Happy Days in Dublin!

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What is there not to like about a city that is happy to have a laugh, a drink or two or many, and are just looking for mirth in the bottom of the next glass of Guinness?

Dublin, Ireland - typically maligned for it’s miserable weather, an over abundance of English Hen and Stag weekends, and a fairly expensive pint in the tourist Mecca: Temple Bar.

I have been before. I ventured through these parts last year on my 5-week odyssey of the UK, Ireland and Wales. To be honest, I didn’t really like it all that much last year. It was the middle of summer, and yep the weather was useless, I was hung-over from a wedding, and most important thing to note - I was staying on the WRONG side of the Liffey. People, should you ever visit Dublin, do yourself a huge favour and pay a little extra to stay on the south side near Temple Bar. The seedy aspect I felt last year was totally diminished staying on the south side this time. This time Dublin was a whole ‘barrel-of-monkey’ fun!

With a 5.45am wake up call we found our way to Gatwick for my first journey on Ryanair, one of those low cost carriers over here. The checking in and travelling part was fairly uneventful and easy enough to organise. We got our tickets, sat around and covered the basics like bathrooms and breakfast, boarded the plane and headed for Dublin for the football and a lot of fun!!!!

It is fair to say that my well-developed ability to sleep as soon as I hit the road is still intact, and slept through most of the flight there and home! We got off the plane with only carry on luggage (after a raid of my bag the night before and stripping it of all my non-essential items) and whizzed through customs in no time at all. Catching a bus from the airport is fairly simple and very cost effective.

In no time the familiar sight of O’Connell st greeted me, and my bearings were pretty good (considering how extraordinarily bad they have been known to be at key moments in the past). Strolling down towards the Liffey and our hotel, Brett thought that the only right ‘Aussie’ thing we could do would be to celebrate with a pint - naturally Sharon and I seconded the motion, and headed straight for pub in Temple Bar proudly waving both the Irish and Australian flags! This was to become our main place of drinking throughout our stay. Photos will follow eventually one day when I get around to downloading my camera again!!

As Sharon had not visited Dublin before she finished her drink and then left her bags with us and zoomed off in search of experiences such as the Guinness Factory, Trinity College and St Patricks Cathedral. We thought it best to leave her to the cultural pursuits and keep drinking for a while longer, check into our really well located hotel, and grab lunch…..

So when in Dublin, what does one do for the balance of the afternoon and evening? Drink of course! We popped into Darkey Kelly’s and sat listening for about a 2 hours to some traditional music and story telling which was a lot of fun. Then it was time to re-hit the Temple Bar and keep going for the night! It was a case of too much baileys and beer for me. I was suitably well done by the time we left and possibly a little worse for wear, but my lesson was learnt. The following night, every Baileys was followed by a glass of water! Which was lucky, as my travelling companions did a fine job of drinking the following night!

A late wake up call on Sunday and lunch, and we were off to the football! It was even typically cold like it normally is when you go to the footy in Melbourne! So there we were dressed in our Hawks jumpers and Australian Rugby jumper, with the classy, but patriotic addition of the Australian flag draped down my back and we were ready to venture into Croke Park!

We followed the very large and very loud Irish crowd through the streets to Dublin to Croke Park. There were many amusing children far too high on soft drink, dressed in full Ireland gear and whistles and horns. Each one of the little leprechauns on sugar had a well-developed sense of being thoroughly Irish. They were loud, proud and ready to give us a cheeky smile or poke out their tongue, or provide us with quips of ‘Crickey Mate’!

Croke Park is a fairly new facility from what I could tell, and was pretty comfortable. I am positive that there was more legroom between the seats than the MCG. They reckon there were about 45,000 people at the game, and we were definitely outnumbered in the crowd, but there was still a strong Aussie contingent across the ground, and several in our immediate vicinity.

Anyone, who ever goes to football, knows that there is safety and comfort in numbers with ‘your own type’! It was a pretty fun atmosphere. The whole end of the ground was filled with the sugared up leprechaun children and their various sporting groups whooping it up with chants of ‘Ireland’ ‘Ireland’, and starting Mexican waves! We rose for the anthems and felt so patriotic when I heard Advance Australia Fair.

I wish I could inform you that the Aussie team stood up to the occasion. Unfortunately they were woeful! Totally outclassed by the Irish Amateur team. They were too fast, too skilled, stayed close to their opposition when in defence and ran a very fast flowing free game when they were in attack! Hopefully the result next weekend is more positive! Although it seems like a lost cause at this point, as we lost the first series by too much to have a hope of winning the series now!

Slightly dejected by the results, but happy to still be in town, we made our merry way back to Temple Bar to resume our positions at the pub! Actually I only made it back to the hotel for a grand total of 15 minutes to get changed and drop off our cameras and go straight back to the pub. It was a fun night spent talking to people of all nationalities: Irish, Aussies, English and American. I somehow suspect that Sharon managed to get a photo with her and half of the men in the bar; she was on fire and in form!

Oh and I got a top Irish saying for future use. You know that situation when people are buying rounds but one person does n ot seem to be holding their end of the unspoken agreement? Well, just gently place an arm around them and ask ‘Have you and the barman had a falling out?’ ‘No?’ Then why aren’t you speaking to him!’ I thought it was pretty clever myself, although it may possibly lose something in the translation without the Irish lilt.

And so it was Monday and time to get ready to go home. Repeat the process of sleep in, and get up late. We checked out and grabbed lunch at the Hard Rock Café - yep we’re tourists! Then it was time to hop on the bus back to the airport and ultimately England. Once again, my travelling sleepiness kicked in and we were half way home when I woke up and realised that we were already flying!!

It was time to go home. Another weekend of adventures and laughs, memories to have for a lifetime, and reconfirmation that being here is the right thing to be doing when I get to just ‘pop’ over to Dublin for the weekend!

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