Dublin for St. Patrick's Day

Well…Dublin…I realize it’s been a month since I visited the Emerald Isle but I’m finally here recanting my story to you fine people. Now that I’m on holiday for Easter I have the opportunity to sit down and bang this and some other posts out. The trip to Dublin itself was definitely a spontaneous decision when Chengbo and Jeremy talked about meeting up there for St. Patrick’s Day in March. I obviously needed to jump at the opportunity to spend an authentic St. Patrick’s Day in the capital of Ireland and so off I went!

I ended up having to take a couple of days off work because St. Patrick’s Day fell on a Thursday this year. I left Wednesday morning super excited to be heading to Ireland for the first time and spent the hour and a half Tube ride to Heathrow anticipating the days ahead. I would only be spending the two days in Dublin itself so it was a very short trip but it was all we needed to see what we wanted to see. I ended up having a delayed flight to actually head over the Irish Sea and so began my day with a solid Full English Breakfast complete with a pint of Guinness to kick start things off on the right foot. I was planning on only drinking Guinness over the next couple of days when we went out to the bars (when in Rome right?). I finally got to board the flight and before I knew it I was in the air.

I would be meeting Jeremy in the centre of Dublin on O’Connell Street so I jumped on an airport transit bus to the main city centre. Jeremy took a bus down from Belfast with Chengbo as he was visiting earlier in the week. Once we met up we took the short walk over to the flat that we were staying in. Because we decided to do the trip so late it was very difficult to secure any sort of decent hostel or hotel accommodation in the city for a decent price. Everything was either booked up or it was very expensive given the days we were going to be there for. Luckily one of Jeremy’s friends from Belfast is actually from Dublin and his parent’s own a flat there on Mountjoy Square. Since neither himself nor his parents were going to be there over the St. Patrick’s Day festivities they allowed Jer and I to stay there for the two nights. An incredibly kind gesture that saved us a lot of money on accommodation. The flat itself was absolutely gorgeous; it looked like something out of an old 1950’s Hollywood flick. It wasn’t very big area wise but the ceilings were gigantic and the décor was unbelievable. I have a picture of it in my album of Dublin on Facebook if you’re interested in what it looked like. Once we got in and dumped our stuff it was time to head right back into the city. We got a bit of a late jump given the fact that my flight was delayed but it was a beautiful cloudless sunny day outside and we wanted to make the most of it. From the flat we headed straight for the Jameson Whiskey Distillery. It was actually a very nice walk and the buildings in this area of Dublin were very similar to any High Street that you might hit in London. We passed a lot of shops and then went through a smaller industrial area to come to the Distillery. Inside the building was very nice with Jameson branded stuff everywhere and a really nice bar located just on your right when you first walk in. We managed to secure a ticket for the tour of the distillery but it wasn’t for over an hour from that point. Instead of kicking around there we decided to head over into the actual centre of Dublin surrounding the Liffey River. After walking down the river path for a bit we stopped into a pub for some food and the first Guinness of Ireland! The pub itself was nothing spectacular but I had a really great steak sandwich there called “The Dubliner”.

Once we headed back to the distillery it was time for the tour. It’s basically a microcosm of how the distillation process occurs when making the whiskey but they don’t actually distil it in Dublin anymore, it’s made in Cork. To be honest, once you’ve been on one distillery tour you’ve kind of been on them all so we went through the motions and got our free sample at the end (the way it’s meant to be enjoyed…neat). Afterwards we schlepped down to the bar on the main floor and enjoyed a delicious Irish coffee that my Dad told me was the best in the world. I have to say that I definitely agreed with him because it was out of this world when I tried it too.

After the Irish coffee we headed into the area of Dublin south of the Liffey in order to do a bit of sightseeing. Mainly this involved the Temple Bar area of Dublin which is the nightlife hotspot of the city. This area of Dublin was absolutely beautiful, very old and with so much character to it. The streets through Temple Bar were rough and cobble stone at points with different churches juxtaposed oddly with bars and pubs. Plus, there were people EVERYWHERE! This is truly tourist central but also full of students (and probably faculty) from the nearby Trinity College as well as Dubliners themselves. We ended up sneaking into the Porterhouse (which is the Dublin side of the duo of pubs, the other being in Covent Garden) and had our only non-Guinness beer of the entire trip. It was still a stout mind you but they only serve the beers they brew at the Porterhouse so we didn’t really have a choice. Once we got into contact with Chengbo, Jer and I walked back up O’Connell Street to meet with him for dinner. We ended up going to a pub just off of O’Connell Street for grub and Guinness and chatted about what we had been up to since we last saw each other. Afterwards we went to a different pub which was a Drinking Emporium (there aren’t enough emporiums these days) for some more Guinness while making plans for the evening. We decided to head over to the hostel Chengbo was staying in with about 1500 other Commerce exchange students to have some beer before going out to Temple Bar for the night.

