Birding in Ireland

Among other things, I'm a birdwatcher. I'm also an astronomer, a carpenter, a dog trainer, a writer, a bowler, a snow skier and an inveterate consumer of the written word. I'm probably forgetting a thing or two, but of all the things I am, I've been a birdwatcher the longest.

One of the beauties of watching birds is that you can do it anywhere. I managed to infect my youngest son with the birdwatching bug when he was quite young, and he telephoned me once to tell me he was standing on campus watching a flock of Cedar Waxwings feeding in a nearby tree. While we were talking, he said he found it amazing that so many people were walking past, oblivious to the spectacle so easily observed by the casual passerby. I see birds all the time when I'm out walking my dog or driving down the street, and it never ceases to amaze me, either, when others don't notice.

I worked for many years as a carpenter in and around San Diego County (which hosts more bird species than any other county in the country, I might add), and I always used to keep a pair of binoculars and a field guide in my truck in case I saw something new and/or interesting. One of my fellow dirtbag carpenters caught me looking through my binoculars once and, when he found out what I was doing, began making fun of me to anyone who would listen, laughing at me that I would take the time to notice something like a particular bird. Now, this was back in the day when you could pound a couple of stakes in the ground after work, make a beer run and play a few games of horseshoes before you headed home for the night. One evening, while drinking beer and tossing some 'shoes, I noticed a kingbird perched on a grade-stake. He was hunting. A kingbird is about the same size as a mockingbird and eats insects that it catches on the wing. It will go through some incredibly aerobatic gyrations in pursuit of its next morsel, and when it is caught, will fly back to his perch and wait for the next bug to come along and repeat the process. In short, they put on quite a show if you pay attention. So, while I was watching this Kingbird, I told the guy who days earlier had been so amused by my predilection for birdwatching, "Hey, see that bird sitting on that grade-stake?" He looked over and said he did. I said, "Just watch him for a second, he'll catch a bug." Right on cue, the hunter launched himself off his perch and, after a dizzying array of maneuvers, caught his prey and calmly flew back to his vantage point. The knucklehead said, "WHOA! That was cool!" I told him to keep watching, and he did, for the next few catches. I never said one more word, and within minutes someone asked him what he was looking at. He showed them, and pretty soon there were eight or ten guys standing around watching this kingbird hunt and ooohing and aaahing at his antics. After that, the knucklehead would occasionally stop by and ask me about a bird he'd seen, to see if I could tell him what it was. I suggested he get a pair of binoculars and a field guide to carry in his truck...

Birds are beautiful, amusing, plentiful and easy to notice. So, whenever you're out and about, take a minute to check out the birds around you. You just might see something that'll make you go "ooooh".

I devoted no time whatsoever specifically to birding while in Ireland. While I am always on the lookout for something new, in Ireland I never set out just to see birds, and still I managed to see tons of new stuff. The next time I'm there I will dedicate some serious time to traveling around just to see birds, but here are some pictures and brief descriptions of what I did manage to see and photograph on this trip.

Woodpigeon

I already posted one picture of a Woodpigeon, but I thought I'd throw a couple more up for good measure. HUGE pigeons, very strong fliers and very pretty. Also, very common.

Here's another. I'm pretty sure this was a nesting pair in the neighborhood.















As I mentioned in an earlier post, Kevin and I spent a very enjoyable afternoon having lunch with one of his colleagues and his wife, who lived a good ways outside the city. Their names are Noel and Angela, and aside from being spectacular hosts, they also had some bird feeders set up in their backyard that were attracting quite the diverse bunch of birds.

Goldfinch

This little fella is what they call a Goldfinch in the UK. These things NEVER sit still and, embarrassingly enough, this is the best picture I could get. They are gorgeous and very common.

Godfinch

Here is the only picture you will find in any of my work that I did not take myself. I glommed this off the internet, so my apologies to whoever's work I'm stealing here. I figured I owed you one good look at these guys.

These three pictures are of what they call a Robin Redbreast in the UK. Noel was sure to point out that THIS is the original Robin Redbreast, and that we Americans took the name. And I'm sure he's right. These birds are much prettier than the ones in the U. S.

