Alex Family Vacation 2018 Ireland

We return home today after a wonderful vacation in beautiful Ireland. We drove close to 1600 km (~ 1000 miles) all around the island ! We are fortunate to have experienced the exquisite beauty of the Irish landscape and the warmth and humor of the Irish people. We were booked on United to Newark via Washington DC. However, when we checked in, we were informed that we were re-routed via London. So, it was Dublin-London on Aer Lingus and London-Newark on United. We reached home at a reasonable time and the flights were actually comfortable ! I quickly read up on Irish history again from the guidebook -- it was fascinating and i could grasp and relate to it so much more after all the places we visited ! Beautiful Dublin from the aircraft. As the Irish say, we had a "savage craic" time in Ireland 😄😄😄 What we would change in our itinerary to have a better trip: Make it a 12 day trip :-) 1. On the day we land after a trans-atlantic flight, try to minimize driv

We only kept 1 day for exploring Dublin. Our first item for the day was a visit to the Kilmainham Goal.  This jail is particularly prominent in Irish history because many political prisoners of the Irish fight for independence have been jailed and even executed. This is the top rated attraction in Dublin. The cell in which Joseph Plunkett, a political prisoner, was held. After he was sentenced to death, he was allowed to marry his fiance Grace Gifford. On the day before his execution, the 2 were allowed to meet in the jail to get married, supervised by the guards. From interviews with Grace Gifford many years after the execution, it was later found that they didn't utter a word to each other during their last hours together. The location in the courtyard where political prisoners were executed by the British firing squad. 14 were executed here. A moving letter written by 17 year old James Fisher, another political prisoner, before he was executed. He

Headed for Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland.  This city on river Lagan had a thriving ship building industry and some of the big name ships from here are the Olympic, Britannic and Titanic. The city is under heavy construction with an intent to promote tourism.  So, we decided we will take a quick look around and come back another time when it's all ready! A fish statue, with each tile containing information on the history of the city. A science center for children: W5 stands for Who What Where When Why :-) A stadium for the Belfast professional hockey team: A foot bridge across river Lagan Tourists! Lost tourist :-) Fooling around !! This cafe where we ate had a cool name; food wasn't that great. Headed off south to Ireland. Once we entered Ireland, our portable WiFi started working again! So, it must be that it does not work outside Ireland. Our next visit was to Brú na Bóinne.  This was an amazi