Day Six – Dublin to Limerick

Lucky for us breakfast on the weekends was served until 10:30! A late breakfast, packing the bags, settle the bill (unlike America, bills are paid after you stay, not before), leave the bags in storage and arrange for a cab to the train station at 5:30. Out into the city one last time!

Originally, we had planned to stay until rather late in the day, but after indecision about what events to attend and discussions about the content of those events, coupled with my concerns about taking the late train (if you can't see the countryside, why take the train?), we had decided to end the day after the 3 PM session at The Ark, which is the children's venue. Bea wanted to attend that event because Rowan had seen the cover of the author's book and displayed some mild interest in it. Again, we decided to divide and conquer – Brian and I went to Starbuck's to post on the blog and Bea and Kim went back to Trinity to again try to view the Book of Kells. Brian and I were joined shortly by the girls because the line for the Book was even longer than it had been on previous days. We then spent the rest of the early afternoon wandering from shop to shop in Temple Bar, looking for our final souvenirs, and had lunch at The Quays, the same place we had been for the sing-along the night before. At 3, Kim and Bea went to The Ark to hear Derek Landry speak on his book, Skullduggery Pleasant, and Brian and I went wandering again.

We got to spend a little bit of time in ChristChurch Cathedral, looking through the various chapels and at the various tombs and memorials posted around the church. After we were run out of there for a service of some sort, I decided I needed to go back to a place of devotion I was more familiar with and drug Brian back to The PorterHouse. I felt the need to try the Oyster Stout, which is brewed with exactly what the name suggests. At the time, it didn't seem like anything more than a very pleasant, drinkable brew – the type that you can drink all day without the mouth getting tired of all the heavy malt. Upon reflection, I long for the flavor of that drink perhaps even more than the Wrasslers XXXX, which is saying a lot. The barkeep gave Brian quite a bit of friendly flak for his obvious fatigue while I got to sit back and do something I almost never do – sit in a bar on a Sunday afternoon and watch sport on TV. On this day I was introduced, finally, to the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) of which I had heard much. Immediately I understood the attraction – the purity of the game, the sheer athleticism of the participants, the brutality of the organized combat. That is a sport, as I sat there enjoying my beer, that I could really see myself enjoying, back in the days when I was as fit as my memory says I was. Oh well, back to American football.

Brian and I wandered back to find the girls after a bit. Once we found them, we had a pleasant interlude speaking with a great man who had been to almost every event that we had, who we finally learned goes by the name Ian Steppe. He was a delightful gentleman full of the wit and wisdom that years can give you, if you are open to learning from the years. His love of literature and writing put all of us to shame. He had attended this particular event because the writer had actually been a student of his some years back and, well, it's always good to see those you've had influence on succeed in their endeavors. After speaking with him for some time (and probably making him late for his next event), we parted ways and headed back to O'Neill's to pick up our luggage and catch our cab. After much confusion and games of musical cabs, we were on our way to the train station. We had a great cab driver who spent the short ride to the station telling us stories of his own upbringing in the Ireland before the Celtic Tiger and the modern world intruded on the idyllic landscape of his childhood. It was enlightening to hear stories of a man his age, the Irish Everyman, who had benefited from but still felt unfulfilled by the economic and cultural boom that has swept the island.

The train station was a train station – loud, chaotic, and apparently completely unencumbered by any of the timetables I had so carefully researched from the safety of this very couch I am sitting on now. Experience is always the better teacher. We found the ticket booth, bought tickets for a train that seemed to be going where we wanted, and found a queue that looked promising. The original intent had been to purchase Premier class upgrades, but once we saw the regular seats on the train, we decided (maybe not uniformly) that there wasn't any real reason. The countryside was much of what I expected, but I would honestly say Oklahoma is just as green, at least on our side of the state. Now, we don't have castles, rock walls, hedgerows, sheep, or pleasantly cool weather, but we are green. After what seemed to be a very short time, we arrived in Limerick, where we once again experienced what we have come to expect as normal from the Irish – they wait until absolutely the last moment to offer a bit of helpful advice. For example, the piece of advice that the last two cars of the train don't actually reach the platform, so if you have lots of luggage, perhaps you'd want to be closer to the front of the train.

A struggle down the platform, through the station, out onto the walk and, glory of glories, a line of taxis, first one of which is a van large enough to take us and our stuff. A quick ride and pleasant conversation with the young cab driver, who politely informed me that “Dublin is a s**thole” and that I was a “silly, silly boy” for not having spent the entire trip on the beautiful western coast in the Shannon region. This is one of the things I truly love about the Irish – sarcasm and hyperbole are truly national past times, as much or more than excessive drinking and GAA.

Checking in at the hotel was wonderful – modern, clean, brightly lit, exuberantly friendly, just the sort of things tired, entitled Americans want to experience at the end of a long day. Large beds, bathtubs, privacy – a wonderful moment. What could top it off, you ask? That evening, in the very posh pub, watching the highlights of the day's GAA matches, I completed my silent quest – The Holy Trinity of Irish Stout. The first thing to pass my lips on Irish soul was, of course, Guinness in our own O'Neill's. The next night, in an incredibly crowded pub also called O'Neill's, during the Literary Pub Crawl, I grabbed a place at the bar and found Murphy's. This night, across the isle in Limerick, I found Beamish, completing this stage in a journey that began 20 years ago in a hostel on Isla Mujeres, just off the coast of Cancun, where I uttered those fateful words, “I've heard dark beer is pretty good – do you have anything that's dark?”

The next day would be Monday, our last full day on Irish soil, and what a full day it would be.