Dublin, Ireland (2022) - Travelogue

Sunday, May 8, 2022

We arrived in Dublin at 7pm and went straight to the hotel, where we had plans to meet up with Josh’s close friend Shreya from graduate school, her husband Ben, and their 14-month-old baby Milo. They are English and, because of the baby and Covid, they unfortunately were unable to travel to the U.S. for our wedding, so this was our first time seeing them in many years. They were waiting in our hotel lobby when we arrived! We checked in and dropped our bags in our room, then came back down to the lobby where they had two pints of a local Irish beer waiting for us (not Guinness, though made by Guinness, as we soon learned nearly everything is).

Our hotel was the Hyatt Centric in the “Liberties” neighborhood of Dublin, a famous and historic neighborhood known for its distilling and brewing (including a small brewery called…you guessed it…Guinness). More on that later.

After a great time catching up over drinks, the five of us walked into the nearby Camden neighborhood for dinner. It turned out that nearly everything was closed at 8:30pm on a Sunday (pubs were open but had stopped food service), but we found a very nice Chinese restaurant that was absolutely delicious. We all shared vegetable spring rolls, vegetable fried rice, a chili pepper fried tofu (that was the best dish of the night), as well as general tsao’s and sweet and sour chickens. They also brought out little rice puffs that tasted like air — Milo ate two full ones and Alice ate about 30.

We were the last ones to leave the restaurant when it closed around 9:30pm, and we headed back to Shreya and Ben’s hotel so they could put Milo to sleep. We continued hanging out for a little while in their lobby and then called it a night, knowing we had a full day ahead!

Monday, May 9

We woke up around 8am and picked up coffee on the way to Shreya and Ben’s hotel. Then, the five of us got breakfast at Bestseller’s Cafe, an adorable book-themed restaurant with paintings of Ireland’s famous authors throughout (Joyce, Yeats, Heaney, etc). Josh had an avocado toast and a blueberry custard tart, and Alice had a vegetarian English breakfast, complete with eggs, tomatoes, avocados, baked beans, and sourdough. Shreya had a breakfast sandwich and Ben had a regular Irish breakfast (though even he, a Brit, left the blood pudding untouched). Milo had a scone.

After breakfast, we walked over to St. Stephen’s Green, a nearby park where we were meeting our guide for a Dublin history walking tour. Our tour guide was a lifelong Dubliner full of great stories, and it was a fantastic tour. We learned all about the city’s fascinating history, from the time Vikings ruled in the 10th Century and built the first walled city in Europe, to the Anglo-Norman invasion of the late 12th Century, through the Easter Rising and War for Independence of the 20th Century (fittingly, our first date six years ago was a play about the Easter Rising). In 1169, Ireland was divided into four territories. Dermot MacMurrough, a Catholic, ruled the largest territory, which included Dublin. When the three other leaders started encroaching on his territory, MacMurrough sought the help of King Henry II (also Catholic) to defend his land. King Henry II sent over an army led by a warrior known as Strongbow. They succeeded, and one year later, Strongbow married MacMurrough’s daughter. One year after that, MacMurrough died, and now Strongbow (who, by this time, had learned to speak Gaelic and was fully accepted by the Irish) was next in line to be king. Henry II wasn’t happy about his subordinate becoming a king, and so he sent more troops to conquer Ireland, beginning 800 years of English rule over Ireland, which is still a sore subject for every Irish person we met. (It was extra fun doing this tour with Ben, who looked away every time the guide talked about another way the British had wronged them.)

One of our favorite modern stories involved a beautiful building called the Clarence Hotel. In the late 1970’s, a local band called “The Hype” had just signed a record contract and went to the fancy restaurant in the Clarence to celebrate. They were told they would not be seated as they “were not the type of clientele that the Clarence caters to.” Outraged, one man in the band told the owner that, one day, he would become a famous musician and not only would he come back for dinner, but he would buy the hotel. That band became U2, that man was Bono, and in 1999 he bought the hotel.

Our tour concluded in the Dublin Castle courtyard, and we received a long list of food, drink, and music recommendations from our guide. Our next stop was one of those recommendations – a hole-in-the-wall cafe called Chorus Cafe where Josh and Alice shared a pot of Irish breakfast tea, some fries (“chips”), and a piece of apple cinnamon cake. Ben and Shreya had coffees, and Milo had a “babyccino” (warm oat milk).