Chaffinch

Chaffinch

A very colorful little guy, the Chaffinch, and a bit of a backyard feeder bully.

Bue Tit

Blue Tit

Noel was a great asset as I had no idea what I was seeing until he told me. I didn't purchase a field guide until the day after this excursion, so having a human "guide" was handy, indeed,

Coal Tit

As we were sitting there, eating lunch, watching the birds and visiting, Noel was naming all the birds at the feeders. It turns out he was quite knowledgable and a good guy to be hanging out with while watching birds. In addition to the Blue Tit and the Coal Tit, there was also one little guy that showed up called a "Great Tit" that I was unable to get a picture of. Noel kept asking me, "Did you see all the tits? Did you get a picture of the Great Tit? There's a Great Tit at the feeder now!", and on and on. You will find this hard to believe if you know me, but I did NOT make even one off-color joke, but man it was tough, what with Noel lobbing softball after softball after softball. One of the best straight men ever, and out of respect for everyone there, I let 'em all hit the ground. I must be growing up. 

Grey Heron

I saw this guy while walking along the River Corrib one morning. They're supposed to be different than Great Blue Herons, but I don't see any huge differences. Maybe a little smaller and stouter, but a damned big bird and very cool to see on a chilly morning at the river's edge. 

Mute Swan - male

This is a male Mute Swan. The telltale is the nob on his beak.

Mute Swan - nesting male

Mute Swan - feeding

Swans are very impressive birds to see in the wild. Not only are they huge, but they are fearless of humans and will let you get quite close. As I was walking along the river one day, I kept hearing this odd noise, almost like quietly honking geese out on the river, but the noise was moving very fast and when I first heard it I couldn't see out to the water. Later, when I got to an open stretch of river, I heard the noise and looked over, and it was a pair of swans flying by. Their wings make a very loud noise when they fly that is quite pleasant.

Rook

Rook

These are the two best pictures I could get. These guys would not cooperate. Birds are genius about knowing when they're being observed and these rooks kept turning away. It's kind of hard to see, but they have a big white patch on their face right at the base of their bill. These are really, rough, scraggly looking birds with big, thick beaks. Way uglier than your basic crow. 

Magpie

Just a boring, old magpie. Just like the ones you see here, but I figured I'd throw him in here. Just for the record, this picture was taken on a different day many miles from where I got the pictures of the rooks. Just so you know. 

Blackbird

Blackbird

This blackbird was one of the coolest birds I saw. He was very animated, very unaffected by my observing him and would stop occasionally to eyeball me while he was going about his business. A very entertaining little guy. 

Pied Wagtail

The Pied Wagtail was one of the toughest photos for me to get. I saw five or six of them, but they virtually never sat still for more than about .17 milliseconds, and I was beginning to think I'd not be able to get a decent picture of one. This guy shocked me by landing on this concrete and hopping down to the river's edge and standing there long enough for me to get a few snapshots. I was very far off, so this picture is more testament to the quality of my camera than my stalking ability. Very cool bird, and not as small as he looks. He's probably a little bigger than a mockingbird. 

Lesser Redpoll

Last, but not least, the Lesser Redpoll. This was another one that would not sit still long enough to get a decent shot, so I apologize for the focus issues.

Lesser Redpoll - on left

The bird on the right in this picture is a Goldfinch.

This is just some of what I was able to see while out and about in Ireland. Without devoting any time at all to birding exclusively, I was able to get these pictures, and missed at least twenty or thirty others due to not having my camera at the ready or the birds being unwilling to sit still long enough for me to get a presentable photograph. I promise you that anywhere you go there will be birds worth seeing. Whether you're in your own city, out in the countryside somewhere or traveling abroad, you will see beautiful, interesting birds if you take the time to notice. So get a pair of binoculars and a decent field guide for the area in which you live (don't forget to keep 'em in the car) and start collecting your own list of birds you've seen. It will be something you can do for the rest of your life and who knows, you just might enjoy it!

