I recently spent a very enjoyable week's vacation in Ireland: me being me, I keep a running list of notes on my phone of assorted thoughts and observations, which I have expanded in editing but have kept in mostly the same order.
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"The perfect cat pic doesn't exi-"
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Phase 1: Cork
We saw exactly two cats the entire week, both of them in Cork and one pictured above. She was hanging out around a bike repair shop meowing for attention from pedestrians. (the picture is perfect, isn’t it?) The other one was a Siamese on a leash.
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Irish political signs are the candidate’s face, name, party and maybe a blurb. All except for the reactionaries who just have the fearmongering slogan and a vague “The Irish People” on it.
Sausages with crispy skin are a gift from the gods themselves.
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While it was probably because we stuck to city center, Cork is remarkably clean and uncrowded. The cavalier attitude to street crossing is mostly because there just aren’t that many vehicles about, which is nice. Still an unfortunate number of derelict buildings with a lot of graffiti, which was occasionally about the dereliction)
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Everything is god-damn green. Like you may think people exaggerate the green-ness of Ireland: they are not.
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There's a bat cave!
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Visiting Blarney Castle was fun, we were able to get there by taxi out of the Cork and it is just so, so nice to be able to get out of a major city and have the whole thing take maybe 20 minutes including being stuck in traffic.
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We got stuck in line for a bit on the way up top (someone had a fall, apparently - not off the castle) Being ruins, there’s not a whole lot in the castle itself besides tourists and people carving their names in the earl’s bedroom, but it is still a fun thing to visit. The dungeons were closed to tourists because they are a roosting spot for endangered bats, which is probably the best reason for dungeons to be closed off.
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The real treat are the castle grounds, though, which have some nice walking trails and gardens.
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I noticed, overall, a lot fewer pride flags (they were still present) and a lot more Palestinian ones.
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Number of pizza chains named after derogatory exonyms of Native American nations: 2. I think they were variants under the same parent company, the storefronts were identical besides the name.
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Pictured: a couple of nice asses at Blarney Castle grounds
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Sweet potato and mushroom savory pie at the English Market was one of the best choices we made. America’s unwillingness to adopt savory pies into the national cuisine is a food crime, it is impossible to feel bad if you have a good savory pie.
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Fun business names in Cork: Abra Kebabra, Fred Zeppelin’s, Pizza Daddy
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An image that stuck with me: Teenagers malingering near the old belltower of the Red Abbey, with a thunderstorm coming in, listening to Tom Jones’ “It’s Not Unusual”.
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Always found myself double-guessing, more than usual, if I should walk on the left or right side with oncoming pedestrians.
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Pubs close the kitchens pretty early. However, the doner kebab place is open until 3, which solves that problem.
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d10 Cork city center businesses:
- Pub
- Non-pub food place
- Turkish barber
- Non-Turkish barber / salon
- Gambling parlor
- Cell phone repair & secondhand store
- Tattooist
- Pharmacy
- Solicitor
- Other
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It’s light outside till 9:30, which really threw me off, and which //really// threw me off on cloudy days when the light is basically the same from mid afternoon till sundown and it’s very difficult to tell the time.
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Bathroom in McDonald’s: large and gross and bad; bathroom in the 7 table cash-only cafe that had just enough room to stand in: fucking spotless.
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Graffiti tagger SWFTY certainly gets around
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Our original bus to Kinsale just completely skipped our stop by inexplicably turning one intersection before us, but the next one was fine.
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Again, I cannot overstate how green everything is. You want to start believing in old and nameless gods sleeping under the hills, go take a bus through the Irish countryside.
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Kinsale was very nice, we managed to visit right in the middle of a craft fair and farmer’s market. We were able to do a very nice walk along the coastal road outside of Kinsale. Visited the beach for a little bit. Saw two dogs having a blast running around, and two women trying unsuccessfully to hype themselves up for the cold water.
