Paul's trip to Ireland in 2002

Paul as John Wayne in The Quiet Man *

Click here for photos.
I just got back from my first trip to Ireland (29-Sep to 07-Oct 2002). I didn't have any particular plans, other than a vague idea of continuing some of the geneology research my Mom had been doing. And I picked up a good travel guide *.
I went by myself. When I had decided to go, I had asked my lovely wife if she would go with me, she thought about it and said no, and I then said ok do you mind if I go by myself and she said hey you jumped to that one pretty quickly (I think she wanted me to grieve her rejection a bit longer).
I stayed in the west and south. Two nights each in Galway (Salthill and Tuam), Dingle, Kinsale and then finally a night in Tipperary all planned last minute (no advance reservations). The B&Bs were about $35-50 a night including breakfast.
A typical day was breakfast at 9am, then tour in the car and hike until 2pm when I'd find a pub for a BLT or other light meal, then tour around until dinner at 9pm at a pub with live music. I was a little shy but enjoyed meeting some fun people in the pubs.
I had to get used to breakfast/lunch/dinner being limited to certain hours and places, which was inconvenient since my internal clock was five hours away. No "all day breakfast" places anywhere. And it was tricky in the afternoon to try to figure out which places actually had any food. On Sunday, I think the only restaurants open in Ireland were "Chinese" ones, or, ones that claimed to be Chinese but which were lame.)
The small towns were gorgeous with wonderful people. The bigger towns (Galway city, Cork, Tipperary) were dirty and not fun.

It was still dark when the red-eye landed in Shannon, and given my one hour of sleep, made for an interesting two hour drive to Galway, learning to drive on the "wrong side" of the road, in a tiny rental car whose wipers only smeared the rain. When I got to Galway I took about an eight mile walk along the ocean to start the day alert.
I had a nice afternoon in Tuam, Galway and was able to take some photos of the church where my Dad's Mom's ("Nana") parents were married, and of the presbytery book and page which recorded the event. Nana came to Boston on a boat when she was only 14 years old, by herself.
One night in Galway city (a college town with a nice park) I went to a club called Cuba which I had heard about on the radio. As I was making my way through the crowd toward the bar (to order my Cuba Libre of course), I noticed two attractive co-eds looking at and talking about me, when I got within ear shot, one said to the other "Definitely" as she was looking right at me. I was wondering if they were saying "looks like another dumb American" or "what is that old guy doing in this college bar". :)
I spent a wonderful couple hours one day walking the grounds of the Ashford Castle (1228 a.d.) near Galway.
The Dingle Peninsula is the western most point of Ireland (and thus of Europe) and has just displaced Zermatt, Switzerland as the most beautiful foreign town I've visited. Dingle has mountains going into the ocean, with sheer cliffs, and stone buildings of about 1000 years old! There were tons of sheep as you'll see from my photos, as well as amazing stone walls everywhere.
The town of Kinsale has a couple impressive and strategically located 17th centry forts, and was the location of the first important British rout of the Spanish Navy, a turning point in world naval power, leading to most of us speaking English today instead of Spanish. :)
I went to a couple memorials to the Irish Famine (1845-1850) which killed about a million people and escalated immigration to places like the US.
On the last day I visited the Rock of Cashel in Tipperary, as my Dad's father was born in Cashel.

It was fun to listen to the various radio stations while driving around. I heard at least three or four interviews with Irish authors and poets-- writers are clearly important people here. Most of the stations also had a very nice small town feel, with people calling in to describe something going on in their life, and the DJ taking a bunch of time to talk with them. It was neat.
The main industry seemed to be agriculture, and I heard that even with the strong economic boom of the past 5-10 years ("The Celtic Tiger" including strong high tech and software industries), Ireland is still the poorest country in western europe.
The whole country was plastered with signs asking people to vote yes or no for the latest European Union vote, it seems like people are really taking this decision seriously.
People sure did smoke a lot. Wow. And given that this is breast cancer awareness month, I heard some interesting stats on the radio, including a claim that there were zero breast cancer screening machines in western Ireland. Yikes.

Ok, given my upbringing, I have to point out a few rip-offs...

Rental car place quickly talks red-eye weary traveler into a $5.95/day "personal liability insurance". What is the profitability of that item?
Rental car place says gas tank should be returned empty (on average I bet they come back more than half full) as they took the liberty of charging me for 3/4 tank without even asking me.
Phone cards that you buy over there claim 4 cents a minute to US, but that's only if you dial through their Dublin number which can cost you a lot based on how you are calling it, if you instead us the toll free number on the phone card, the rate to US jumps to 30 cents a minute. Still a heck of a lot better than some other options, but definitely false advertising if you read the rates on their posters in all the shops that sell them.
An otherwise five star restaurant takes the liberty to charge my card in dollars instead of euros without asking me, even though the receipt says I acknowledge being asked.

Update: my friend Bill points out that this is the first Ireland trip report he's seen without mention of Guiness or golf...