Three Lucky, Little Leprechauns Visit Ireland

Top of the ‘morn to ye, welcome back to my latest travel diary on Ireland! I’ve always wanted to visit Ireland, it’s so green, luscious, cold and filled with hot bearded guys. And beer. Beer and beards. Oh and bread. Ok I just talked myself into moving there, bye. I’d get fat fast if I lived there but at that point, I need the extra flubber for the cold, winter months and I would just be living my truth.

Amanda had been mentioning traveling to Ireland and Scotland for awhile. It’s been on my bucket list too, because thats where our ancestors are from. My Aunt Diane knows all of her mother’s Scottish ancestry and genealogy and I thought it would be amazing to go back, see where they lived, and explore the lands of the people who gave me my red hair.

Since Amanda and I had soooo much fun in Hawaii with Erin, (you can read all about that crazy trip HERE) and after a lot of discussion and pro and con lists, we decided to invite her along. Erin’s first international trip! And off we went!

Dublin,Ireland: Flight and Night 1

If you have read any of my past blogs, you will note that I like to take red-eye flights to Europe. I almost never have jet lag. *Knocks ferociously on wood*. We took off from LAX on a Thursday evening and landed in Dublin the following Friday afternoon. That way we had just enough time to check in, get dinner and then pass out.

Our hotel was SO CUTE. It was all purple n royal n stuff. It had my name all over it. Fit for a QUEEN. They even served us FREE drinks from the hotel bar since our room wasn’t ready. I ordered a mojito and it might as well been straight whiskey. No idea why a mojito was made with whiskey but, when in Ireland I guess. I also don’t normally drink whiskey, but as you will come to read from my time in Ireland and Scotland I went from ew gross to YEEEHAWW.

We went to Bank on the College Green for dinner. We were so fricken tired that it took all of my power not to pass out and start blowing bubbles in my seafood linguine. There is nothing like trying to combat plane bloat with pasta and carbs. Fight fire with fire, I guess.

After dinner, it was nini time.

Dublin, Ireland: Day 2

Time to explore! But first, breakfast.

queen of tarts breakfast — Queen of Tarts. Look at this cheesy, eggy, scramby on top of a sun-dried tomato and feta scone.

christ church cathedral — Christ Church Cathedral

Murpheys ice cream — Never too cold for ice cream. Murphey’s ice-cream is handmade in Dingle, which we visited/ stayed in next.

A wee Irish Jig

We didn’t go into the Temple Bar because later in the day there was a crazy-ass long line just to get in. Madness. After exploring the city, we headed over to the North side of the river for…. IRISH DANCING LESSONS. Man, that was fun. There were two young couples, four huge bachelorette parties (or Hen parties as they are called over there, and then us three best fwends. We learned 3 dances, the Irish dancers performed for us and the band also played a couple songs.

As you can see from the video, we are all ready for Riverdance. Anyone have Michael Flatley’s number?

Amanda and I just randomly happened to overlap in Dublin with my Aunt Sabra and Uncle Jeff so we got dinner with them that evening! It’s always fun seeing familiar faces in an unfamiliar place!

Dublin, Adare, Dingle, Ireland : Day 3

This day, I started off in a ball of stress. Why? Cause we had to DRIVE to the other side of Ireland, on the other side of the car on the other side of the road. STAY LEFT STAY LEFT STAY LEFT.

So it turned out to be 100% fine. By the end of our road trip, I’m sure she could have driven with her eyes closed. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I bet she could. As long as her co-pilot, Erin, paid attention the whole time, stayed alert and solely concentrated on helping her drive.

Lunch in Adare

We stopped in the little town of Adare for a wee snack. AKA tea and scones. The town was SO cute. We explored the Church, park, shops and the tea/scone situation.

Back on the road to Dingle. We were pretty #blessed to have no rain on this road trip. It took us about 5 hours to get from Dublin to Dingle, including our stop in Adare. The landscape was magnificent and the sun was shining!

In Dingle, we stayed at a quaint B&B on a farm. Straight up in the middle of NOWHERE. I think we had 2 restaurant options for dinner. And one pub, with live music, for after.

We finished the evening off with a whiskey and some live music down at literally the only pub in town. It was packed full of locals. Good times, good times.