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Pictured: a little guy
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This little guy was the only souvenir I bought. Couldn’t leave a little guy of this quality left behind.
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Dogs are very well behaved here. We only really saw one or two that even barked at people or got excited.
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Annoying high schoolers at the bus stop with little sidewalk poppers / snappers
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Hit my head twice at Blarney castle and twice on the bus both to and from Kinsale.
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Chocolate whiskey and brown bread ice cream from Murphy’s. Had a good chat with the two staff - walked into a convo about how all the staff are clones, partner says “not the weirdest conversation I have walked in on” and then uses my DMing as an example. (She’s right, of course, I have said some bizarre shit)
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Seeing a Papa John’s in Cork threw me for a loop.
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Stonewell Cider is local to the Cork area; very dry and very recommended if you like dry ciders. Had it at a pub that hosted a free comedy night every Wednesday (premise being that it was where the comedians would test out new jokes for their paid shows. The paper towels in the bathroom were blue.
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It’s amazing how long a day feels when you aren’t waiting for it to end. The old summer camp adage of “days last forever, weeks go by in a flash” is still very true.
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While I am envious of the work-life balance on display, it does throw a wrench into things if you need to get food or something from the pharmacy early in the morning or during the evening.
Phase 2: Dublin
We didn’t see billboards until actually riding into Dublin - it was a wild experience to be on a bus for three hours and realize that "wait, there were like no billboards on the highway, that's weird and also extremely nice."
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Yellow construction cranes like giants on the city horizon
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The crosswalk signals sound like Hydrogen by mo|on and I kept waiting for the pitch to spike.
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Asian nun with glasses wearing black windbreaker.
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Chester Beatty Museum had exhibitions on bookmaking and world religions. Both very nice exhibits, though the latter was disappointingly light on Judaism. Some truly gorgeous art on display (and free entry!) Good gift shop too.
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Munch Diddly’s candy superstore (has a pink and yellow monkey mascot)
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Homeless folks with pup tents in the area around Trinity college.
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Pour one out for the absolute champ staffer at O’Riordan’s who was able to pantomime us to the upstairs bar (the music was way too loud downstairs)
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Sometimes a trashy tourist bar is what you need.
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While out drinking, they were showing professional darts, which gets an award for “most inexplicable highlight”: there were cheerleaders, professional wrestler entrances, the whole shebang. We were enraptured. Looked up the rules on our phones and everything. The guy in the green shirt was the most po-faced human I have ever seen, that man was FOCUSED.
(Professional darts rules summary: players start with 401 points, and subtract what they score. They have to hit 0 exactly to win the round.)
With a couple pints in you, it is extremely investing, because it moves fast and is usually an extremely close competition. Very tense.
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Wake up new hex map just dropped
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Orchard Thieves cider is a cavity waiting to happen. Tastes like a liquid Jolly Rancher.
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Country Roads is apparently a smash hit in the tourist bars, we heard it in multiple places.
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Time to Wonderwall: four days
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A pub in Temple Bar loudly singing “What’s Going On” as we walk past
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Very good donuts at the train station. Can’t remember the name of the place, but they were real good dessert donuts.
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The train has little name displays for reserved seats, which was nice and convenient.
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Kilkenny Castle is on the entirely different end of the spectrum from Blarney, though it has similarly good walking paths around the grounds. The castle itself is in much better shape and has been converted into more of a museum. The self-guided tour was very nice. Also hosts the Ros Tapestry, which is some incredibly embroidery work by volunteers over 20+ years.
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Friendly bulldog on the castle grounds, just having a wonderful day.
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Can recommend the Medieval Mile Museum in Kilkenny, which is inside a refurbished medieval church. The self-guided audio-tour is nice, focuses on things excavated from beneath the church or in the surrounding town.