Thanks for following along, I hope you are enjoying my efforts and maybe even learning a little something. It would be a home run for me if I was able to inspire anyone to travel somewhere in particular or, as in this post, take up birding. Please leave any comments you may have, and if you become a member, you will receive an e-mail telling you every time I put up a new post. I promise never to email you otherwise.

Until next time...

Ado

A Traveler's Philosophy

My ideas about traveling are a little different than most. The only reason I know this is because on the only two major trips I've taken in my life (Turkey and Ireland) I have run into other tourists rushing around frenetically as if their doctors told them they'd better hurry up if they're going to see everything they want to see before they drop dead this afternoon. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. And when I've engaged these hamster-wheel runners in conversation, it invariably goes like this:

Them - Oh, you're American?
Me - Yes I am. You?
Them - Oh, we're American too. Where you from?
Me - California. You? (at this point I'm usually dreading the fact that I got too close to these people)
Them - (fill in the blank) Where have you been so far?
Me - Galway (Istanbul, Izmir, answer du jour)
Them - Oh, you just got here?
Me - Nope. Been here for (more than two) days.
Them, wide eyed - REALLY? Where are you going from here?
Me - Home (Now I'm ready to puncture my own eardrums)
Them - REALLY? You're here on business? (seriously, I've had this conversation a dozen times)
Me - Nope, I like it here. I'm just hanging out. Where are you going next? (Now this is the only amusing part of the conversation for me)
Them - We're going to (list of at least twenty cities and/or points of historical interest).
Me - Wow! How long are you going to be here? (wait for it....)
Them - Ten days.
Me - No shit?! Ten days to see all that?! Why don't you just save your money and buy a coffee table book? (these things always end badly for me)

I saw a Venetian being interviewed one time on television and he was talking about how silly the tourists that come there are. The boat pulls in, the tourists stream off the boat, run around Venice like rodents, scurrying from one shop to another, buying little trinkets and souvenirs, photographing things they have no idea of what they are, then streaming back onto the boat six hours later and they're gone. They run everywhere and see nothing. His contention was that the tourists have no knowledge of where they just were except that it's called "Venice". And I couldn't agree more.

I have known viscerally, since the time I was very young, that when I traveled I wanted to stay anywhere I went long enough to get the place ON me, not just pass through staring out the window of the car. When I was very young we used to drive cross country quite a bit. In our old '59 Ford station wagon, with dad at the wheel, we drove from San Diego to St. Petersburg, Florida and back twice, drove to Houston and back too many times to remember exactly and drove from St. Pete to North Carolina several times to visit the grandparents, as well. And almost all of that was before I was 12 years old. One thing I always remembered was wanting to stop in those small towns along the way and hang out for a few days to see what it was really like there. I knew you couldn't get a feel for a place without getting out on the ground and spending some time wearing out your shoes. I would imagine what it would be like to sit on that park bench for a couple of hours or have breakfast in that diner every day for a week. I just knew there were stories to be heard and people to get acquainted with. I've always been a person who makes friends everywhere I go, and I always wanted the chance to do that while traveling. My old man was the kind of guy who didn't take his foot off the gas until we got where we were going, so my urge to hang out was always there in the back of my mind, quietly nagging away at me. I never had the chance, but I always daydreamed about it...

Then I grew up, got busy raising kids, one decade led to another, and here I am, getting senior citizen discounts, but also finally able to indulge my longing to see the world. So I guess the bottom line for me is this: I am most certainly NOT a tourist and have no desire to be. I am a traveler. Someone who is on the ground, passing through, but not too quickly. I just may take a liking to a place and stay for a week or two. I have no interest in unfurling a checklist as long as my arm to check off all the things I've seen and places I've been to. That doesn't mean I have no interest in things historical or wonders natural, but I'm in no hurry. I'd rather get to know the gal in the cheesemonger's or the bartender at the pub, or that guy sitting on the stool at the end of the bar, or the guy salmon fishing off the side of the walking path. Those opportunities are fleeting and to be valued. Stonehenge will still be there next week. Tell me, what kind of lure are you using? Do you know what kind of bird that is? Where can I get the best fish and chips in town? Nice hat, where can I get one like it? These are the things that interest me most, and they're the things that take time to winnow out. The people make the place, and the experiences there make the memories. If I just want to see a bunch of stuff, I'll buy a coffee table book.