I’m not going to lie…it was a little strange standing in the giant hostel room and meeting people. Especially with Chengbo starting every introduction with “This is Erik and Jeremy…they’re alum”….thanks Chengbo. Either way the people we met were pretty cool and we ended up rolling out to get to Temple Bar fairly quickly after arriving at the hostel. We decided to brave the masses and go to The Temple Bar in Temple Bar. This is an extremely popular bar within this area and it gets packed very quickly. We found that out when we got in there, although there are many different rooms and areas in the bar each one made you feel like a sardine. We literally pushed through the crowds to get to the bar in the back to order some drinks. Once I got up to the bar I did not want to give up that prime real estate and ended up holding my ground while chatting to some ladies visiting from Texas A&M University, a long way from home for sure. Once we had decided enough was enough Jer and I headed back up to Mountjoy Square to catch some shut-eye before the big day to come.

Once I was up in the morning I took a shower and got dressed and ready to go for a wicked St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin! It was another sunny, warm day out (we really lucked out on weather) and we ended up getting going fairly early so we stopped into a small café on O’Connell Street for breakfast. Afterwards we walked across the Liffey again to do some of the sightseeing that we did not accomplish the day before but wanted to fit in before the parade began. We hit Dublin Castle first which we toured around and inside a bit. There’s a really nice chapel inside that we saw plus a beautiful gardens in the back (pictures on Facebook). From there we headed over towards Trinity College through did not have the time to venture through the campus there. Once we made our way back to Temple Bar we decided to slip into a pub for a Guinness and then outside to stake an area for the parade. It took a long time for the parade to actually make its way to us because we were pretty far down the parade route. Once they finally got there we understood why…they were moving at an absolute crawl. For what purpose I couldn’t tell you but it was almost torture watching them slowly creep by. The parade itself started out pretty well with a guy dressed up like St. Patrick and a few pipe bands and marching bands. Once the individual counties had their entries though things got a little weird. The floats and costumes looked like some surreal mix between cabaret and a circus side show. It kind of weirded us out and became really boring after a bit so we headed back into the pub for another beer to watch the end of the parade on the television there. Once it was completed we plotted our next move to the Guinness Storehouse.

Heading to the Storehouse was the part of the trip that I was most looking forward to. It was a bit of a walk from where we were but when we got in there it was definitely worth it. The tour itself is completely self guided (which I really loved) and you get a sample halfway through. The building itself goes up about five or six floors and there’s different bars and venues on each floor plus a continuation of the tour. On one floor we had the chance to pull our own Guinness and then went into a hall to watch an Irish Ceilidh complete with band and Irish dancers. The show itself was very well done and I even had the chance to participate in a couple of the group dances that taught later on in the show. We completed our tour at the very top of the building in a bar that gives you an almost 360 degree view of Dublin and beyond…really good photo op. From that point we made our way down to a different bar on a lower floor to listen to some live music and have Guinness and capped our time off in the original venue which now had a really good 80s cover band playing (apparently the best 80s cover band in Europe). All in all we killed the entire afternoon at the Storehouse and polished off a few Guinness before heading back into the city centre.

After a quick dinner back at the flat we ventured out into Temple Bar again to meet up with Steph (whom we knew from Queen’s) and her friend. Steph’s in Belfast on exchange for this term so it was nice to catch up with her as well while we were in the same part of the world. We ended up meeting at O’Neill’s in Temple Bar and the place was still extremely packed (like The Temple Bar the previous evening) but we managed to secure a great spot in front of the live music that was playing there that night. It was just a guy and girl playing acoustic guitars and they were jamming out traditional Irish folk songs as well as many songs that you wouldn’t expect to hear on acoustic guitar (like AC/DC). It was a really fun evening that went into the wee hours of the morning before we finally headed back to the flat for the night.

There was no reason for an early rise the next day as we both had late leaving transportation. After breakfast we waited for the bus to show up for me to take me to the airport and I bid farewell to Jer once more as we parted ways. I ended up getting to the airport nice and early so I had a bite to eat and my last Guinness in Ireland before heading onto the plane and back to London. It was an incredible trip and Dublin is an absolutely beautiful city. Although I spent a short amount of time there the fact that it was over St. Patrick’s Day made up for it. The place was covered in Green, Orange, and White and people from all over the world were there to celebrate. I had the opportunity to see most of the things that I wanted to plus people that I hadn’t seen in a while which was very nice. If I ever get the opportunity to go back to Dublin I definitely will be going. The atmosphere there alone makes it worth the trip.

There now I’ve FINALLY updated you all on that trip. Since then I’ve just been getting through things normally around here. The next couple of posts will be updating how school’s been going this past term as well as the social and theatrical aspects of my life. Until then…

Cheers and love

Erik