Shadow

I'd like to know about Bewley's too....
is it gone? And, if so, what is in its place?
Shadow

SiobhanP

It looks the same but no lonbger does tea an breakfast. It was modestly renovated (nice chandeliers now) and is now a cafe bar deli (the original is on georges street in an old Bewleys. He kept the style and food element as people were worried a clothing store or Starbucks would buy it and I think they wanted to keep it Irish owned. In the front is atill coffee and scones when you walk in but limited seating and upstairs in the front is a seafood restaurnt called Mackrel that has been getting good reviews. It was the best compromise to keep the building open for business and seems to be working well. I ate in the Cafe Bar Deli section this past Sunday. Nice salads and pizza/pasta. Simple stuff that fills!

Melissa5

Many thanks to all of you for advice on Dublin. I think I've spent more time planning Dublin than any other part of our trip!

We are definitely spending 2 nights in Dublin at the end of our 15-night trip to Ireland.

Now I'm trying to select a B&B or small hotel or guesthouse in Dublin, which allows a QUIET sleep at night, and which has some Irish character, and a good Irish breakfast would be a bonus. These are my choices, has anybody stayed at any of these:

Molesworth Court Suites, Dublin
(Schoolhouse Lane, great central location)
www.molesworthcourt.ie
Problem: doesn't have 24-hour front desk.

Trinity College Campus, Dublin
800 student rooms available to tourists in the summer! good prices.
www.tcd.ie/accom
Practical, but sounds basic.

Balcamp Hutchinson, Dublin
(in the Dublin suburb of Balgriffin)
Sounds nice but problem: 20 minute bus ride to the heart of Dublin.

Kilronan House
comfty-sounding Quiet guesthouse, a 5-minute walk from St. Stephen's green.
Problem: Toilets may not be in room; but showers are in room, if I understand correctly. Good breakfast.

Number 31, Dublin
(Leeson Close, Lower Leeson St.)
Quiet, yet a short walk from St. Stephen's Green. Problem: Guest reviews of this one are so mixed, ranging from wonderful to terrible.

Harrington Hall
Harcourt St.; family-owned Georgian residence, refurbished. Steps from St. Stephens' green.

Well, any comments would be most appreciated! Those are the accomodations which interest me the most, after researching in fodors, frommers, and rick Steves guidebooks, and after checking out www.tripadvisor.com They all seem to be in the price range between USA $80 and under $200, I think.

I will probably post this same question about accomodations separately as well.

Many thanks for your help on planning Dublin!

Shadow

M5: I have reservations for Kilronan House for Oct. 17-20 so I can let you know what I think. We are 3 ladies staying in Dublin for 4 nights-we'll have 2 1/2 days in Dublin and we are thinking of taking the train to Belfast for one day coming back to Dublin.
Then, its on to Co. Roscommom where I'll be visiting with my mom who lives there. We'll come back to Dublin for one more night and I am about to make a reservation for that night at Beechwood House in Malahide so we'll be closer to the airport.
At Kilronan House we will have a triple room and I sure hope the bathroom is in the room!! Maybe I should email them to be sure? The pict. on their website looks like the bathroom is ensuite. (But, I know pics can be deceiving)

I am trying to put together an itinerary for us in Dublin too and have spent lots of time gathering info. Now, its time to kinda get an idea of what to do on which days and what we can fit in.

This is my 9th trip to Ireland and have been to Dublin several times but am particularily looking forward to it this time as I think we'll be able to get a better feel for the city-not so rushed as I have been in the past.

I live in a small town in the Mojave Desert of California so I LOVE cities...stores, shopping, restaurants, people coming and going, I love it...so different from where I live. However, my town is very inexpensive (for California)and Dublin is not cheap...our room at Kilronan is costing us 65 euros each...not much each but for 3 that is alot-195 a night.....I'd say the bathroom better be in the room!
Shadow

Melissa5

Shadow, enjoyed reading about your plans. From what I can understand, reading the trip reports of others, Kilronan House sounds very enticing...but in some rooms, the shower is in your room but the toilet is outside of your room. One person had to go up some stairs to the toilet. I think you should write and ask exactly where are your toilet and your shower. Just write a nice polite letter. When I make reservations I always ask for specifics (though I wouldn't have thought of asking where the toilet is unless I had read the guest comments of others..,.)

I would love to hear how you like Kilronan when you return! Write me at [email protected] if you can, and put "Kilronan House" or "Dublin hotel" in the subject line. (that's how I screen my e-mail for junk mail.)

Have a great visit! This will be our first trip.

