Ireland 2023: Day 6

Reluctantly, we had to head back to Dublin. We were a bit torn about whether to go straight back and visit our beloved Archaeology Museum with its fabulous stone head and fabulous bog pants, but in the end it seemed more fun to look for adventures along the way. We decided to drive the coast road the whole way to Kinvarra. This added time but was stunning, with the Burren Hills meeting the rocky coast. We had targeted the farmers market in Ardrahan, but it turned out to be underwhelming—most of the produce was clearly not local. We stopped at a fiber crafting store that was quite fun. A woman from North Carolina had started it after moving to the summer cottage in Ireland with her husband some years ago. She wanted to support local crafters. She was working on a scheme to sell crafts from Ukrainian refugees. We all bought hats with a sheep design. 

A little further on we stopped at the castle in Athenry—home of the famous Fields of Athenry from the song. I was a little ambivalent on taking a tour but it turned out to be fascinating. It’s a mid-13th century Norman castle with great long slits for windows so you can rain arrows down on your enemies. It’s been fully restored so you can ramble around inside and look at the roof overhead and imagine yourself on duty here, a Norman soldier, perhaps an “Irish-ized” one who had adopted the local culture, as the Normans tended to do. Athenry Castle stood until 1597, when it and the town were so comprehensively sacked by “Red Hugh” O’Donnell in an uprising against the English that neither recovered for centuries. Only in the late 1900s, due in part to the popularity of the song, has the town made a comeback. 

After Athenry we got on the freeway and drove all the way to Dublin. We refilled the tank and got the car back to the rental place with exactly zero extra trips around the airport ring road. Then we splurged on a cab to the glorious Merrion, where we had a now-traditional last night dinner of the “23”—soup and sandwiches—and some drinks. I had my now-traditional cocktail of stout, whiskey and egg white, which sounds disgusting but tastes delicious—Merrion magic!

Beth put in a request for an early call, because she had to get up at 4 AM, and off we went to sleep in our lovely suite.