Stuff I Did Take the Time to Go See

Kevin and I hired (rented) a car to drive around the countryside for a couple of days. There was only one thing I really wanted to see while I was there, and that was the Cliffs of Moher. They did not disappoint...

The Cliffs of Moher - looking south

Cliffs of Moher - looking north

O'Brien's Tower

Just to give a sense of scale I've included this close-up of O'Brien's Tower. If you look at the picture above (looking north), you can see the tower sitting atop the cliff. As you can tell from the close-up, it's forty or fifty feet tall. I'll let you do the math. The cliffs are a stunning sight, and even more stunning is how many idiots will walk right up to the "sloping ever so gently away" edge of the cliff to sit and/or take pictures. Think I'm being a fuddy-duddy? They were busily looking for a body while we were there. Someone got a little too close and...bye bye! If you enlarge the top picture you'll see a tiny little boat down there. Uh huh, the Irish Coast Guard.

This is a close-up of An Branan Mor, the rock jutting up out of the sea below O'Brien's Tower. If you look closely you'll see seagulls, represented here by almost invisible tiny white dots, flying around the rock. The cliffs are huge.

And, if you turn your back to the cliffs, this is what you'll see. That is Lake Derg way down there and several small towns. Once you're out in the country, there aren't many bad views.












Once we had the car, other than seeing the cliffs, the plan was to just kind of aim ourselves in the general direction of something interesting and start driving. We had no timetable and no real agenda, other than to stay fed and warm while we drove around the western lands. It was a brilliant no-plan and led us to several good things. On our way to the cliffs, we stopped in a little town called Fanore and got a couple of sodas. Before you even think it, the roads here are so freakin' windy and narrow that you'd have to be a lunatic to even consider having a pint and getting behind the wheel. Not only are the roads incredibly narrow and windy, but they also have the added dimension of stone walls alongside that are maybe, maybe two feet off the side. It is like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride with real consequences if you screw up, so yeah, sodas. Actually, Kevin had a soda and I had water.

Me and the Professor, out and about. The wayfaring strangers.













A. E. O'Donohue was not serving food on this day and we were feeling a bit peckish. A very lovely lass named Betty was serving drinks however, and we asked her where we might find an establishment in which to eat lunch. Betty was from Bulgaria, and had a thick accent, although her English was very good. She gave us some of the best advice we've ever gotten. She told us we should stop in the town of Doolin and eat lunch at O'Connors. She pronounced it Oh-ka-nores, but we figured it out. Turns out this place is well known amongst the locals. What an awesome place it is, and if you ever find yourself on the road to the Cliffs of Moher, be sure to make time to stop in at O'Connors (it's right on the way) for their seafood chowder and fish and chips. You will thank me later.

The walk down to O'Connors Pub.

The best seafood chowder in human history. Well, at least the best in my human history.

World class fish and chips. Do it, I'm tellin' ya.














The day before we drove south and west to the cliffs, we headed west with the intent of making it out to the ocean because there's a beach out there that is supposed to be very scenic and, if I'm not mistaken, there is an eatery and pub or two out that way. Anyway, we got shortstopped by an invitation from one of Kevin's fellow scientists to stop by his house for lunch. I met some incredibly wonderful people and we had an exquisite lunch, complete with a lemon tart for dessert, and much lively and entertaining conversation. I will go into detail on that in another post, but let me just say now that it was an absolutely delightful, unexpected detour in our day. Noel and Angela, you are the best!

After lunch we headed out on our original trajectory but had much less daylight to work with. After about a half-hour on the road, a light bulb went off over Kevin's head and we drove to an ancient stone tower house that is Kevin's daughter Shannon's favorite place in Ireland, evidently. And it is called...