Dingle Peninsula, Ireland : Day 4

Our B&B host made us STELLAR breakfasts every morning. She would come in and be like, “shall we start the day with porridge, and for breakfast I have these 4 options and then do you guys want breakfast dessert? I can make french toast?” First off, breakfast dessert. I’ve never been more down. Second, I’m going to start using breakfast dessert in my everyday jargon. Third, Christ lady! I don’t need to be rolled out of here, a spot of porridge will be great. Now that our bellies were full, we headed out to do a full loop around the Dingle peninsula.

horse in Dingle, Ireland — We pulled off to the side of the road to hang out with this horsey.

cheese shop in Dingle, Ireland — Decided we should get some cheese to have for dinner at a local cheese shop in Dingle. All the cheeses were made locally in Ireland.

OMG we could pet sheep

We saw a sign that said “PET SHEEP HERE” so we skkkuuuuurrttttt swerved off the road to go to the lil petting zoo.

Dingle peninsula ireland — We continued around the peninsula to the spot where they filmed Star Wars: The Last Jedi, apparently. I’ve never seen it but there was a sign.

After we drove around Dingle dangle we headed back to our B&B to dive into the cheese, jam, bread and wine we just bought. Now, that, I consider dinner of champions.

Ring of Kerry, Ireland : Day 5

Feels like we have already done SO much and we aren’t even half way done with the trip. On this day, we decided to do another loop around a peninsula – a different, more popular peninsula; The Ring of Kerry. However due to the fact that we got a late start and went to the B&B host’s farm in the morning, we didn’t do the full ring. We did like the Ring of Ke. Just part of it.

After breakfast, our lovely B&B hosts took us to their farm.

farm in dingle, Ireland — They had 3 horses and a tonnn of sheep

Ring of Kerry Gardens

It wasn’t until almost noon before we got on the road to the Ring of Kerry. The first stop, The Gardens. I’m sure they have a different name but I don’t recall.

Honestly, the gardens were great, plenty of photoshoot opportunities. I recommend visiting, but maybe not spending so much time here, since we ended up not being able to do the full Ring of Kerry. In order to make it to the attractions on the other side of the peninsula we had to cut through the middle. Which, was absolutely breathtaking. However since the actual RING is the popular tourist destination I bet no one ever cuts through the middle. I felt like we missed out on a bunch but, at the end of the day it was a fun experience going through the middle. I truly felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, untouched lands. The pictures don’t do justice to how crazy the landscape looked.

The red route is the Ring of Kerry, the black route, is what we did. You see the little green flag by Inch Beach? That’s where our b&b was.

Middle of Nowhere, Kerry

Ring of Kerry, Ireland — I saw online someone call this section of the pass, “The Irish Highlands”.

molly's pass Ring of Kerry, Ireland — We pulled off the road so I could run into this field to get this picture

Bottom half of the ring

kenmore, Ireland — We stopped in the town of Kenmore for tea and treats before finally getting back on the Ring of Kerry path.

Muckross abby ring of Kerry Ireland — Muckross Abby

After our full day of the “Ring of Kerry”, we ended in Killarney for dinner. I wish I had more time to explore this area but at least we had a faaabulous dinner and we wanted to try and head back before it got dark.

Killarney, Ireland — Killarney featuring me: Singing in the rain.

Fun fact. Above, I said “head back before it got dark”. We headed back about about 8:30pm, had about an hour/ hour and a half drive back to the B&B and I expected it to be dark the whole drive. THE SUN NEVER SETS HERE. Or in Scotland. I swear it never got dark. I think the only time I actually saw darkness was around midnight. The photo above was taken at about 8:30, and look how light it is! Was really throwing me off the whole trip.

Dingle to Limerick, Cliffs of Moher, Galway, Ireland : Day 6

Another road tripping day. We planned on stopping in Limerick for lunch. I had no major need to shop/ walk around. We would rather have more time at the cliffs before reaching our final destination, Galway.

And off to the Cliffs! The world renowned, must see, spectacular, once in a lifetime: Cliffs of Moher!!!!

SO. We clearly were unable to see the cliffs to the heavy fog. Honestly, we couldn’t even see the road in front of us at some points. Foggy AF. So sad but what can yew dew. We kept trekking up to Galway. Day 6 was mostly driving. Driving and disappointment.

We were so #overit once we got to the hotel, Amanda and I lounged in the hot tub, we would have swam in the pool but they REQUIRED swim caps.

