My folks were due to come to Birmingham on a weekend and I was casually browsing the airlines as I do when I am bored. I saw that Dublin return flights were cheap as chips from Birmingham weekend so we booked up.
It was my 3rd time to Dublin and each time the accommodation gets more expensive, still, my folks hadn’t been before so it was going to be a good weekend.
We arrived Friday evening and headed straight to the hotel on Parnell Square, it was a quick turnaround then a mini pub crawl down from O’Connell street to Temple Bar.
We started off in some cool little backstreet pub but eventually made it to the delights of Temple Bar. I remember loving Caley’s cider the first time I visited Dublin but they didn’t have it this time so I was on the Orchard Thieves. My Dad was living the Dublin dream on the Guinness all weekend.
Absolutely love how in Dublin every bar has live music, so sampled a load of that en-route to Temple Bar but ended up in my favourite bar in the world… Oliver St John Gogarty’s on Temple Bar. I remember the first time I went to Dublin it was rocking in here in the early afternoon and it didn’t disappoint in the evening either. The atmosphere is great, the pub is great and the live music was class. I know people say it’s more expensive on Temple Bar, but who cares when you have a pub as mega as this?
First night was a great success and the nerves kicked in for tomorrow, the opening day of the Premier League season. I had got us 48 hour passes on the hop on hop off bus thing for us to get about on the weekend so we could go and see some of the sights.
We went around Dublin but didn’t go into any of the main sights like Guinness Factory or Jamesons etc (I’d been before and we’re not that arsed about museums anyway). We did want to go into the Gaol though but found out it was reservations only so we were a bit gutted there. Phoenix Park was immense though and I never realised it was bigger than Central Park, NYC.
In the night we hit the town hard and had an epic night with some great music, atmosphere in the bars etc one again. Most of this trip revolved around alcohol 🙂 I was buzzing though as I put a sneaky bet in Paddy Power for three draws and it was a brutal 10 minutes watching Norwich and Sheff Weds play out the draw. So it was a nice 200 odd euros winnings to pay for my trip to Stuttgart next week.
On the Sunday, we ustilised the hop on hop off again and did the whole loop. It was time for The Arsenal and we watched it at the HQ of The Arsenal Dublin supporters club, The Mercentile Hotel. I think the less said about the game, the better and it was hard to muster any motivation to do anything in the evening. Still, eventually, we dragged ourselves out and headed to a couple of the bars (not on Temple Bar) that we liked from the night before. Live music again and lots of alcohol was consumed. We ended up in this pub on the corner by the river which had great Irish live music but then a DJ rocking out the 80’s tunes all night, so was a great night with great music.
On the Monday, we did not do a great deal apart from chill out, then it was to the airport and back home.
A great weekend with the folks, lots of alcohol and chilling out and not a lot of culture. The flight was great home and as my folks headed home in the car, I got the 3 minute train to New St.
Roll on Leicester away next week and Karlsruhe the week after!