The Gates of Aughnanure

Aughnanure Castle (pr. Ock-na-noor). There are over 200 of these stone tower houses in County Galway alone. From ancient times until the middle ages, Ireland was a land with no central government. They had no king or queen to keep order and the island was filled with warrior clans who stole livestock, stole women and children to turn into slaves and made war on each other almost constantly. It was a place where, if you wanted to have your things and family kept safe, you needed to have a defensible place to live. Hence, the stone tower houses.

Aughnanure Castle was built by the O'Flaherty's around the year 1500. It is one of the best preserved tower houses in Galway. The O'Flaherty's were known to be particularly pugnacious and the citizens of Galway considered them to be "mountainous and wild people" by whom they were sometimes "robbed and threatened". In 1537, when Henry VIII sent his troops to Ireland to bring the Irish clans to heel, the O'Flaherty's made their submissions but remained troublesome for decades. In 1572, Aughnanure finally fell to the cannon of superior forces and was re-fitted and fortified to the form that still stands today.

Tower house and watchtower

This is probably going to sound a little hackneyed and cliche, but when you walk across the bridge, through the gates and into what was once the inner ward, or courtyard, you can almost feel what it must have been like to live there. It was built to withstand attack and be defensible, and had many features built in solely for that purpose.

The walls at the top of the tower house have battlements to protect shooters, and there are gun-ports in all the walls and buildings for musketeers to shoot from. There is a small river on the north side of the enclosure and the other three sides are completely walled in, or were anyway. The inner ward walls are no longer there, but you can see remnants still attached to the watchtower, which was located at the corner of the walls.

View east looking over outer wall

Most of the outer walls and watchtowers are still standing. It provides a real sense of what things must have been like.

Northeast corner of outer wall. You can see what is left of the
watchtower there. 

Stairs in tower house

I have tons of pictures of this place, and I don't want to start boring everyone to death, but just a couple more. I spoke earlier about the feel of the place, and I have to tell you one reaction I had that was very visceral. It was pointed out that the staircase is designed to spiral to the right for a very specific purpose. Imagine that you are defending your home from a band of armed, murderous, rival clansmen and they have breached both walls and are, by God, breaking in your front door! Your last stand is going to be made on those stairs. If you are a defender you are going to be retreating up those stairs and trying to inflict as much damage on the intruders as you can. With the stairs spiraling to the right, only the person above will have a clear swing, with his sword in his right hand, onto his attackers below. The attackers will be at a distinct disadvantage on those stairs, even if they are lucky enough to be left handed. Standing on those stairs, I tried to wrap my mind around the reality of having to fight to the death in that narrow space against a group of similarly minded invaders. Maybe my imagination is a little too good sometimes, but it was a frightening thought.

Tower House, up close and personal 

They're filled with glass now, but the gun ports are visible next to the windows. A very formidable facade, and I highly recommend visiting there if ever you have the chance.













Alrighty then, a couple of quick randoms...

Just an old, abandoned castle

The professor lives right beside the River Corrib, which runs from Lake Corrib to Galway Bay. On my last day in Galway I decided to walk along the river up to the lake, a distance of about three miles. I passed two castles along the way, and this is the cooler of the two. I have no idea what the history of this castle is, but there you have it. There were large birds flying in and out of the tower and it looked like something out of an old movie.

These old structures are everywhere in County Galway, and probably the whole country. You can't throw a stick without hitting an old stone something or other.

Tea House Folly

This structure is called "Tea House Folly". I also stumbled across this while on my walk to the lake. There was a plaque there saying it was built in the late 1700's or early 1800's and not much else. It said the building is an oratory. I have no idea what that means in this context, but I would assume it has some religious significance. If you know or can find out, please leave a comment and let me know. Just another one of those stone structures the Irish are so fond of.

Tower House

This is another stone tower house we stumbled across on our way to the Cliffs of Moher. I have no idea what it's called, but it was very scenic. I imagine this was the high rent district for tower houses, what with that view and all. This one has obviously been extensively restored and added on to, but still very cool, and what a location!









