As go Éire

Mindy is all smiles as we touched down in Shannon, Ireland.

As everyone who speaks Gaelic Irish would know by the title of this post, we were off to Ireland! And so begins the travel month for us with a short trip across the English Channel to search for pots of gold, four leaf clovers, and the ultra rare pint of Guiness! We landed in Shannon, County Clare in the southwest part of the island and were immediately impressed by the friendliness of the people. Mindy of course was happy to chat up everyone and by the time I picked up the car, she had made friends with half the county!

Driving on the left side of the road and the right side of the car is a wonderful experience.

We picked up our rental, a Santa Fe with automatic transmission (yes!!!), and headed out on the highway to learn how to drive Irish style. In sharp contrast to France, or at least Paris, everyone here obeys the speed limit and is really quite courteous and patient on the road. Maybe they are just used to having to a bunch of tourists driving around lost.

A view from the left side of the road. Don't try this in Canada!!!


Gaelic Irish is still very popular as a language although everyone speaks English. All the signs were posted in both languages.

For our first night, we were staying in Limerick as we didn't arrive in Ireland until a little later in the day. We decided that the first order of business, before we checked out the tourist sites, was to find a real Irish Pub for dinner. We of course checked with our local sources and headed to Dolain's Pub where we dined on Irish Stew (for Mindy) and Meat Pie with Beef, Mushrooms, & Guiness (for David). A pint of Kilkenny rounded out the fabulous meal as we enjoyed the cozy atmosphere. As we finished our food, a band started to tuning up and we were treated to some a nice little performance. A pretty decent start to the trip in my books!

Guiness Meat Pie and Irish Stew. Can it get any better?

The band. Notice the pints of Guiness on the table in front of them. No joke, they would play a song, stop, have a sip of beer, and then play again.