Revisiting Ireland

Tuesday, August 27

Boston

I can hear you thinking it: Boston? Why Boston? Boston isn’t in Ireland!

You’re right, of course. But this trip started off when we got a great deal on a Delta One flight to Ireland from Boston. So we used a pile of excess miles we’d accumulated, made the decision to get to Boston a day before the flight to Ireland, and visited a US city we’d never been to before. Once again, we had the good work of Jan Cordell in making all the arrangements for this trip. We took the Groome shuttle to Atlanta, flew to Boston, took a cab to the Omni Parker House hotel to start our visit to Ireland by visiting Boston. Maybe not how others would do it, but it worked for us.

The Parker House hotel is one of those old-school hotels that has made some updates but hasn’t changed the basic layout of the rooms. Read that as meaning the room we were in was perfectly comfortable but smaller than you might find in the neighborhood Hampton. That was OK and maybe even expected. We checked in, did a minimum of settling in/unpacking, and headed out for a walk around the neighborhood, mostly just down to the Boston Common. We stopped for a photo of Samuel Adams’ grave marker; sort of had to pay homage there. Judy settled in on a bench while I struck off walking without a real goal in mind. But she had to move to get out of the way of a movie film crew.

After walking back to the hotel, we settled in The Last Hurrah, one of the hotel bars, for a couple of drinks and some bar food before we realized we didn’t really need any dinner. I think after getting up at 5:00 before we left home we had done all we could do. We slept well.

Wednesday, August 28

The next morning I slipped out of the hotel around 6:00, remembered to start up Map My Walk, and just took off walking. Just Like I do a lot of mornings. I headed toward the Common again, then made a left turn and just wandered around. Eventually I walked past the Old State House and the most striking Walgreen’s I’ve ever seen before I got to Faneuil Hall. I got coffee at a 7-Eleven and continued walking, mostly headed back toward the hotel. I stopped at a Capitol One Café at 7:00, just as they unlocked their doors. I was feeling the walk at this point so I got water and a pastry; and a half-price cappuccino for Judy because I used my Capitol One credit card. It was a little strange to be admitted to a “cafe” by a bank guard, even though the banking part wasn’t open for business yer. Crazy idea to combine food and banking, but it must work for them.

Back in the room, we took our time getting dressed before we checked out, left our bags with the bellman, and headed out for the Hop-On/Hop-Off Trolly tour of Boston. We sort of retraced my walk — part of it — without the wandering around and direction changes, and didn’t even have to wait at the Old State House before stepping up on the bus for a one-hour ride.We really enjoyed Sean, the Driver-Guide, and the tour was a good way to see a lot of the city in our limited time here. We “hopped off” only twice. The first time was when we stopped along a ship channel, near the Tea Party Museum, and walked to The Barking Crab for lunch. We were in New England, so lobster rolls seemed the right thing to do. I continued to drink at the company store, so to speak, and enjoyed a Sam Adams Summer on tap.

We were headed back to the Trolley stop to wait for the next one when we were diverted by the same film crew that moved Judy last night! There were notices posted saying they were filming crowd/atmosphere shots for a movie, and that people entering the space willingly were giving their permission to have their images used in the film. We bypassed that area, not because we didn’t want to be filmed but because the Trolley stop wasn’t in the right direction. We managed to get on a trolley with hardly any wait again, this time with Giovanni as our driver. We made it only a couple of stops before his shift ended at the “home office,” and we had to move to a different Trolley. We dutifully got off, walked forward three vehicles to the head of the line, and boarded Sean’s trolley again.

We finished the circuit, but stayed until we got back to the stop at Trinity church, our second “Hop Off” of the day. Because what had started as a beautiful day had turned cloudy and was beginning to rain, that was our only real visit to a Boston landmark, other than my spending time running around the Common. When we left the church the occasional drops of rain became a real drizzle, so we got off close to the hotel, waited a while in the lobby, claimed our bags, and took a cab to the airport. Six and a half hours before our departure, but the rain looked like it was going to be around the rest of the day.

It’s a good thing we did get there early, because it took over 30 minutes of standing in the Sky Priority line just to be able to check our bags. It was worth it, because the chairs in the Sky Lounge were much more comfortable than the ones in the hotel lobby. And there was entertainment of a different sort. About 5:00 I had just gotten a beer (Sam Adams again) when the fire alarm went off. We were alerted that the fire department had been notified, and Judy decided to get a gin and tonic. “While I can,” she said, since we didn’t know what would happen next. Interesting that she actually got a glass of pretty good champagne. Meanwhile the alarm continued to go off, three honks followed by flashing lights on the fourth beat. Without stopping. I’m sorry I didn’t start a video, like every millennial in the room, because watching the fire trucks arrive was actually kind of exciting. After twenty minutes of three honks followed by flashing lights, the sounds stopped and we were told that the fire had been accidental and that all was well in the airport. Eventually we boarded the plane and made the flight OK.