Last, but not least, The Burren.

This is the one thing that will be on my (very short) hit list for my next trip to Ireland, and I really wish I had known about it before I went this time, as it is right on the way to the cliffs.

The Burren is a huge area, roughly 250 sq. km., of naturally occurring limestone pavement. It has an incredibly diverse ecology with alpine, Mediterranean and arctic plants side-by-side. There are also many tombs and stone monuments throughout the Burren. We only saw it from the car as we drove around it and when we stopped here to have a closer look. Honestly, I had no idea exactly what it was we were looking at and didn't until I looked it up later. This seems like a place you could spend at least a day nosing around and see all kinds of crazy stuff.

Well, that's pretty much it for the straight-up sightseeing part of my trip. Everything else I saw and did was on the fly, just the way I like it.

I hope you're enjoying the blog. I've got a few more posts left in me for this trip, and as I've been looking, I realize I have some unfinished business from my Turkey trip, as well. I hope you'll read along, and don't forget to become a member if you like what you're reading. Have a great day!

Until next time...

Why I Love Ireland

Class? Eyes forward, stop talking, let's begin... 

There's a concept that sociologists and geographers use when discussing the concepts of community and community building called the "third place". This is a place where people go to create, maintain and strengthen personal relationships, gain a sense of place in their community and make new friends. It is an important part of a healthy society.

Your "first place" would be your home and family,  your "second place" would be your workplace, and your "third place" is any social setting you frequent aside from the first two. Ray Oldenburg is an influential sociologist who wrote about the importance of the third place as somewhere to build stronger communities and foster interaction. He describes the qualities that define the third place as:

1. Free or inexpensive
2. Food and drink, while not essential, are important
3. Highly accessible, proximate for many (walking distance)
4. Involve regulars, those who regularly congregate there
5. Welcoming and comfortable
6. Both new friends and old should be found there

According to Oldenburg, third places "host the regular, voluntary, informal and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work". In America, the third place used to play a major role in society. The local pub, bingo night, the coffee shop in the morning, church. There were plenty of places people would congregate outside the home and workplace to socialize and stay in touch. But ever since the radio wormed its way into the American living room, eventually giving way to the television, sitting around the house getting anesthetized by gadgetry has relegated the "third place" to the scrap heap of distant memory. There is still the occasional bowling league or neighborhood watering hole but, for the most part, people now come home from work every day and sit on their asses in front of the television with some microwaved food and do not a goddamned thing. Hell, most people I know don't even read books anymore. Sad, but true.

Now, what does that have to do with my trip to Ireland you're probably asking yourself. I'll tell you what it has to do with Ireland, my friends. The third place is alive, well and thriving there! It was a revelation to me, as were a lot of things Irish, how people would go out almost every evening after work, have a pint or two with their friends, visit and talk story for a couple of hours, listen to live music in the pubs and then go home, only to be back at "the local" the next night, the next night, and the night after that! Contrary to popular opinion there are not drunk Irish people staggering in the streets nightly. It's a very civilized social ritual that is practiced by most everyone I met there, at least in the city. I didn't spend much time out in the countryside, but I can't imagine it's a lot different there. You can't sit down within twenty feet of someone and get ignored. You WILL make friends there, they'll see to it. By my third day in Galway I was running into people out in the streets who knew my name and wanted to know if I was going to be out for a pint later. In Dublin I made the acquaintance of a bartender who gave me his email address and told me to let him know when I was coming back so he could take a couple of days off to show me around. It was amazing to me. Young and old alike, everyone was friendly. The third place is alive and well in Ireland, I'm happy to say, and it looks a lot like this...

Galway

Neactain's

Even though I can see the writing on this pub, I'm not sure what they are. Everyone calls it Neactain's, (pr. nock-tons). This is the "local" my friend Kevin frequents most often and where I met some of his friends, who are now my friends.

