Day Three - Virtues and Vices
- Erin Nixon
- Apr 26
- 6 min read
I really like this hotel, but they weren’t joking about the music. Jet lag + earplugs saved me, however. I woke up at 4 am because the music and sirens had cut out and been replaced by the sound of broken glass getting swept up. Ah, Dublin. It was far too early to get moving, so I went back to sleep for another 4 hours.
I decided not to go for the hotel bar’s breakfast because I wasn’t really hungry, so I popped some snacks in my bag and started my morning walking loop to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the National Cathedral of Ireland. It was a 15 minute walk from the hotel and it was beautiful outside. And sunny. More on that later.
On the way into the cathedral grounds there was an electrical box painted like Gulliver’s Travels, which I couldn’t figure out until I discovered that Jonathan Swift, the author, had been the Dean of the Cathedral for several decades (and was known for 4-5 hour long sermons)!
As someone who lives across the street from the Washington National Cathedral, I’m a bit obsessed with the architecture of cathedrals in general, and St. Patrick’s is impressive for many reasons. It’s 800 years old and built on the location of an even older church, built on the site where St. Patrick’s well, where he performed baptisms, was located (the exact location of the well has been lost, unfortunately). And unlike some older cathedrals it is surprisingly bright inside, a credit to the many stained glass windows. It also shares something in common with the Washington National Cathedral that I wasn’t expecting. It’s an Episcopalian church not a Catholic church.
Inside I walked through the many plaques and statues and chapels, which had been beautifully preserved. The most fascinating was the war memorial chapel, where the they have the colors (banners/flags) donated by the many Irish companies that have fought in conflicts around the world. They’re intentionally allowed to decay with time as a memorial to those lost. It gives a haunting, somber feeling to the entire space and they invite visitors to leave a note for those that have served.
The most fascinating thing I learned is the very important connection between Guinness and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Cathedrals are incredibly expensive to build, maintain, and repair, and by 1860 the cathedral was in a very poor state of repair. That’s when Benjamin Lee Guinness donated 150,000 pounds (equivalent to about $32M today) to restore the cathedral, and essentially saved it from ruin. Guinness continues to be a huge supporter of the cathedral.
As I was leaving the cathedral it was quite sunny, but when I went to put on my sunglasses, one of the earpieces just fell off. The screw had just popped out (but I still had it) so I now I was in the bizarre position of needing to find an eyeglass repair kit to fix my sunglasses in Ireland.
I continued walking to Dublin Castle, which isn’t so much a castle as a Georgian royal palace. And as it was Sunday, free! The rooms are beautiful and filled with portraiture and ornate furnishings that made me immediately feel like I was touring Buckingham or Kensington palace.
It was only 10:45 by this point, so I looped back to the hotel to drop off a few things and on the way happened to find a Dunnes store, which I discovered was a little grocery chain. On the hunt for a sunglass kit I popped in and while I didn’t find a kit I did find a sausage roll, a coke, and…Tunnock’s Teacakes! For those of you that haven’t read about my love affair with this Scottish confection, it’s basically marshmallow fluff on a cookie, covered in chocolate, and it’s like a tiny bite of heaven. I returned to the hotel to have a late breakfast and inhale a teacake while planning out the rest of the day.
I did some looking and found a Boots that was open a few blocks away and, in search of an eyeglass kit, I went on a wander to the local shopping mall and found it (but no luck on the kit). It was around noon so I headed to the Chester Beatty library next, about a ten minute walk.
Chester Beatty is actually an American that made a lot of money in the gold rush, moved to the UK for many years, and collected an insane amount of impressive books, art, and artifacts from around the world, with a particular emphasis on Egypt, the Middle East, and Asian countries. And then he built a massive library and donated the entire thing to Ireland. Only a small part of it is on display at a time, but the pieces are beautiful and range from rare papyruses to ornate Japanese scrolls and elaborately bound books. I really enjoyed getting to see all of the different types of art in the collection.
Look at all of that detail…
Afterwards I dipped back to the hotel to swap my bag for my backpack, since I was anticipating bringing back some heavy items from the next leg of the afternoon. And then I came up with a plan to use a needle and my magnifying glasses from my cross stitching to replace the screw in my sunglasses, since it was still very sunny (which worked!). And, having visited cathedrals and palaces and libraries…I then headed to a massive brewery.
Guinness is one of the most famous exports of Ireland and the brewery has been an institution in Dublin for hundreds of years. Now, I don’t particularly like Guinness, but I’m not coming all the way to Dublin and NOT having a Guinness. So I walked the 1.5 miles from the hotel to the storehouse. And along the way I found a pharmacy that happened to have an eyeglass repair kit!
I didn’t know what to expect but the Guinness store house really is an “experience”. The interior of the building is shaped like a pint glass, the entire tour takes place over 7 floors, and it’s filled with creative storytelling art installations, company history, and a really fun tasting experience (even for someone that doesn’t enjoy Guinness!). I definitely suggest it, even if you aren’t a fan.
Can you spot the installation based off the ad campaign for: “A woman needs a man, like a fish needs a bicycle.”? Why yes, I did buy merch.
I was getting a bit hungry, so I decided to have a ham and cheese toastie at the cafe to hopefully soak up some of the alcohol I was planning to drink that afternoon.
I was not able to eat all of this massive sandwich, but it was good!
Tiny Guinness.
The spectrum of the pint glasses of Guinness settling before the final pour is art.
Look at my beautiful half pint settling. So pretty. I did drink it all, but I still don’t exactly love it.
The famous gate!
After thoroughly enjoying myself (and feeling slightly tipsy), I started the 20 minute walk to north of the river to the Jameson Storehouse, because I was only getting started on the drinking for the day.
Now, I don’t particularly like Guinness (or any beer for that matter), but I do enjoy whiskey. And Irish whiskeys don’t have the smokey, peaty flavor that many bottles of scotch have, so I was looking forward to this tasting. And it started with a whiskey cocktail. What a great way to start a tour. Get everyone drinking right off the bat!
My daily grog order: Jameson and Lime (Jameson, spritz of lime, with Sprite)
Next we went through the history of the distillery and the distilling process (Irish whiskey is triple distilled and uses malted and unmalted barley). By the time we got to the tasting room I had polished off the cocktail and the flight of whiskeys had me feeling great.
I loaded my backpack full of things from the shop and started the walk back to the hotel. Not going to lie, I think the best way to experience Dublin is slightly tipsy. You don’t even care about how many people are everywhere and how confusing the roads are.
Erin National? No, Erin International.
I stopped at a TESCO on the way back for some Taytos and chocolate buttons to try and soak up some of the whiskey. Half a Guinness and three shots of whiskey on half a sandwich was probably a bit much.
Hallo tayto!
I made it back to the hotel just fine (and in a great mood) so I dropped off the backpack and headed right back out to find a bar to listen to some trad music. I had walked past a bar called The Stapleton that was advertising trad music for Sunday at 6 pm so that’s where I headed!
The bar was underground (literally) and I got a whiskey neat (more Jameson!) a found a wall to lean on to watch the set for a couple of hours. It was so much fun, and they played a mix of trad music, American country music, and Trad-pop, which everyone loved.
At one point they played Country Roads and I was laughing so hard I couldn’t sing along. Everyone in the entire bar was screaming the lyrics. Turns out country music is popular in Ireland?
When the set ended around 8 pm I went back to the hotel and made the excellent decision to get gelato for dinner along the way. All of the good ideas are happening today.
GELATO
I planned out the day for tomorrow (lots of driving and time management!) and packed everything up before bed.
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