The morning we left the Galway area, we decided to use the drive to explore a bit to the north. We drove up to an area called the Caves of Kesh. If you love caves (like I do), there are like 17 of them lining a hill. It’s not the type of thing that takes more than an hour, but it’s very cool.
It’s also very close to an called Carrick-on-Shannon, another one of the cutest little towns on Earth. We ate at a cute little cafe, visited a tiny chapel and bought cheese from a woman from Los Angeles. We also made a quick stop Killukin Cascade. This is a very small little stream with a small little ‘watefall’. The kids thought I was being ridiculous for making us stop, but I thought it was a pretty cool detour.
From there, we made it our way north of Dublin, about 30 minutes or so, to a place called Duleek where we checked into our AirBNB. This one was basically a B&B that we fully rented. It had a tennis court, indoor pool and like 11 bedrooms. There’s not a ton of inventory in Ireland that can sleep a dozen people, so we were lucky to find what we did.
On our first morning on the east side, we got up early and headed into Dublin. We parked at Q Park St. Stephens and made our way over to Grafton Street. Eileen and Alyson wanted to shop, and I wanted to see the Molly Malone statue. This area is really vibrant with lots to do.
We slowly walked from there to our planned tour of the Guinness Storehouse. On the way, we stopped at Trinity College, Dublin Castle and Harkin’s Pub for lunch. This meal wasn’t anything special, but it is right by the Guinness building.
This was my second time touring the Guinness facility, and it’s definitely something that shouldn’t be missed. It was probably a bit boring for the kids, but it feels like a must-do in Dublin. We decided not to make them do any whiskey tours; one alcohol-based excursion was enough.
We spent most of the rest of the that afternoon, just wandering around. We visited the Brazen Head (which also claims to be Ireland’s oldest pub), Temple Bar and a really cool spot called the Confession Box. It’s now a bar, but it used to be a spot where Catholic priests would secretly hear confessions during The Troubles.
We had dinner that night with the whole crew at a place called Beouf and Frites. It had only four menu options, two steak, two chicken, but it was a lot of fun. Since we had 12 people for this meal, we’d made reservations beforehand, but even with that, there weren’t a ton of options.
For our only other full day on the east coast, we drove south to another national park, the Whitlow Mountains. We hiked the Spinc and Gleanalo Valley Loop. This is a solid 6 mile hike, but it was clear, so the views were spectacular. Even though it was longer, I would say it was probably the least strenuous of our hikes. The views are great, we saw two mountain goats attacking each other, and the back half of the trail follows a mountain stream most the way. I still preferred the Upper Diamond Hill hike, but Alyson says this was her favorite trail.
On our way back, we stopped at a place called Squirrel Scramble where there is a ropes course with several zip lines. It’s not the greatest we’ve been to, but Clara was able to participate, and the kids needed a break.
The next morning, we left the Dublin area and head towards Belfast for just about 24 hours in Northern Ireland. I’ll touch base on that one final Ireland post. We really enjoyed our time on the west coast but given the choice, I’d much rather be in the Galway area.