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This might be my favorite
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The highlight of the MMM is this tombstone right here - for reasons unknown (probably they didn’t like the guy), this monk’s grave slab was cracked and chucked in the river, where it landed in the muck face-down, preserving the surface carving for 600+ years. I can’t get over how much it looks like a modern cartoon, which then gets me thinking about how many other pieces were of a similar style and we just don’t know about them.
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The reactionary candidate in Kilkenny looks AI generated. Decanted from a vat, squeezed out of a tube. Barely looks old enough to drink.
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“I’m never wrong, I’m just slightly unright” - overheard while walking around Kilkenny.
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The Black Chapel turns 800 next year, which is just wild to think about.
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I'm telling you something is down there.
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This floating bird hutch on the pond at Kilkenny castle grounds looks like a perfect dungeon entrance. We sat on a bench and watched the little grebes for a while, it was very relaxing.
(Little grebes are like ducks, but not actually ducks, and they are very small and very cute)
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Returning from Kilkenny was less enjoyable than getting there or being there, starting with issues with the ticket machine, a total lack of charging locations at the station, and the kid on the train who kept playing with some god damn toy that kept going //waoh waoh woah wah-ha-ha!//
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The sounds of Dublin: drunken German (?) tourist singing “Zombie” very off key.
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We managed to, entirely by accident, get a hotel very close to the National Gallery and Natural History Museum, which were right across from the International Dublin Literature Festival.
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We had perfect weather on our last full day, to cap off a week of anomalously good weather. However this was marred by the fact that we somehow ended up in the section of Dublin that did not have a single cafe open on a Saturday morning before 930/10.
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The National Gallery was fantastic - admission is free, but we paid admission for the special “Turning Heads” exhibition, which was all about the tronies (headshot portraits) of the Dutch masters. Some absolutely stunning work on those. And just fascinating in general because of how they were used as reference work, practice pieces, or to show off (and boy did some of these guys like to show off how well they could paint hair)
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There was also an exhibition of the An Tur Gloine stained glass collective, which was cool, and a visiting exhibit containing two Vermeers (one of which has a hometown connection via the Frick Collection. I suppose I should start keeping track, I have seen 3/34 Vermeers.
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After a while all the paintings and names and accumulated art history were too much for our brains, so we contented ourselves by pointing out every time there was a cat or dog.
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Number of paintings where Venus is lounging and Cupid is driving a foot into her crotch: 2
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After the Gallery we visited the book fair, at which I bought no books (having already bought 3 at this time) but thank all gods above and below had food vendors. We got Szechuan pork dumplings and they were great.
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Magpie feathers have a sort of blue holographic effect to them. They are also utterly fearless and I would not want to get in a fight with one.
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The beach at Kinsale
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The National Museum of Natural History is not called the 'Dead Zoo' for nothing - it is essentially a single room filled with taxidermy, which has been deliberately kept in as close a state to when it opened in the late 1800s as possible. The Carnegie it is not. But it is free, and it does have neat little glass models of sea slugs and a bunch of preserved fish with goofy-ass googly eyes. The bramble shark in particular is just having a great day
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Public park quality in Dublin is overall really high. Though one of them had so many birds that I would advise going anywhere else for your picnic lunch.
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Gollum’s Precious designer jewelry
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My partner wanted to do a proper fancy afternoon tea, which we had at the Silk Road Cafe in Dublin castle. Wonderful stuff, as you no doubt can see above.
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Jehova’s Witnesses spotted outside Dublin castle, looking just as gormless and intrusive as they always do.
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Walking back to the hotel on Friday had us crossing the paths of several very loud bachelorette parties on pedal tour mobiles.
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Getting our bus back to the airport ran into issues, but thankfully we were able to catch a taxi and get there in good time.
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Dublin airport straight up has the Spongebob perfume department gag after you pass through security.
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All hail Mr. Tayto
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I had actually repressedthe memory of a layover in O’Hare a decade ago when returning from my college trip to Rome. There was a creeping sense of deja vu and then I realized “holy //shit// I am sitting in the same fucking chair Jesus Christ this is the same god-damn chair I am retracing my exact steps”.