Our next stop for the day was the Dublin Museum of Archeology, a remarkable free museum with artifacts dating back 5,000 years. We enjoyed an appropriately-named longboat from 2,500 BC (see photo below). The museum also houses four “bog bodies” – perfectly preserved bodies dating back to around 400 BC. This was both the coolest and the creepiest museum exhibit of our trip. In 400 BC, Ireland was divided into tribal lands, and the installation of a new chieftain often involved human sacrifices. These four people were likely killed for those sacrifices, but because they were dumped into bogs, their bodies never decomposed – their skin, hair, and even their clothing remains intact, giving us a lot of information about how they lived and died. Scientists were even able to examine the contents of their stomachs and find out what they ate for their last meal, which provides information as to what time of year they likely died. (Interestingly, most had cereal before they died, probably because it’s grrrrrrrrrreat!)

After the museum, we walked around a bit and got an early dinner at Bailey’s Cafe. We shared a plate of nachos and some halloumi fries, in addition to trying another local beer and cider (the full list of beers we tried and our reviews of each is at the bottom of this travelogue). We then walked across the river to The Cobblestone, a pub with live music recommended by our guide, for yet another local beer (Alice had the “Gallway Hooker.”) After an hour here, Shreya and Ben got an Uber to the airport, and we headed back to our hotel for the night.

Tuesday, May 10

Tuesday was our one day trip from Dublin — to a small fishing town called Howth (pronounced “Hote”). We got up around 8:30am, got coffee, and boarded the train. Half an hour later, we arrived in Howth! We had some time before our 11am walking tour, so we explored the pier and stopped for a snack at a food truck, where Alice had an open-faced vegetable sandwich on sourdough with balsamic dressing, and Josh had a cheese toastie.

We met up with our tour guide John at 11am, and he let us know that, while we were his only paid guests that day, he had recently begun offering his tour for free to Ukrainian refugees (of whom there are many in Dublin), and that ten Ukrainians would be joining the day’s tour. A few minutes later, that group showed up carrying a big Ukrainian flag! A few of them spoke English, and the group’s leader translated for those who didn’t. Having this group on our tour made for a really interesting and powerful experience, and for them it was a welcome distraction.

What was meant to be a 3-hour tour lasted over 4 hours, including over 5 miles of hiking the entire length of the peninsula! We learned a lot about the role of Howth in Irish history, serving as a port of entry for everything from weapons for the War of Independence to dignitaries (including King George IV, who, the story goes, got off the boat drunk and was immediately accepted by the Irish people). We walked up front with John and asked a lot of questions to solidify our understanding of the timeline of Ireland’s history, and we got to see some incredible views along the way of both forest and ocean. A definite highlight was seeing the Dolmen (passage tomb) at Howth that was 5,000 years old and a burial place for the queens and goddesses (high priestesses) of that old Irish civilization. Alice was very happy to find evidence of a matriarchal society and a dog in the same place (see photo below)!

We also got gorgeous views of Ireland’s Eye - a small, green island off the coast of Howth that was the site of an early monastery and a key launching site for Christianity in Ireland. It had been forecasted to rain, but the weather held off and John said it was one of the nicest days in months!

The tour ended with a delicious vegetable soup from a local pub, and then we boarded the train back toward Dublin (after a quick stop in a local store, where Alice bought a beautiful handwoven Irish scarf).

Back in Dublin, we started our evening at the Dame Tavern, which our guide from the first day told us pours the best pint of Guinness in Dublin. And it did not disappoint! It was our first Guinness of the trip and as smooth as they come, and the bartender expertly poured it from the tap. (We would later learn that the biggest factor impacting a Guinness’ taste is how it is poured, with a precise six-step process. More on that later.)

Next, we got dinner at the Brazen Head — the oldest pub in all of Ireland — which we had stumbled across the previous night and made a note to come back. Alice has a vegetarian shepherd’s pie and Josh had fish and chips. Josh paired his meal with another Guinness, and Alice ordered a Kilkenny which proved to be one of our new favorite beers (and, we later learned, is also owned by Guinness).

Having finished dinner, it was time for the musical portion of the evening! We headed over to a pub called Darkey Kelley’s (also recommended by that first tour guide) for their weekly singer-songwriter night, where we had some beer and listened to four different Irish musicians each perform three original songs.