Still full from lunch and not hungry enough to order room service we had some pears that I took from the B&B, a power bar, cookies and trail mix for dinner. And went niiiniiii.

Galway, Ireland : Day 7

In Galway, we only had one full day to explore, which was more than enough time haha. They have great transportation there, so we bussed from the hotel to the city center for breakfast. We got to the breakfast place at NINE AM and we were the only people there. I didn’t think it was open! The streets were quiet, very empty. Literally not until 10ish did people start filling the streets. I guess with the sun setting late, people go to bed late? And sleep in? Unsure.

My, my my my Galway Girl

yogurt breakfast — Breakfast. I had a scone on the side too, obviously.

cathedral in Galway — Right next to breakfast was a little church, so we went in.

Christopher Columbus prayed here — Turns out Christopher Columbus worshipped here.

Went to another cathedral. Apparently mass was happening on this Thursday Morning. Maybe thats where everyone was at 9am.

city streets of Galway Ireland — Amanda checking out that guys… kegs. Lots of kegs.

When it started to rain we went into the Museum of Galway. A free museum!

Museum of Galway redheads ship superstitions — SOOOO I think if I would have been born way back when, in yesteryear, I wouldn’t have made it long. Even in Scotland they talked about how most red heads were accused of witch craft. In Ireland apparently, they weren’t fans either.

Ah yes, time for tea

cupan tea galway — We had pretty much walked all over the little city at this point and decided afternoon tea was in order.

Tea pot and tea cup — I’ve been to many tea places and this goes down as one of my favs!

lime and lemon curd cake — we 100% had a slice of this lemon lime curd cake.

floral doorway — I’ve decided this is what I want the entry way to my house to look like when I grow up.

Bar High Neachtain — Old man playing piano at local pub

After we were extremely full of tea and beer, we headed to a recommended Italian place for dinner. We needed major carbs to soak up the liquid. We felt sloshy.

Galway to Dublin, Ireland to Glasgow, Scotland : Day 8

Today, all we had on our agenda was to get back to Dublin, return the car and catch our flight at 5pm to Glasgow. We took our time getting up and went to breakfast at a fabulous cafe near the hotel. After breakfast, and a couple cappuccinos to-go, we made our way back to Dublin. We had enough time for two little castle stops along the way.

white chocolate marshmallow raspberry pancakes — Blueberry and marshmallow pancakes. Literally so YUM

First castle stop: Athenry castle Ireland. Inside was super cool, you could walk all the way up. They even had a privy to show you exactly how one would use the bathroom back in the day.

Trim Castle Ireland — Castle stop #2: Trim Castle

We returned the car to the Dublin airport. So sad our road trip adventure on the other side of the road had come to an end. I would say we only almost died once. On one of those teeny roads a car was coming at us, around a corner and Amanda swerved right, out of habit, not left. Gave us a wee bit of a fright. Other than that, it was smooth sailing the whole time. I highly recommend it! Rent a car! See the country-side! Just remember, stay left.

Off to Scotland

Our flight to Glasgow was only an hour-ish long, on a tiny plane. After we landed and got to the Airbnb, we decided to do some laundry. And if anyone remembers from my trip with Amanda to Spain, I still have a little bit of PTSD from that. You can read that HERE (scroll to the bottom). Before we left, I was like PLEASEEEE triple check there is a dryer.

“There is”.

So there wasn’t… Luckily we weren’t flying home the next day and could leave things out to dry for longer, unlike Spain, where we had to bust out the hairdryer.

I feel like in the future I need to specify to these Airbnb hosts that a drying rack isn’t the same thing as a dryer.

We didn’t go out to dinner because we were busy doing laundry and it was late. We decided to try ordering from Deliverroo. It’s like Postmates/ Doordash. And you know what we were craving? Burger and fries. How very American of us. And getting it delivered. Very, very American. Whatever, we were hungry and too busy trying to find door knobs and hooks to hang all of our clothing off of to dry. Plus we wanted to watch Outlander.

What’s Outlander you ask? Well you will have to read part 2 of our trip to Scotland! I dive into the rest of our vacation in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling, Outlander tour and all those fun things.

Hope you enjoyed the first half! Now excuse me while I Irish exit outta here.

BYEEEEEEEE

Three Lucky, Little Leprechauns Visit Ireland

Dublin,Ireland: Flight and Night 1