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Books Purchased
- Mort (Terry Pratchett) - now with a fancy hardcover!
- Collins Easy Learning Irish Grammar - I warned people that I would, and I went and did.
- The Complete Poems of Enheduana, the World’s First Author (Sophus Helle) - Saw this in the Beatty Museum gift shop and come on, I couldn’t not buy it. Reading it now, it is excellent, expect a follow-up post.
I am a parody of myself at this point.
Food Reviews
- Badger and Dodo (Cork) - We had time to kill for the hotel to open up check in, so we went and got ourselves some nice hot sandwiches and tea. Good stuff.
- Cafe Nero (Cork) - Didn’t realize this was a franchise when we went, but hot damn was that croissant I had good.
- Perry Street Market Cafe (Cork) - A bit fancier than a normal breakfast place, but extremely tasty.
- The Pie Guys (Cork) - ACQUIRE SAVORY PIE.
- Spresso (Cork) - Unassuming breakfast place, but nice. Black / white pudding has such a weird texture, it’s hard to describe.
- Istanbul Kebab (Cork) - You want doner kebab, you’re gonna get some fucking doner kebab. Enormous portions, absolutely delicious.
- Kitty O’Se (Kinsale) - Overpriced, mediocre, touristy. Spent 20 euros on some bland fish and chips and we should have gotten better stuff down the road from the food trucks or at the farmer’s market.
- Murphy’s (Cork, Dublin) - Ice cream chain, no frills, very tasty. The one in Cork, we walked in to Employee A telling Employee B how he tells people that “yeah, Murphy’s just grows us all in vats”.
- Tara’s Tea House (Cork) - I have encountered God, and it is a TTH scone with strawberry compote.
- Silk Road Cafe (Dublin) - If you are feeling fancy and want to take someone out on a date, go for the afternoon tea. Or just go normally and get the curry chicken. It’s in the same building as the Beatty Museum.
- As One (Dublin) - Fucking fantastic hash up with chorizo and dippy egg.
- Black Cat Cafe (Kilkenny) - Had a very nice turkey sandwich here.
- O’Riordan’s (Dublin) - It’s a touristy place on Temple Bar, you know what you’re in for. But we got drunk and watched darts and had a good time.
And probably some other places I have forgotten, plus the dumpling guy whose truck name I have sadly forgotten.
In-Flight Movie Reviews
- Fury Road - Surprising no-one, movie remains incredibly fucking good.
- John Wick - All I could think was how kickass Monkey Man is, and how much I would rather be watching that. It is a surprisingly lifeless, tensionsless, uninteresting movie.
- A League of Their Own - Despite my father’s deep and abiding love of baseball, I had not watched this one before. Great film, very funny, has aged pretty well in most respects. Marla’s scene in the dance hall could have been terrible but actually turns out legitimately funny because the joke isn’t “look at the autistic-coded character making a fool of herself”, it’s “this absurd thing is happening and it all works out because she finds a guy who thinks she’s the bee’s knees.”
- This one nature documentary about pliosaurs - David Attenborough is 98 years old. I was going to make a joke but god damn, that’s just impressive. They got a giant pliosaur skull out of a cliff face, that was cool.
- The Mandalorian, episodes 1-3 - As the first time around, I appreciate that the Mando isn’t an untouchable badass, he just kinda eats shit in a lot of fights. It’s a good way to deflate the typical Mandalorian aggrandizement (which I typical dislike)
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Heading back to Pittsburgh
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Final Thoughts
Had a great time. Ireland is very laid back (well, outside of Dublin, but Dublin’s business is not evenly distributed), and it’s the kind of place where if you like going out walking you’ll always find something to do. We lucked out (immensely) and had more sun than rain when we were there, had only minor transit issues, and overall got along without a hitch.
Green / 10, would go again
