Ireland is the craic! (Part Two)

After our epic pub crawl the day before, we spent most of Friday recovering at the hotel.

Connemarra Tour

Early Saturday morning we took a taxi into Dublin and met our tour guide for the day at the Molly Malone statue.

The Molly Malone statue in downtown Dublin

You may notice, in the picture above, that Molly's bosom is a different color. Apparently, it is customary to reach up and grope the statue, but please be aware that I did NOT do this (Autumn... and Melanie... and Kristen and Serenity), because I respect women far too much...  Ahem.

This is probably a good time to talk about the weather in Ireland. It was cold and rainy in Dublin for the first four days of our trip, but the day of our Connemara tour it was bright, clear and beautiful! There was barely a cloud in the sky when we left Dublin, but as we headed across the island the clouds rolled in and by the time we got to our destination it was grey, chilly and wet. I asked a local about the weather and he said it was beautiful in Connemara all week. Figures.

Basically, from a weather standpoint, this was our trip:

We got kind of unlucky with regards to the weather

Despite the cold and wet conditions, our trip wasn't diminished by the weather in any way. In fact, it's kind of nice to drink Guinness in a warm inviting pub while it's stormy outside!

This boat took us on a tour of the Killary Fjord

Some parts of Connemara looked like beautiful alien landscapes

LOVED this... alone on the aft deck, cold, wet, with a hot Irish coffee to keep me warm

The water looked very cold

This picture captures how I have always envisioned Ireland

We stopped briefly at Kylemore Abbey, which was being renovated

Kylemore Abbey  

 Our bus driver told us some interesting stories about Kylemore Abbey. It was originally a castle, built in the 1800s by a wealthy businessman and politician named Mitchell Henry. Unlike most Englishmen of the time, Mitchell was a pretty good guy. He was inspired to build the castle by his love for his wife Margaret, and although it took 100 local workmen over 4 years, he built them housing with glass windows, and even constructed a school for their children.

When Margaret tragically died during a trip to Cairo, Henry was completely heartbroken and he eventually sold Kylemore to the Ninth Duke of Manchester. Today, the castle is home to an order of Benedictine nuns who took it over in 1920, after their abbey in Belgium was destroyed during World War I.

Our final stop was Galway, a charming town in the province of Connacht

Before heading back to our hotel we had dinner at M.J. O'Neill's Pub

Bangers and Mash with a rich Guinness gravy. Yum!

Brazen Head Dinner

On Sunday night we headed back into Dublin to have a special dinner at the oldest pub in all of Ireland. The origin of The Brazen Head can be traced back to a coach house established in 1198, and a number of famous patrons are known to have visited here, including author James Joyce, who mentioned the pub in his novel Ulysses; and Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels. According to NBC News, there are even claims that the folkloric English outlaw Robin Hood once drank at the Brazen Head.

The pub looks pretty small from the outside, but it's bigger than it appears

Beer barrels line the entry way to The Brazen Head

We had a pint of Guinness while waiting for our dinner to start

The dinner we signed up for, "An Evening of Food, Folklore, and Fairies", was on the second floor of the pub. This was the top-rated dinner attraction on TripAdvisor, and we were not disappointed. Oliver, our host for the evening, was a masterful storyteller and he provided the music and singing as well!

Here's a short clip:

Oliver not only told us about how the Irish used to live, their folklore and customs, he entertained us with stories. My favorite was about two Irish gentlemen who purchased a couple of coal black cows. On the way home they spied a pub but they didn't know what to do with their cows. The owner of the pub was a crafty one and he told them to put the cows in the field behind the pub, which they did. (Apparently, tales like this could sometimes go on for hours.)

The two farmers drank pints until the wee hours of the morning and when they went out back to find their cows it was pitch black. They looked and looked, but they couldn't see their cows in the dark, so they had to return home to their angry wives, while the pub owner benefited from their misery.

Eventually, the two saved up enough money to buy more cows, only this time they were smart about it and picked two heifers as white as doves. They stopped at the same pub, and with a glance up at the sky the crafty owner once again told them they could keep their cows in the field. The farmers were suspicious so they stopped drinking before it got dark this time. With smug smiles they bid the owner farewell and headed out of the pub, only to find that the field was full of snow and their cows were nowhere to be seen. Just like before the hapless gentlemen were forced to return home with empty hands and empty pockets.

Our Irish Souvenir

Melanie and I kind of fell in love with some of the old Irish folk songs, especially "Molly Malone", which is a bit easier to remember than the others. Shane taught us the chorus on our Pub Crawl, we met at the Molly Malone statue in Dublin for our Connemara trip, and Oliver sang the song again at The Brazen Head... so our Irish souvenir was pretty obvious when we saw it:

Crying "cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh..."

Some of the Irish folk songs we heard, and loved, on our trip:

Molly Malone:

The Fields of Athenry:

Dirty Old Town:

The Wild Rover:

Black Velvet Band:

Spancil Hill:

Mountains o' Mourne:

Seven Drunken Nights:

NOTE: This song has two more verses, for Saturday and Sunday, 

but they are considered too vulgar and are generally not recorded.