After a little over an hour here, we decided to head back to the Brazen Head, which has live Irish folk music every night beginning at 9pm. We arrived right at 9pm and got one of the few tables in the room — it was a small room and the doors were actually closed shortly after 9pm. Here, we heard a phenomenal 4-piece band (including a traditional Irish fiddler!) perform for the next hour-and-a-half, and then we turned in for the night.

Wednesday, May 11

Wednesday morning began just a few minutes from the hotel at the Chester Beatty Library — a collection of books and manuscripts as far back as ancient Egypt. Alice got an early start there and Josh met her there a little while later.

After a quick walk through the collections, we walked around town a bit before stopping for lunch at a Greek restaurant. Josh had a chicken wrap and Alice had a vegetable wrap with grilled halloumi cheese, and we shared a trio of dips (hummus, whipped feta, and tzatziki) as well as some feta oregano fries. It was a delicious meal in a very cute restaurant.

After lunch, we walked over to St. Patrick’s park, where we read our books and soaked in the rare Irish sunshine for a little while before our 3pm distillery tour. Originally, our plans for the day included a 3pm tour of the Teeling Distillery and a 7:30pm whisky tasting experience at a local pub, but while reading our books we got an email that the tasting experience was cancelled as the guide was sick. Instead, we booked a second distillery tour for 5pm at the Pearse Lyons distillery — a small operation in an old church right next to some small brewery called Guinness.

At the Teeling Distillery, we learned a lot about the history of Irish whiskey. In the early 19th century, whiskey was a dominant business in Dublin, with several distilleries all operating in the Liberties neighborhood, in an area that became known as the “Golden Triangle.” However, in the early 20th century, the Irish whiskey industry hit a rapid decline, for several reasons: (1) prohibition in the U.S.; (2) the trade implications, particularly with England, of the Irish War for Independence, and (3) the growing global influence of Scottish whiskey (“scotch” as we call it in the U.S.). By the mid 1970’s, the last Dublin distillery closed its doors, and there was no whiskey produced in Dublin for 50 years (though several Irish distilleries continued operations elsewhere on the island).

That came to an end in 2015, when Jack Teeling opened the first new Dublin distillery for 125 years. Today, Irish whiskey is the second fastest-growing liquor in the world (after only Mexican tequila), while Scottish whiskey has been in a multi-year decline. We walked through the distillery, learned about how whiskey is made and the ways in which different grains and aging processes influence flavor, and then did a tasting that included two whiskeys and a whiskey-based cocktail.

For those interested: whiskey distillation starts off with a process very similar to brewing beer. First, the grain of choice (commonly barley in Ireland, but this can also be corn if making bourbon or other grains) is harvested. This grain is then “malted” by adding water and allowing the grains to sprout. For single malt whiskey, all the grain is malted. For pot still whiskeys, they use a blend of malted and unmalted barley. Next, this grain is dried with low heat. In Ireland, this is a closed heat source and doesn’t affect the flavor. In “peated” whiskeys, this drying is done over a peat fire and gives the grains a smoky flavor.

The dried barley is then ground up into a coarse flour using a mill - this substance is called grist and resembles dry oatmeal. The grist is then steeped in warm water (much like oatmeal) to create a porridge. The starches of the grain are dissolved and transform into fermentable sugars through this porridge-making process, and then the sugary liquid is separated off. This is called “wort” and will be the liquid foundation of either whiskey or beer (the steps are almost identical up to this point), while the leftover grain is called “draff” and is shipped out to farms across Ireland to be used as animal feed. Apparently, cows love the stuff!

Next, it’s time to make alcohol. Special yeast (each brewery or distillery has its own strains and blends of yeast, and this is in part responsible for differences in taste) are added to the wort, and the mixture ferments for several days. During this time, the yeast eat the grain sugars and produce a mixture of alcohol and carbon dioxide. By the time this fermentation is done, the “wash” has 8-12% alcohol-by-volume (ABV). Now, it’s time to distill that alcohol off and make whiskey.

“Pot stills” are the vessels where the wash is heated - alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, so it evaporates off and rises through the pot stills’ shafts before re-condensing in much more concentrated form. Irish whiskey can be double- or triple-distilled, and each subsequent distillation creates a higher alcohol content and smoother taste. At Teeling, they triple-distill (much like the triple sec we learned about in France!) and they use traditional copper pot stills.

