the Stone of Scones. History is fairly firm on the fact McCarthy was supposed to relinquish his castle to one of Queen Elizabeth I's men as a sign of loyalty, and whenever the Earl attempted to collect the Queen's due, McCarthy always had a plausible reason to delay. It became somewhat of a joke at court, and when the Earl related yet another reason for delay, the Queen is reported to have said, "Odds bodikins, more Blarney talk!", thus giving rise to a term ("Blarney") that's defined as "pleasant talk, intending to deceive without offending".

Legend is also a bit foggy about why kissing the stone will grant the gift of eloquence, but the most popular seems to be that a local witch was saved by drowning by one of the kings who ruled here. In gratitude, she gave him a spell and stated that if he were able to kiss a particular stone on the ramparts, he would be blessed with eloquence thereafter.

One of the later residents of the castle, Sir James St. John Jefferyes, built a Georgian Gothic house here in the early 18th century (it later burned down in 1820). His family also designed the landscape garden (Rock Close), which integrated what are believed to be prehistoric druidic remains. The evergreen oaks and yews in the garden are ancient. Unfortunately, we did not know about the Close, so we did not explore there.

Blarney Castle opens daily at 9am except Sundays (9:30), with closing hours varying on time of the year. We were determined to beat the tourist buses there so we arrived at the castle a little after 9am - no surprise, lots of fellow tourists already in sight. Well, no matter - it was a glorious summer morning, we plunked down our €7 apiece, and began the walk into the castle.

I actually had no idea before visiting that the castle was a ruin. As the ramparts broke into view past the trees, I was surprised at the jagged edges in view. The approach to the castle is initially flat, then it slopes upwards, past some small caves and the kennel and dungeon entrances, past the oubliette (round tower) and up to the entrance. At one point you can look up the ruined steps that lead from the dungeons up to the main castle (they are roped off due to condition), which is a very striking view.

A warning sign at this point tells you of the dangers of climbing the castle: "NOTICE", it reads, "If you pass beyond this point, you are on a premises. Blarney Castle Estate hereby acknowledge by virtue of the nature and age of the castle that some dangers do exist and accordingly do not accept responsibility for loss, damage or personal injury caused by visiting the castle. It is essential that the castle maintains its authenticity." In other words, if you do something stupid like fall off a parapet, well, let's not say that you weren't warned!

Blarney Castle is literally a shell of what it once was; its roof is gone, as are the wooden floors that once made up the middle of the building. What remains is in remarkably good shape, considering its age. However, if you have fear of tight spaces, or heights, then exploring Blarney will not be for you, as to get higher in the castle - and of course reach the Blarney Stone - you must climb up various stairwells, mostly tight circular stairs which have a rope down the middle to cling onto. It also helps considerably if you've been on the Stairmaster lately (which I hadn't) as you can be quite winded by the time you reach the top.

As the central rooms were various general-purpose rooms such as the great hall, banqueting hall, and chapel, and the castle itself is not particularly large (especially when compared to some of its European cousins), the smaller private side rooms seem extremely small by today's standards. Additionally, most windows on the castle are merely slits - big enough for a man to have defended the castle from within, but difficult to be breached from without. It was interesting to note that the window slits generally started at floor height and went to head's height, with slightly sloping floors in the side rooms; perhaps rudimentary adjustments for when it rained.

One of the side rooms bears an interesting plaque labeled "the Murder Room." Here, details the sign, was the last-ditch defense of the castle. When all the doors etc were barred, this room, with its close-up-and-personal views of the main entrance, could be used to fight enemies with deadly precision.

Eventually, you reach the top and are rewarded with excellent views of the surrounding countryside. Here too you queue up for the kiss-the-stone line, which wraps itself around the ramparts and often down the stairs.

Kissing the Blarney stone was for me a 'must-do'. I mean, here I was, I climbed all the way up, might as well do it. I paid my Euros to the spotter and eyed the stone warily. The Blarney Stone is embedded in the ramparts but it is actually below floor level and slightly outwards. So what you have to do is lie down, on your back, grip onto the iron holds, bend backwards over open air (there are iron bars below you now to keep you from plummeting, should you slip, but still) and hope that your smooch on the rock lands at the right place. You can, of course, buy an official commemorative photo of this, the penultimate Irish tourist thing to do, but you're welcome to take your own pictures as well.

As I took the position, gamely leaned back and arched to reach the stone - I think I was still a few inches shy of my goal, but then I got a solid bird's-eye view look at the ground, some hundred-ish feet below, became aware that only two or three 3/4" iron bars were protecting me should I fall, and hurriedly planted one on what rock I could reach, and hauled myself back up. Years ago, the spotters used to hang folks by their ankles - just imagine that!

Climbing back down is not as hard as the climb up, although I admit in spots it was easier to back down the stairs than attempt to go straight down. If you haven't had enough of the Blarney at this point, there is always the gift shop, where Irish words of wisdom are ready to greet you and take home with you.

If you are travelling through this area of Ireland, Blarney is definitely a must-see.