Ireland for New Year’s

Off to Ireland to celebrate New Year’s Eve….  Ok, maybe it isn’t the Caribbean or the classic roaring fire apres-ski scenario.

  
But, it was time for our girls to see the place where my husband’s entire family came from and I had a lot of those small, portable umbrellas I needed to use.

Our trip was a little on the ambitious side.  Four nights and four days in Ireland.  Dublin for two days, a rental car to Horse & Jockey (more on that later) and then to Galway for New Year’s Eve.

Also on the agenda, a guided walking tour of Dublin, drinks with three separate groups of friends and braving the Cliffs of Moher in weather that almost blew us off the edge into oblivion!

  
Our first day in Dublin was sunny and gorgeous.  After a brief rest, we headed out on a tour with Kevin McDermott (walkingtoursdublin) for a few hours.  Meandered through Trinity College, Merrion Square and St. Stephen’s Green.  Past the sales on Grafton Street until we (me) ran out of gas in the medieval area of Dublin and just wanted to put our feet up.  That is, until we could drink our first Guinness….

    
A Guinness (or two) at The Stag’s Head pub and a delicious dinner at Pichet completed the day.

The next day in Dublin we went to two museums, perused the major sales in the shopping district, more touring of the city (still beautiful weather) and the mandatory trip to the Guinness Storehouse.

  
The Guinness tour was great.  The free Guinness at the end even better!  Are we drinking too much?

  
After the Guinness tour, we met some friends from NY at the historic Shelbourne Hotel for (more) drinks and finished the evening at Fade Street Social for dinner.  Dublin, check!

My husband’s family is originally from Ireland so he wanted to visit the birthplace of his grandfather.  The fact that it was nowhere near Galway and added almost three hours to our trip did not seem to be an issue.  For him.  Hmmmm.  We ended up seeing a lot of rural Ireland.  Thurles, Nenagh, Ballinasloe anyone?

Rain, rain, rain and lunch at the H&J Hotel ~ the heritage detour was complete.  It was time for Galway and champagne for New Year’s Eve.

  
Friends were also in Galway visiting their daughter on her junior year abroad, so we knew it was going to be fun night.

We checked into the hip and funky G Hotel, designed by Philip Treacy who is originally from County Galway.

  
An endless row of lounges were connected by a long hot pink carpet.  The girls were loving it.

We rang in the New Year at the gorgeous Meyrick Hotel on Galway’s Eyre Square.

Fortified with COFFEE the next morning, we made our way to the Cliffs of Moher on New Year’s Day.  Pouring rain.  40mph winds.  Fog. Happy New Year!

Water spout coming UP the cliff!

Ireland was a blast.  The best choice we could have made to ring in 2015!

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