At this point, the distilled liquid is clear since it is made of condensed vapor. The clear, high-proof alcohol distillation is watered down as needed to reach the target percentage of ABV (around 60-70% for typical whiskey when it’s placed in barrels), and placed in casks (we learned that a barrel is the name for a particular size of cask, but cask is the generic term). Over 60% of the whiskey’s final flavor comes from the maturation process in the barrel, and this is also where it acquires the distinctive amber hue we associate with whiskey. To be legal Irish whiskey, this liquor must mature in the barrel for a minimum of 3 years. Each year, the expansion and contraction of the barrel’s wood panels with temperature changes causes the alcohol to soak into the wood and then be expelled. This is where the whiskey picks up its flavors and the color — both the flavors of the oak itself and the residual flavors of the barrel’s previous resident. Much of the nuance of whiskey flavor comes from aging it in barrels that were first used for bourbon, sherry, Cabernet Sauvignon, or other beverages. These impart characteristic fruity or sweet flavors to different batches and types of whiskey.

Each year of maturation, the whiskey contracts by 2-3% due to evaporation. Therefore, the longer a whiskey is aged, the smaller the final volume (and therefore the more rare it is and the higher its price). We tasted whiskeys aged for 3-12 years across our two distillery tours and noticed the differences in colors and flavor profiles.

Next, we walked over to Pearse Lyons for our second tour and tasting, which began with an introductory video featuring Mr. Lyons. This distillery opened in 2017, and Pearse Lyons died just a few months later in early 2018.

Pearse and his wife are Irish but spent most of their lives in Kentucky, where they owned and operated a successful whiskey distillery. In 2012, they bought the dilapidated St. James Church in the heart of the Liberties with the aim of restoring it — a passion project never intended to be profitable. They decided to outfit the church with equipment to turn it into a functional distillery, and just a few years after opening, they are a profitable and widely distributed enterprise. We toured the cemetery in which over 100,000 prominent Dubliners are buried (including several early Guinness executives, as well as several of Pearse Lyons’ ancestors), and then we entered the church for a tour and tasting. We learned that Pearse Lyons imports all their barrels from their sister distillery in Kentucky, meaning all of their whiskey is distilled in bourbon barrels, giving it a slightly sweeter taste. The U.S., unlike Ireland, does not allow for whiskey barrels to be used more than once, creating an enormous surplus of used barrels that are then shipped abroad to be reused. We tasted three whiskeys as well as the famous Pearse Lyons gin, all of which we very much enjoyed. We also learned about the flavor differences between a single malt (the “single” refers to the whiskey being made at only one distillery and doesn’t tell you about the grains or process, while the malt part means it’s made from 100% malted barley) and a blend (these barrels are blended between different distillation styles to achieve a balance between the character of a single malt and the smoothness of other varieties), and we were able to smell and taste the different notes in each.

Having had sufficient whiskey for the day, we decided it was probably time for some food (after another pint of Guinness at the Dame Tavern, of course, which we sipped while watching the premier league match between Man City and the Wolves and feeling very Irish). We headed back to Darkey Kelley’s for dinner with some more live music – Josh had another fish and chips, and Alice had a veggie burger (also with chips) and a blood orange cider. We stayed for a while and enjoyed the music, and then we walked through the neighborhood and popped into another pub with live music, where we listened to a fantastic musician finish his set (playing mostly covers of popular songs, which Alice enjoyed singing along to). We went back to the hotel around 10pm and went to bed.

Thursday, May 12

Thursday began with a cup of coffee and then a two-hour private walking tour on Irish women’s history. Our guide Giulia was an Italian immigrant who has lived in Dublin for ten years and was very well-versed in Irish history. We started at Dublin Castle, where she refreshed us on the founding of Dubhlinn (“the black swamp”, anglicized to “Dublin”) and showed us a memorial to a female journalist who was responsible for gathering contacts and information that led to the takedown of the Dublin drug gangs at the end of the 20th century. Sadly, she was murdered in her car on a major street in Dublin in broad daylight in 1996.

