We both got a decent night’s sleep last night and had minimal jet lag this morning, which was great because we had a full day of sightseeing. It was another beautiful day in Dublin, with cool, crisp air and bright sunlight. We’re told that this is a rarity this time of year in Ireland, especially two such days in a row. We started the day at Trinity College for a historical tour of the college and campus, led by a Trinity College scholar who had just taken his last exam of the year and was in a chipper mood considering he was a college student leading a group of old people on a tour on a Sunday morning.

The tour was informative and ended at the Old Library for the Book of Kells exhibit. On our tour of Scotland in 2023, we visited the island of Iona, where the Book of Kells was written and illustrated. It was interesting to actually see the book we’d heard so much about in Iona (well… two pages of the book, anyway). Upstairs from the Book of Kells exhibit, we visited the “Long Room” of the Old Library. Unfortunately, the books in the library are undergoing routine maintenance/restoration, so we didn’t get to see it in its full glory, but they left a section with books so we could use our imagination to get an idea of what it would look like full of books. And despite the absence of the books, we still got a good whiff of “library smell”, which is one of my favorite smells.

After the Trinity College tour, we made a quick stop at a nearby park to see the Oscar Wilde statue before heading to another, bigger park, St Stephen’s Green, for a picnic lunch. We stopped at Spar along the way to pick up some sandwiches, grapes, and Taytos and enjoyed lunch on a bench in St Stephen’s Green, watching the seagulls fight over various picnic items stolen from our fellow picnickers. After our lunch, we headed on to St Patrick’s Cathedral and explored the grounds (and ran into our tour guide from yesterday’s tour!) while we waited for it to re-open to the public following Sunday’s morning services. We had a reservation at 2 for a distillery tour and therefore opted to skip the audio guide, but we enjoyed our quick stroll through before heading on.

Our distillery tour was at Pearse Lyons, located in the rediscovered and restored St. James Church in The Liberties neighborhood. Not every distillery tour comes with a tour of a centuries old graveyard, which made it more interesting for Charles, who many of you know is not a drinker. He was a good sport when it came time for the samples, stoically taking a sip of each before discreetly swapping my empty glasses for his mostly full ones. Needless to say, I was good and toasty when it was time to head to our last tour of the day at Kilmainham Gaol.

The tour at Kilmainham Gaol helped us see history come to life, since we had prepared beforehand by watching Michael Collins and reading about the Republic of Ireland’s bumpy history back to independence following British colonization. Our tour guide was fantastic and, while he didn’t sing to us like our tour guide did yesterday, he recited several poems, which made it a moving experience. I was feeling pretty tired by the end of our tour, so we hopped on the bus and headed back to the hotel to rest a little before dinner.

Dinner was at Darkey Kelly’s pub, a former brothel conveniently located near our hotel and offering classic Irish comfort foods and traditional music sessions nightly. We had a clever plan to go early before the live music was scheduled to start so that we could get a table, but it turns out our fellow tourists were equally clever – so we had to position ourselves to swoop in and grab a table as another party was leaving. After a false start or two, we managed to secure a table and I ordered my first Guinness of the trip, along with a beef and Guinness stew for me and a Sunday roast for Charles. People always say that Guinness tastes better in Ireland, which I think might be true, but it’s hard to tell because in my experience everything always tastes a little better after a long day of sightseeing. We enjoyed the live traditional music, but would have liked it more if we had been able to see the stage from our table. And with so many other parties waiting, we paid the bill relatively quickly after we finished our meal so that someone else could have a turn.

Today’s Highlights

• Touring the beautiful Trinity College campus on a beautiful spring day
• A glimpse of the Book of Kells
• The aromas of aging paper, adhesive, leather and some unknown magic ingredient that makes up “library smell”
• Seeing magpies for the first time (we’ve never lived in an area that was within their range), as well as a mystery bird I couldn’t identify that looked like a pigeon but was the size of a duck
• Taytos!
• Sipping Irish whiskey surrounded by whiskey-themed stained glass windows
• Seeing the somewhat iconic east wing of Kilmainham Gaol in person after seeing it featured in Michael Collins
• Irish comfort food, Guinness, and live traditional music

Tomorrow’s Proposed Adventures

• Heading back to the airport to pick up our rental car
• Adjusting to being on the wrong side of the road and a lot of the dreaded traffic circles, probably
• Touring Powerscourt Estate and gardens
• Checking out Glendalough monastic ruins & Wicklow mountains
• Exploring Kilkenny and enjoying a Smithwick’s ale