There are some more photos of our Boston days here. 

Thursday, August 29

Dublin to Kildare

When the plane touched down in Dublin, disembarking was easy enough, but there were aobout three plane-loads of non-EU-Passport-Holders in line a immigration. Once we shuffled like rats through the maze separating us from the window, things went well and quickly. We claimed our bags, walked through the doors into the arrivals lobby, and spotted our driver–Paul–right away. He was a neatly dressed small man of maybe 50 or so. We walked with him to the car (a real nice Mercedes van), loaded up and headed out for Kildare, the whole ride narrated by Paul.

He got us to Silken Thomas in Kildare without delay, and along the way he said he had talked to the owners earlier in the day, just checking up, confirming the reservation, and asking if early check-in would be possible. I was impressed he had done that, but by the end of our stay I had learned more about having a dedicated driver from Executive Hire. Seems to be normal service from them.

Our room wasn’t ready at 11:00, of course, but we had both skipped breakfast on the plane, so lunch was an option. We took it: soup for Judy, sandwich for me, with an order of fries split between us. It took only a few days to learn that little metal buckets of fries–chips–would become a staple of our diet. They’re everywhere! By the time lunch was done, the room was ready. We moved in and napped from noon until 2:00 with an open window providing a very pleasant cooling breeze. It was clear we weren’t in hot and humid Alabama any longer!

Refreshed and redressed, we headed out for walk through the town centre. Our first stop was St. Brigid’s Cathedral, a nineteenth-century rebuild on the site of the original. The original building was started in the 13th century, then destroyed by Henry VIII’s minions, then rebuilt and later restored using some of the original stones. There’s a nice organ case, but I couldn’t see a builder plate anywhere. Apparently it’s in use, because one of the volunteers there told me about all the different sounds it would make. He was very enthusiastic. We walked around the building but didn’t even try to climb the round tower, the second tallest in Ireland. We wandered a bit more and checked in with the Tourist Information people. We gathered a few brochures and got good information about catching the shuttle to the races the next day. After that we went back to Silken Thomas for tea and coffee while we considered options.

This is as good a point as any to describe Silken Thomas. In the sixteenth century, “Silken Thomas” was the nickname of Thomas FitzGerald, the Tenth Earl of Kildare, an important figure who is notable today for having led the Kildare rebellion against Henry VIII in the 1530s. Until the 21st century Silken Thomas was a public house in Kildare that has since been enlarged to include Chapter 16 (a restaurant open for dinner), a bar (with entertainment Thursday through Friday evenings), the original pub, a roof-top beer garden, and lodgings, all built on the grounds of the original Kildare Castle. The square tower of the castle still stands behind the pub, in the parking area between the bar and the lodgings. It didn’t take us long to realize this was a popular place for locals at just about any time of day. the pub was so comfortable we even had our favorite table picked out, next to a fireplace, before our stay there was over.

We considered a while, I went off in search of an ATM and found an off-license store, and we chilled a bit longer, reading brochures and talking about our plans for the next morning.We went to dinner in Chapter 16, where Judy enjoyed baked sea bass and I had a chicken pasta dish. I had a beer plank with my dinner, featuring three local brews that I enjoyed very much. And the service couldn’t have been better. It was no surprise that Judy ended the meal with an Irish coffee, and I think that’s when she vowed to enjoy an Irish Coffee each day we were in the country. Traveling had worn us out, so by 9:15 Judy was asleep and I joined her not long after.

Friday, August 30

Kildare

The day proved to have its ups and downs, with the ups overcoming the downs handily. It was hot in the room overnight until we opened the window more and turned on an oscillating fan around 2:45. After that we slept until 9:30, a good thing given how little sleep we’d had the night before. We dressed and went to breakfast a little after 10:00, and we weren’t the only people breaking their fast at that hour. Flanagan’s, the “Lounge” in the pub, served breakfast from 8:00 till noon, lunch from noon till 5:00, and dinner (in Flanagan’s and in Chapter 16) from 5:00 till 10:00.Every dish we tried was good. There were workers with boots and tool belts as well as 20-something well-dressed women and even families eating there at all hours. And the mural you see to the left in the photo Judy made was fabric. We never took a close look to see how it was done, but it was certainly a cool feature in the place.