At Dublin Castle, we also learned about the Irish suffragist movement, early female elected representatives during and after the Irish revolution, and the connections between the woman suffrage and workers’ rights movements in Ireland. Next we walked through several key locations in the Temple Bar area (learning that the area got its name from the pub, and not the other way around!), saw the Bank of Ireland which is the old Irish parliament building, and heard about the founding of Trinity College by Queen Elizabeth in 1592. Despite being founded by a woman, it would not admit women until 1904 when the provost said he would admit women “over [his] dead body” and then died a month before the first female students matriculated. We also learned that the first woman admitted to Trinity College in 1904 did not complete her degree, instead falling in love with an older student and moving to England with him when he graduated, abandoning her own studies. This made Alice furious.

We then crossed the River Liffey via the Rosie Hackett Bridge, learning about Rosie’s pivotal role in expanding workers’ rights in Ireland. Then we marched along key meeting spots of the Irish rebels from the Easter Rising of 1916 through the end of the Irish Revolution in 1921. We finished the tour at the general post office that was the site of the first reading of the Irish Proclamation in 1916 by Padraig Pearse (a man) and saw a copy of the famous photo of Pearse accepting the peace treaty after the Rising. Giulia showed us the extra pair of boots and legs behind Pearse in the photo - this is the woman who stood with him to accept the treaty but who was edited out of the photo by the British papers that published it! A fascinating (and frustrating) fact to end a great tour.

The tour ended on the north side of the river, and we happened to walk toward our next stop past an outpost for “The Rolling Donut” – a sourdough donut shop that Alice had read about and wanted to try. We each got a mini cinnamon sugar donut that was fresh out of the fryer and very tasty. Having walked all morning and then eaten donuts, we decided it was probably time for some real food and so we headed toward an Indian restaurant we had passed the previous night that looked good (and, as Alice pointed out, we can’t be in the British aisles without having Indian food at least once!). We each had a vegetable samosa, and then Alice had the vegetable korma and Josh had the chicken tikka masala, both with naan and rice and both delicious.

After lunch we had a 3:30pm reservation for a tour of the Guinness Storehouse (the factory where Guinness is made). We got there a bit early and each got a half pint at a local pub (neither of us got a Guinness, but both of us got beers that, it turns out, are owned by Guinness, because of course they are). At 3:30pm we entered the Storehouse and began the tour of a beautiful, modern, well-interpreted 7-story museum, the top of which houses a 360-degree glass bar with a full view of Dublin (and our tickets included a free pint of Guinness each from that bar).

The first thing you see when you enter the museum is the lease signed by Arthur Guinness in 1759 – a 9,000-year lease at a rate of 45 pounds a year (a good sum of money back then, but clearly a lot of foresight on his part). Of course the property has expanded dramatically since then (in fact, Guinness now owns most of the land in all directions around the brewery), but the company still pays just 45 pounds a year (or rather, its equivalent in euros) for that original property.

The first floor of the museum features large-scale models of the barley fields, hop stalks, and stream water (including a full indoor waterfall) used to make Guinness, along with plaques and videos describing the process. At this one brewery, Guinness uses ⅔ of all the barley grown on the entire island (including both Ireland and Northern Ireland), or about 100,000 tons of barley a year! We also saw a model of the safe where a secret stash of Guinness yeast (the same strain started by Arthur Guinness himself) is kept on reserve.

As the tour went on, we learned about the history of the company, the unique roasting process they use, and the innovation in nitrogenation they invented that creates the signature foamy head of a Guinness (this was a technique invented in the 1950s by a Guinness scientist on a mission to make their stout compatible with draught pours, and the nitrogenation technique creates 30 million bubbles in every pint of Guinness). All barley used in Guinness is roasted to exactly 232 degrees Celsius (449.6 degrees Fahrenheit), which brings out the coffee and chocolate aromas. We also learned that dark beer (with roasted barley) first became popular in the Covent Garden area of London in the mid-18th Century (soon before Guinness was founded), and it was particularly popular among the porters who would transport goods through the square and stop into pubs along the way. That’s the origin of the term “porter” for a dark beer! And soon after, those same London pubs started developing heartier, “stouter” porters, which became known as stouts! We also learned that many porters in the U.S. are roasted at higher temperature, resulting in the more bitter flavors often associated with dark beers, whereas stopping at 232 degrees Celsius allows the coffee and chocolate aromas to surface without too much bitterness.

