Ireland Part 2

Wednesday morning, we woke up to gorgeous skies (not that Tuesday was bad - but definitely atypical of Irish weather). We ate breakfast at The Saddle Room, the restaurant of the hotel. Breakfast consisted of organic scrambled eggs, sauteed mushrooms, a piece of potato cake (to try it), a french croissant, some fresh smoked Irish salmon & Irish cheeses (again, to try), fresh orange juice and some FABULOUS Black Currant Jelly.

After eating breakfast, we headed out to Dawson Street to pick up the 64A bus to O'Connell street. From there, we walked a couple of blocks to the GRO office to dig for genealogy records. Our Genealogy Butler recommended us getting there right at 9:30 when the doors opened so that we would get a spot. It did fill quickly, but not to capacity while we were there.

We found lots of records were had been looking for and wondering about. We also found out dates which lead us to more discoveries back at the library.

We left the GRO office around noon, in time for some Dublin sightseeing and lunch! We headed down Abbey Street to Liffey Street Lower, where we found the Ha'Penny Bridge.



The Woolen Mills & Trimmings shop
We did briefly stop in here and check out their wool. Every thing was marked in grams and meters. I am used to seeing yarn in yardage so I found it very hard to do the conversions in my tired mind. So I left without purchasing anything. As a matter of fact, I did not make any gift purchases until Saturday. One Irish man in a store asked Joe what his secret was and I piped up 'keep her busy in the library all week." ;)


The River Liffey

Since I so rarely make an appearance on the other side of the lens, here is yours truly. (Sporting a fantastic jacket, if I do say so myself) ;)


After crossing the River Liffey on the Ha'Penny bridge, and through the stone tunnel, we entered into a shady area the Temple Bar area. I do have to say that the Garda are EVERYWHERE, and there are Garda cameras EVERYWHERE, so we felt pretty safe.




Next we were headed towards the Guinness factory. We passed by Christ Church Cathedral. Most everyone who knows me, knows that I love Architecture (my favorite class at CU was Art & Architecture history) :D , so I had to photograph it. It was gorgeous and I so wanted to see the inside. As a Cathedral tour guide, I felt appalled that they wanted 8 euro a piece (16 euro total) to view the inside of the Cathedral for a tour. Donations - yes. Pay - no.









On our way getting lost to the Guinness factory, we discovered The Brazenhead Pub, Ireland's oldest Pub. I had their fabulous Guinness Stew and Joe had a Ham & Cheese Pannini. We also split a Guinness between us. When we left, we were given two different directions to take to the Guinness factory. We obviously took the wrong directions and ended up walking FOREVER close to an hour just around the factory. We FINALLY found the entrance and there was a horde of people outside. We decided it was not worth it. As I was exhausted jetlagged, I was willing to pay 50 euro to the kids with the carriages. Luckily, their board said that it was 30 euro to St. Stephen's Green (where The Shelbourne is).

These are the two Irish kids we hired to drive our Nascar inspired carriage back to the hotel. This was DEFINITELY not a Charleston carriage ride. This was a we-are-going-to-keep-up-with-the-speed-of-traffic kind of ride.


As Dora The Explorer would say, "Hold on tight, 'cause here we go!"


"Oh look honey! There's St. Patrick's!"


We made it back to The Shelbourne in record time at the speed of light safely as our horse was the offspring of Secretariat well driven. ;)

After a few moments rest up, we went back to the library with information we had gleaned from earlier that morning. We were able to find some more parochial records to help us in our quest.

We had an early evening back at the concierge room. We had salad and grilled salmon kabobs. The desserts were fabulous little shot glasses filled with various items. One was bananas, some type of caramel pudding and some chocolate sauce. YUM!

After a good, long, hot soak in the massive tub, we definitely put Wednesday on the books.