Danny Rosen

The most interesting man in the world does NOT drink Dos Equis. He drinks hot whiskey and some beer whose name eludes me at the moment. His name is Danny Rosen, born in New York, went to sea at the age of 19 on a commercial fishing boat and spent the next 14 years of his life in the Caribbean and Atlantic oceans, lived in Liverpool for a time, came ashore and bought a 4-acre farm in Ireland to raise his family in, now lives alone in Galway, sews all his own clothes, travels all over the world dancing the Tango, is maybe the best-read person I've ever met, can converse fluently in several languages on any topic you can think of, and makes a living selling donuts in the City Center on weekends. An amazing guy and a good friend to my friend Kevin. 'Nuff said.

L to R, Viv, don't know, don't know, Ina (sp?), Miriam Donohue

On my third night in Galway, Kevin couldn't keep up and decided to turn in early, so I went to a club called Roisin Dubh, (pr. ro-sheen dove) which means "Black Dove" in Irish, and yes, it's Irish, not Gaelic. I got corrected so you don't have to later. Anyway, I met these people there and they immediately took me under their collective wings and we had a great time drinking and talking the night away. The fact that I was an older graybeard didn't seem to matter. The gal on the right in this picture as it turns out is somewhat of a rising star on the Irish folk music scene and had been performing there earlier in the evening. I missed her set but I did buy a CD and it is excellent. At one point in the evening this large, inebriated fellow came bounding up to me expressing his admiration for my beard and insisted on getting a picture of himself with me (and my beard). It was a great night all the way around, I got invited to an after party at some dude named Nigel's house, which turned out to be a total dud and cabbed it home about 6:30 that morning. That was the first time in a lot of years I went out, and came home, with the sun above the horizon.

The guy in the middle is the one who found my beard 

so impressive. The guy on the left is some publicity hound

I guess.

I have heard and seen all the jokes about the Irish being a bunch of drunks, and I gotta tell you that based on what I saw, it just ain't true. One of the main reasons I don't spend much time in neighborhood bars in the city I live in is because I find most of the regulars to be a bunch of obnoxious drunks. In Ireland, not so much. I didn't see anyone who was too drunk to function, and you got the impression in the "locals" as they like to call them, that they come in to sip a couple of civilized pints and then head home at a reasonable hour. They come in after dinner and stay for an hour or so and head home. Now, I'm sure they have obnoxious drunks in Ireland too, don't get me wrong, but from what I've seen in my limited exposure to the pub scene in Ireland, the percentage of abusive drinkers amongst the patrons is higher here in the states than it is there. Just sayin'...

Dublin

I spent five nights and six days in Galway, and two nights and one day in Dublin, so my experience was much greater in Galway, but once you got inside the walls of a pub or eatery it was exactly the same, one place to the other.

Doyles in Dublin

I guess you're kind of getting a sense by now that I spent a lot of time in pubs. You'd be right. But in my defense, it was freakin' cold outside and what's a boy to do?

Doyles is a great example of an Irish pub located between Temple College and Temple Bar. I had a bowl of soup and a couple of hot whiskeys while I waited out the rain. Hot whiskey, you say? Oh, yeah, hot whiskey.

Hot whiskey. Who knew?

Hot whiskey was a wonder to me. Hot whiskey, lemon, clove and a pinch of sugar. On a cold, rainy day there is nothing better. I don't know if they serve them in the Irish pubs here, but I'm sure as hell gonna find out.

This is David, the bartender at Farrington's in Temple Bar, the party district in Dublin. He was kind enough to give me a tasting tour of Irish beers and make a few recommendations. He also offered to take a couple of days off and show me around the next time I'm in Ireland. An excellent bartender and a good man. I can't wait.










In Ireland, "third places" that meet all of Oldenburg's requirements are plentiful and easy to find. This is one place you would have to make a serious effort to not make new acquaintances. The people here are as warm as the weather is chilly, and you can always find somewhere to shake off the cold and make new friends. If you ever find yourself in Ireland, take a tip from me. Stay in one place long enough to wiggle into the folds and creases of the place and get to know it. Feel it, smell it, wear it. You'll be rewarded with pleasant memories and new friendships and burdened with a desire to never leave. Enjoy.