We also got to see the original harp after which the Guinness logo is modeled. The harp is a traditional symbol of Ireland – it is through music that oral tradition was passed down for generations, and when Oliver Cromwell came to Ireland in the mid-1600’s, one of the first things he did was order that all the harps be burned. It turns out, in 1922, when the Irish Free State Government was choosing the national symbol for Ireland, they had to use a mirror-image of the Guinness harp in order to avoid trademark issues (that mirror-image is still the national symbol today).

About halfway through the tour, we came across the very well-designed tasting room – a small room in which the signature scents of Guinness – chocolate, coffee, caramel, toffee, etc. – are pumped into the room, resulting in a really interesting, aromatically-stimulating room. In this room, surrounded by these smells, we each had a taste of Guinness guided by an expert who talked us through the ways in which the different flavors interact with one another in smell and taste. (We actually got to have an extra, adorable mini-pint for correctly answering their trivia question: What is the color of a Guinness? The answer is dark ruby red! And this is the smile of someone who loves getting answers correct. 10 points to Gryffindor!)

We continued working our way through the next museum exhibit, which was all about marketing. In many ways, Guinness was ahead of the curve in modern marketing. In fact, the first Guinness commercial aired on television in the 1950’s on the very first night – during the very first program – in commercial television in the U.K. And a few years later, Guinness aired a commercial featuring women drinking in a pub and reflecting on their difficult days at work as laborers and construction workers – flipping traditional gender norms. Guinness also won the “ad of the millennium” award in the late 90’s for an ad called “surfer” – a 60-second ad in which a lifelong surfer watches as the perfect wave approaches, with the tagline “good things come to those who wait.”

Finally, we arrived at the top and enjoyed our pints of Guinness with an incredible view, and the bartender at the top talked us through the six steps to pouring a perfect Guinness: (1) get a good, clean glass with no impurities or residues; (2) pull the tap all the way down and hold the glass pointed away from you at a 45-degree angle, gradually moving the glass upright as you pour; (3) when you get to the top of the harp on the glass (about ⅔ of the way up), stop the tap and put the glass aside; (4) let it sit for exactly 2 minutes; (5) hold the glass upright under the tap and gently push the tap away from you to slowly fill the remainder of the glass until the head is just above the top of the glass; (6) serve. Over the course of the week, we tasted several Guinnesses and found that some were smoother and some were more bitter – it turns out this is entirely dictated by the pour!

After a very necessary stop at the impressive gift shop, we headed out for our next stop – another Guinness adventure! In addition to the Storehouse, Guinness runs a hip new restaurant and bar called the “Open Gate Brewery” in which they serve burgers and new, experimental beers. When we were seated, they brought us out a free sample of a nice tropical IPA. We then split onion rings and a veggie burger, along with a nitro coffee stout for Josh and a Belgian wheat beer for Alice – two of the tastiest beers we’d had! Both were flavorful but had the signature foamy head and velvety finish of a Guinness. We took our time here and enjoyed the meal and drinks tremendously.

By the time we left, it was starting to get dark and pouring rain – shockingly, the first real rain of our entire trip! Fortunately we had nothing else planned for the evening, so we headed back to the hotel, with a stop along the way to pick up a can of Kilkenny – an Irish red cream ale and one of our new favorite beers – to toast the end of our incredible honeymoon back at the hotel.

Friday, May 13

Today we woke up, packed our bags, checked out of our hotel, and walked around the Trinity College campus. On the way, we stopped briefly into The Rolling Donut for a final treat. There, we split a delicious donut called “The Dub” (which is just a Boston Cream donut and helped get us ready to head home).

After stopping in a few stores and walking through Trinity College, we headed back to our favorite lunch spot, Mykonos, for another lunch of greek pita wraps (chicken for Josh and halloumi cheese for Alice) with tzatziki. Then we walked back to the hotel, picked up our bags, and took a taxi to the airport where we are currently awaiting takeoff! (Sadly after the mean security agents took some adorable jars of Combier jam and marmalade we had bought as gifts in France - which was very unfair since they had no problem on the flight from Paris to Dublin!)

Total Dublin Pint Tally: 22.5

Total Dublin Pints Per Person-Day: 2.25

Beers Tasted (in approximate order of preference):