Breakfast in Ireland  
Now, it does not seem, perhaps, that breakfast should be so important as to take up the header of a page. But in Ireland it should. This is how Colleen describes it....

A typical Irish breakfast at Lansdown Manor included baked tomatoes with cheese on them, mushrooms, both white and black pudding (which are actually sausages), eggs, toast done specially for you and served on a toast rack along with your main plate. Then you go to a table that has an assortment of both hard and soft cheeses, fruit salad, whole fruits and sectioned fruits in syrup, yoghurt, eight varieties of cereals, three or four varieties of juice, fruit salad, and coffee and tea. Varied and hearty.
Oh yes... if you preferred, you could get pancakes or an omlette instead of the first four items.
And you could still have all the rest.

I must mention the dining staff, both the cook and the person who brought us our breakfast. They were both such fine Irish people. Theirs was a friendliness that went just as far as a person wanted, not more... not less. If someone was just there for the breakfast and then out, that was fine. If someone wanted to talk about Ireland, or the weather, or the Isle of Wright in summer... that was fine too.
We liked them ever so much, as we did all the staff.

And now you'll need that breakfast.

Either you stay in the city center, a lively place with lots and lots of pubs, and you walk a lot. Or you stay in one of the neighborhoods, like Donnybrook just south, or Ballsbridge, southeast of that (which is where Landsdown Manor is) and you walk a lot. One reason is that cabs, although really nice when you find them, are sometimes and someplaces very hard to find. There are buses, and those are okay if you have time to wait, but DART and walking are, I think, the most reliable means of transportation in this city in transition.

So that means you need a Dublin Explorer pass, purchased either at the O'Connell St. station, or the main station at Pearse St. You can buy one-at-a-time tickets at any station, but that is both time consuming and more expensive, and sometimes the ticket people may or may not be at their booths at the smaller stations. And Lord help you if you are riding without a valid ticket. A conductor checking on ticketholders is rare, but very serious when it happens. Much of the time you must also show your ticket to get out of a station, although that is hit-and-miss also.

Get off at Tara St. station.
Walk out of the station, turn left, and suddenly, you're in the heart of Dublin, walking along the River Liffey.

It is indescribable what a person of Irish ancestory feels, walking along the River Liffey, walking to O'Connell St. Bridge, being on O'Connell Street. It must be the same for people of Italian ancestory in Rome, for Germans in Bavaria, the English in London or Manchester or Liverpool, Brazillian in Buenos Ares. There is a sense of belonging that you never knew existed. It is as though a part of you has always been there. It is indescribable, but it can be very strong.

The panorama above was taken from the streetcorner of the O'Connell Street Bridge, looking at the northwest corner of Lower O'Connell Street. There is a great deal of history on this half-mile portion of this center of Old Dublin. Up just a couple of blocks from the corner is the General Post Office,
where the Irish Republic was declared.

As Colleen wrote, Though I'd expected to feel perhaps a little something, nothing could prepare me for the tug at my heart when I first saw O'Connell's statue and the Post Office whose historic steps once held the speakers of Irish freedom and liberty. It was as moving as the Lincoln Memorial.
It was also wonderful but strange to feel so at home in a place I'd never been before."

The G.P.O on O'Connell Street
Originally named Drogheda St.,then Sackville St., it is now named after Dan O'Connell, a great Irish figure from around the time the GPO was built in 1814, facing a column in tribute to the great English admrial Nelson.
The Nelson Column is no longer on O'Connell Street.

Easter Monday, 1916, the Proclamation of the Irish
Republic was issued on the steps of the GPO by P.H. Pearse and others. On Tuesday, English gunboats ran the Liffey and shelled the great buildings of O'Connell Street and their inhabitants. On Friday, a tremendous bombardment set the center of Dublin on fire. On Saturday, Pearse surrendered to overwhelming forces. In January 1919, after Ireland assisted England at the end of WW1, the Irish Republic was proclaimed once again. This time the struggle bore fruit, with eventual acceptance by the British Commonwealth. Three years later, all of Ireland, except the six northern counties centered around Belfast, accepted dominion status equal to Canada's.

In the GPO of the 21st Century, a painting, a plaque
and a statue (Cúchulainn by Oliver Shepherd) inside the building are reminders of Irish history in the making.
The steps have been truncated during rebuilding,
but you can imagine Pearse right there, where you're standing, in his moment of glory.

As you can see in the photo below, Colleen is inside the GPO at one of the windows buying stamps, getting ready to mail some packages stuffed with presents we bought across the street at the famous Clery's Store. There is everything you could think of in this great department store, and we spent several hours looking for just the right pendant, or pennywhistle, or treats for our friends and relations.

Clery's Store  
A Dublin institution for generations.
Not only do the Irish do much of their shopping
in this huge department store, meeting under the clock has been a tradition for mutually enamoured couples. The original building was mostly destroyed in the 1916 Easter Rising. The present building is based on Selfridge's Store in London, although the original staircase was preserved and still offers elegant passage between the ground floor
and first floor. And that's a hint. In Ireland, England
and most of the Continent, the floor where you enter a building is, of course, the ground floor. The next floor up is, of course, the First of the rest of the floors. Hummmmmm....

This window full of dinnerware was what first caught our eye at Clery's. It seemed, well, nice. Not too expensive or pretentious. We had no idea about it's history or incredible depth of products. We just stumbled into it and let our mouths drop open
like kids at Christmas.
We bought literally all our Irish trip presents here.

And that freed up a great deal of time for us to
take a trip to the heart of the Irish countryside,
and go to the horseraces at Leopardstown.
If you'd like to go along with us
and see what there is to see,
Click here.

Or if you would like to do a little Irish shopping now, you can visit the store called Irish Nation that you can find at 5 Temple View Way, Dublin 13, Ireland, or right here on the net. Click Here for Family Crest Gifts, Claddagh Jewellery and much more.

Or click on one of the buttons at the bottom of the page to select another country.

If you can afford to go to Europe now, please don't wait. The individual countries are changing rapidly, and some of the fun is changing with it. The world is getting to be all the same. My feeling is that I want to experience the cultural differences that are still there, before it goes away. So I'm hoping to go back to Europe again, soon, with my wife, so we can live and experience the exciting differences once more.
I hope you enjoy your trip tremendously. Pat.

Visit our Europe Travel webstore featuring Love To Travel gear for your Ireland vacation,
and while you are on the net, check out these other fine Europe websites
Euro-Rail.org    Eurostar-TGV.com    Europe-Train.org    AirfaresToEurope.com   
TravelEurope.biz    VacationInEurope.com   

© 2001 - 2008 Hawaii Advertising. All rights reserved.

If you would like a website created for you, please contact our web designer at
HawaiiAdvertising.com for free information.