After breakfast we put on our rain jackets and tried to go out, but the gentle mist quickly changed into a shower, so we didn’t even make it to the corner before we turned back. The shower didn’t last very long, though, so I soon went out for a somewhat belated morning walk, just to check out the town. We had looked at the brochures from the TI office and realized there weren’t a lot of hot tourist spots to visit in Kildare, charming though the place is. I pointed myself in the direction of the Grey Abbey, with Map My Walk as a guide-in-hand. The walk gave me a pretty good look at this small town. The population is only about 9500 people, and I really liked the feel of the place. I walked past what looked like a first-day-of-school crowd at St. Brigid’s Primary School. There were parents, grandparents, pets, and what looked like first-graders lined up along the sidewalks. That was fun to see.

Brochure photos of the ruins of the Grey Abbey seem to have been made from the opposite side of the Abbey ruins, where the outlet shops are located in a newly-built development. My approach led me through an overgrown cemetery, with only one path of freshly mown grass and weeds leading to a recent grave. The ruins were next to the cemetery, with signs posted warning people to keep out– as though the overgrown weeds wouldn’t take care of that problem anyway, It may be a little morbid to talk about, but I enjoyed just wander through the place for a while, reading dates on crumbling stones when they were still visible and finding some engravings that were quite touching, I didn’t see a grave for Silken Thomas, though, and his remains might even be somewhere far away from Kildare.

I walked back through the town by a different route, waiting for a group of older elementary children to cross the road in front of me at one point. On the opposite side of town, actually on the northwest edge, I walked as far as the site of the White Abbey, now the home of a relatively new church, maybe from the early twentieth century. I had hoped to get far enough to see the Curragh Plains, but I didn’t get far enough west to do that. Going back through the town, following Map-My-Walk, I saw some nice houses, newer developments, and some out-of-the-way dead end lanes when I ignored a “Road Closed Ahead” sign. All in all, my walk made me appreciate the life of the town, which seemed really comfortable and unpretentious.

I joined Judy around 2:30 in Flanagan’s for dessert and coffee, no lunch being necessary after the late breakfast, before we headed out the door for our afternoon activity: attending race day at the Curragh Racecourse!

Curragh Racecourse

One of the main things I wanted to do on this trip was to go to some races, so the proximity of Kildare to the Curragh Racecourse was the main reason Jan booked us into Silken Thomas. Races were scheduled for the afternoon, to be followed by a concert, all part of their Summer Sounds events. I had bought tickets for the afternoon online and was excited as a child when we went out the front door to catch the shuttle. The TI people had called and verified the schedule for us the day before. The free shuttle was to leave the Kildare train station at 3:00 and make its next stop at Silken Thomas. We waited with several others–the crowd kept growing–for over thirty minutes. One group waiting was the boisterous cluster of guys that had been drinking in Flanagan’s while we were inside. Hilatiry itself, you know? Finally we saw the shuttle, but it stopped at the Square bus stop, about 50 yards away. We all–boisterous ones included–trooped across the street, no doubt causing brakes to be applied suddenly, and boarded the bus. Once we were all seated, the driver pulled off from the curb and followed the schedule; he stopped in front of Silken Thomas!

The ride to the racecourse was good. After we got through the fringes of Kildare, we were riding through the Curragh Plain, that part of the county I had wanted to see earlier in the day. I had expected an open grassland, but the first part we rode through was peppered with outgrowths of scrubby shrubs. And there were sheep with splotches of turquoise dye on their backs. Paul told us later that that was to distinguish one owner from another, the equivalent of cattle brands in the old west. The racecourse is set in a “cleaner” area, and the land around it is gorgeous. The building–stands, restaurants, betting kiosks–is new and worth a visit. We got a tour of the upper levels but were happy with the action on the main, lower level. We got a race card, chose our horses, placed a small bet, went out to the parade area to see them, and made it to the stands to watch our horses come in at the back of the pack. The whole afternoon wasn’t like that, though. We ended up winning back our bets and a little bit more, but the fun we had doing it was more important. In fact, we got so tickled at ourselves for picking winners based on silly characteristics, that we were both laughing out loud during a good part of the afternoon.

We decided we’d had enough fun after six races, took the shuttle back to the hotel, had dinner (with an Irish Coffee for Judy), packed up for traveling (while I sampled the Bushmills from my morning walk), and managed to stay awake until after 9:30. That was progress!

I made a lot more photos on this trip than you see here, but I’m trying to get the pages to load a little faster by not putting them all on these pages of my matchless prose. I’ve put many more photos of the whole trip on one page that will take forever to load, but it’s here if you want to see more.