Ireland- Green, Guinness & Gorgeous

This weekend 3 of my roommates and my sister and I went to Ireland! We took a short flight very early on Friday morning, and arrived in Dublin by 10:30 am. Our first stop was our hostel. This was my first time staying in a hostel, and I was really impressed by how nice it was! The rooms were spacious, the beds were comfy, and the whole place was very clean. They offered free breakfast on the weekends, and had welcome drinks that evening! I'm not exactly sure what I thought I would find, but it definitely exceeded by expectations!


After dropping our stuff at the hostel, we headed to grab lunch and catch a tour of Dublin. The (free!) tour was excellent, and our tour guide was really great. In the 3.5 hours of walking, we saw a whole lot of Dublin! Our first stop was the city hall, and then we went to Dublin Castle. Dublin Castle is not....a castle. The castle burned down years ago, and was rebuilt in the architecture of that time, the 18th century. The buildings create a rectangle around a large open area. This is where the British ruled before Ireland's independence in 1922, and now serves as a government building. A main part of the old castle that is still standing is the Tower of Records. This medieval tower has walls that are 4.5 meters thick. Yep, four point five. This makes it pretty indestructible. Our tour guide told us lots about the history of the castle and how it was involved in the Irish uprisings against the British.

Dublin Castle

Tower of Records

We also saw Dublin gardens, Christ Church Cathedral, and Trinity College. Trinity College was founded in 1592, but is still active today! It is a very prestigious institution in Ireland, and our tour guide even went there. There is lots of really pretty old architecture there, as well as some less attractive modern architecture. The Trinity college library is where the Book of Kells is kept, which is said to be the most beautiful book. It is a gospel writing written in Latin around the 6th century, and has been very well preserved. It is well known for being extremely colorful. Unfortunately I didn't actually see it, since they charged admissions and the tour was moving on.

Dublin Gardens

Christ Church Cathedral

Trinity College

After the tour was over, we went to the Guinness Store house. Here we learned about what goes into Guiness beer and the history of its brewing. Guinness has been a huge export for Ireland, and honestly they are a little obsessed with it. There was also an exhibit about the history of advertising Guinness, which I thought was the most interesting! At the very top of the building there is the 'Gravity Bar' where you can see a huge view of Dublin. We were given 2 free samples of the beer, too. I was surprised that I didn't hate it, since its pretty much the darkest beer ever. But it was not too bad!

For dinner we went to a pub near our hostel, and then headed to a street called Temple Bar where there are lots of bars and pubs. Here went to THE Temple Bar, which is a pretty well known bar. It was absolutely packed, and as we walked in we could hear a live band played 'Sweet Home Alabama'. The best part was that everyone was really enjoying, shouting out the words and swinging their beers in the air. The band also played some Beatles songs and U2, which seemed a bit more appropriate. We tried to sneak our way around the place, and soon realized it was pretty big. Every time we would struggle our way into one room, we would find another room! Unfortunately, we found a smoking room. As soon as we walked in, I thought I was going to drop dead with lung cancer. The air was literally dense with smoke. But since smoking seems like such a common European thing, I'm glad they created something like that instead of allowing people to smoke throughout!


The most entertaining part about going out was the walk home. It's not uncommon for drunk Americans to shout things at people walking by to be funny, but this was entirely different. Its hard to explain people's reaction to us, but its like groups of people walked by and stopped to talk to us, completely seriously. Clearly we were heading home too early for the Irish. One guy walked right up to me and hugged me. By the time this happened for the third time, we decided it must be an Irish thing.


Saturday morning we went on a tour of Wicklow county. This was a coach tour to several places in Wicklow. The first stop was Glencree, where there was a pretty church and some rugby players. The scenery on the way was unbelievable, but unfortunately it was hard to take (good) pictures through the windows. There were so many mountains, rivers, and a huge bog on the way. We did make a picture stop though, and even looking at the pictures now I can't believe it was real.

We spent a lot of the day at Glendalough, which is a town with the remains of the first church and lot of historical remaints. Our tour guide explained so much history about St. Kevin and the monks that built Glendalough.

In addition to all of the old buildings, there was a long river there. We look a long walk up to the source of the river, where it was once again unbelievably beautiful.

We stopped at a DELICIOUS pub for a late lunch, and then headed to the town of Avoca, where there is a famous weavermill. We were given a brief tour of the mills, and saw all of the scarves, blankets, and sweaters that are made. The products are now sold in stores, one of which we saw in Dublin.


When we got back to Dublin, we did some souvenir shopping on Graffton street, a pretty large shopping area. We saw at least 10 street performers and musicians, which made it feel much less commercial. After taking a quick nap in the hostel, we got some dinner and headed back to temple bar to try out some other pubs. Everywhere was equally as packed as the Temple Bar had been, but proved to be a good night nonetheless. An interesting thing about going out in Dublin was that everyone was sooo dressed up! Every single girl was in a dress and 5 inch heels. Seriously every one. We were clearly underdressed! I thought that people in London and Paris were pretty dressed up, but it didn't even compare to Dublin!


Early Sunday morning we headed back to London; to warmer weather, similar beer, and less dressy people :)