Bits and bobs

Random thoughts about random things by a random person

Monthly Archives: October 2019


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Days 17 & 18 (Sept 28-29/19): Dublin and home!

I caught an early train from Killarney to Dublin on Sept 28th for my last stop before returning home. It was mostly a nice day – just a bit overcast but otherwise nice. There were even some sunny spots along the way, which were quite cheery.

The train ride went well, but it turned out that I had booked myself a backward-facing seat. Boo hiss!! You can’t tell when you book the seat what direction the car will be facing when en route. I rolled the dice and lost!

All was not lost, though – there wasn’t anybody sitting beside me, so I won the comfort toss on that one. 🙂

When I got into Dublin (just before 11 a.m.), I got a taxi to my hotel (the Hilton Garden Inn Dublin Custom House) and dropped my bags off.

I had picked that hotel because it was next to the EPIC Irish Emigration Museum. I have an interest in genealogy so I wanted to go to the museum to see if I could get some information about emigration to Newfoundland and maybe make some connections to the people in my family tree from Ireland – maybe through ship manifests or something.

It didn’t have that kind of information, but was very interesting all the same. In part because of the architecture.

It is in the restored CHQ (Custom House Quay) building. Shops, cafes and such, and the entrance to the museum, are on the main level and the displays are below ground, in the vaults that were used for storage of cargo.

One surprising thing was that, in one of the displays that showed the impacts of Irish emigration worldwide, Newfoundland didn’t really figure in much. Even more surprisingly was that the west coast of Newfoundland was the only part that showed up, not the east coast – the part called “The Irish Loop”. It’s interesting – something I’ll do some more digging on.

It was all really well done, I have to say. There was a nice mix of types of displays – visual, audio, interactive, etc. If you are ever in Dublin, I recommend checking it out.

Here are some pictures of one of the displays. It was a busy place so it wasn’t possible to get a photo sans visitors.

After the museum, I booked a session with a professional genealogist for a little later in the afternoon. I ate my lunch on the main level of the CHQ and then headed back to the hotel to get settled in before the genealogy session.

I discovered quite clearly when I got into my room that I apparently love purple. In addition to the purple backpack and suitcases (which fit in perfectly with the room decor!), I should add that my Fitbit strap, tablet case and cell phone cover are also purple. None of it was planned – all items were bought completely separately (well, except for the suitcases, which came as a set). I may need to branch out… 🙂

The room was quite comfortable and had a lovely view over the River Liffy.

You can’t really tell, but there’s a protest march of some sort on the other side of the river. I’m not sure what it was about. It sounded like they were chanting “No more Duncan Hynes”, but I’m pretty confident that’s not what they were actually saying. 🙂 🙂 🙂

The genealogy session was a lot of fun! The guy working with me was Patrick. He was a hoot!! Mind you, I’m a bit of a family history geek, so my definition of “fun” might be a bit different than yours!

After that, I went to a pub that’s also in the CHQ building and had a sodie pop and people watched for a while before dinner.

Urban Brewing, Dublin

The pub is on the main floor and has a nice, large outdoor seating area, too. The pub only serves tapas and I wanted a really nice meal for my last one in Ireland. However, downstairs is the affiliated Stack A restaurant so I opted to go there for dinner. Like the museum, is also located in the old custom vaults and is just spectacular.

Despite the quality issues with some of the photos, I think you can see why I say that. The food was amazing, too.

If I’m ever back in Dublin, I’m going back there for sure.

If you’re ever in Dublin, you need to go, too!

After a nice, leisurely dinner, I went back to the hotel for the drudgery of packing for my flight the next day and going through my receipts and stuff for Customs. Not an exciting way to spend your only night in Dublin, but necessary and, even so, it was still a lovely last night of my holiday.

The next morning brought me to the airport – after a lovely taxi ride with a super nice driver. No hitches or glitches with either of my flights, either.

And then, before I knew it, I was home.


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Day 16 (Sept 27/19): Killarney – St. Mary’s Church of the Sloes

This was my last day before going to Dublin.

I had originally thought to do a bus/boat tour to another part of the National Park today, but the weather was on-again-off-again rainy – again – and I had had enough of being wet the last few days, so I stayed around Killarney.

That’s not to say that I completely avoided getting wet – I didn’t. But I was able to trot back to the hotel to change and warm up, rather than spend the day in wet clothes.

I mostly just did some more twacking around, finishing up some gift buying.

I also went into the church across the street from my hotel – St. Mary’s. I had posted a picture of it previously when I was here two weeks ago. It’s really quite lovely. Below are some pictures of the windows inside.

Before I forget, and to keep in line with the unintentional theme for this trip of “Switches”, here’s how the Killarney Plaza Hotel deals with lights: You have to insert your room key in a slot in the entry of your room in order for any of the lights or anything to work. It’s a neat way to reduce electricity wastage!

And, speaking of the hotel…it was really quite lovely itself. I quite enjoyed hanging out on here to read and write for a bit while it was raining outside.

And so closes the Ring of Kerry chapter of my holiday!!

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Day 15 (Sept 26/19): Killarney National Park (Part 2)

I promised pictures of Killarney National Park and, at long last, here they are!

The first place we visited on the tour was Muckross Abbey. The walk from the road to the Abbey was so pretty. It was an on-again-off-again rainy day, so the skies were grey all day, but everything was beautifully green.

The walk to Muckross Abbey. The Abbey is peeking through the trees in the middle shot.

Then, of course, there was the Abbey itself. Most of it was built in the 15th century, with some small additions built in the 16th century.

On one end of the Abbey was a field. Check out the warning sign below. Not one I’d seen before, so I thought it was kind of fun. 🙂

After that was the walk over to Muckross House, which was about a kilometre away. It was so beautiful and serene. This walk was one of my favourite parts of the visit to the Park.

The house itself was (as you can see) quite something itself, but I didn’t go in other than to visit the loo. The natural setting held my attention much more, I have to say.

The bus picked us up from there and then we headed to Torc Waterfall, which is about 200 metres along a trail from where the bus dropped us off. The walk was even more beautiful than the waterfall itself and is why this was my absolute favourite stop on the tour. Most people booted it directly to the waterfall, though. I get it – it was raining. Not the best weather for a leisurely stroll, but it was so. dang. beautiful. It was only 200 metres, but it probably took me at least 20 minutes to get up there because I kept stopping along the way.

The colour was indescribable. The photos really and truly don’t do it justice. There is a moss or lichen or something that grows on most of the trees, giving everything this soft, almost glowing green colour. It was spectacular and beautiful, and felt reverential and ethereal. I could imagine Tolkien characters fitting in quite nicely there. 🙂

From there we were off to Ladies View. It had been raining quite hard for a while by then and the driver asked if we just wanted to go back to town. I would have been fine to skip the last stop, but the couple who was also on the tour wanted to go on, so we went.

The roads were really narrow and we had a tough time at one point when we (a smaller shuttle bus) were facing a full-size tour bus coming from the opposite direction. I had taken a couple of pictures to show you just how very tight the squeeze was for us to pass each other, but somehow or other I deleted them. D’oh!

At any rate, the view there was lovely and it wasn’t raining by then (just misty at most). There was a restaurant there where we had lunch before heading back to Killarney.

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Views from Ladies View

OK…that’s it for Killarney National Park!

If you are ever even sort of close to it, you should really check it out!!

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