Shadow

Melissa5: I will let you know! Hopefully you will fall in love with Ireland as I have....I was 16 on my first visit....I went with my dad who had not been back in 17 years when we made that trip...it turned out to be the only trip I made with him...he was even surprised how much I loved it...

Ireland was a bit different then, so I am glad I got to see it the way it was.... that has given me so much more understanding of the Irish people. Of course, both my parents came from there.


I was already in love with all things Irish then but I came back enthralled with Ireland. Soon I was taking Irish Step Dancing and competing, maps of Ireland went on my walls, I kept in touch with my new friends in Ireland....
(I have those friends 'til this day), I even went out of my way to listen to "The Irish Hour" on the radio (an hour radio show mostly listened to by older people who missed their home country)-I even listened to it if I was on a date!
Sorry, I am being long winded.....don't want to bore anyone....but, just wanting to say that Ireland is special and that your daughters may just fall in love with it as I did.....
Shadow

Itallian_Chauffer

While walking about Dublin, go for a stroll across the Ha'Penney Bridge. From the North Side, glance to your left at the small, open "park". Go for a stoll there if at all possible. It's called Croppie's Acre and if the thought of visiting Kilmainham moves you, communing with the residents that surely haunt the Acre willrock your world. Do a google search to learn about the history of the place. Many locals don't even know as much about it as they should.

Melissa5

Shadow, I fell in love with Ireland as a small girl, listening to my Irish grandmother...And I haven't even been there yet! I'm really enjoying planning our first family trip for summer 2006.

I wish my youngest daughter (now 18) was as enthusiastic about Ireland as you are. My older daughter, 19, is eager to go and has committed to it, but my younger daughter says she doesn't want to go because she'll miss her boyfriend too much! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! I think this is a bit short-sighted...as our family trip is only 2 weeks, and next summer she will have a long summer between college years, 3 entire months of it! We're still working on persuading her...

I think step-dancing looks fun and energetic, and I'd wish I'd learned it when I was younger with more energy and better knees! Good for you! And please tell me, how does one find the "Irish Hour" on the radio? Is it still available? I'd like to listen in.

Melissa5

ITALLIAN_CHAUFFEUR: You have intrigued me about Croppie's Acre. I'll see what I can find out about that. (One can never learn enough about Ireland...)

Thanks.

Shadow

Melissa5-just so you know...that was a long time ago that I made my first trip...this will be my 9th and I still have places yet to see!
Italian Chauffer-its fun to read the posts of other Ireland lovers...thanks for the info. on Croppies Acres...I will check into that....
Shadow

SiobhanP

I used to live beside the Croppy Acre (there is a pub nearby with the same name) It is not something I would go out of my way to see. It is a field with I think Plaques in the ground and its set aside as a memorial to the uprising of 1798. It has always been locked and no public avccess whne I lived beside it. It is in front of the Collins Barricks Museum.

Shadow

I was just wondering....does this have something to do with the old song "The Croppy Boy?" (I think that was the title)

Shadow

Shadow

I emailed Kilronan House to ask if our triple room had an ensuite bathroom....I figured it did because they show a virtual tour of a triple room on the website...but, if they have more triples maybe one would not have an ensuite...anyway, our triple does have an ensuite bathroom with toilet, etc.
So, all is well!!
Shadow

Melissa5

Shadow, yay, I'm happy for you...I hope your enjoy Kilronan house AND your ensuite toilet! Post a review on Kilronan for us when you return, please.

I'm having a hard time choosing a Dublin hotel because it seems that a lot of them in city centre are affected by noise at night from night-clubers returning late to their hotels. It's hard to tell where I could actually have a quiet sleep at night.

Happy Irish travels!

waffle18

Shadow,

Don't worry about being long winded about Ireland to Melissa - she is a complete sweetie and is more than willing to put up with my ramblings... and go on and on about Ireland to her ALL THE TIME!! LoL.

M,

Glad to hear that your trip is shaping up. Keep working on that daughter! Rent some Irish films from Netflicks if you have to, get her a book (I'll loan you a few of mine) and tell her that "Absence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder" - it's so very true!

Wendy

Melissa5

Wendy, I'm so excited, my younger daughter has agreed to come to Ireland too! I had to agree to buy her all the phone cards to call her boyfriend that she needs.

So now, with both daughters in my day-dreams of Dublin, things are looking better than ever!

Wendy, do you have a suggestion for either a specific B&B/hotel, or an area or street, which would be a good location to stay in Dublin? I'd prefer to be able to walk to Trinity college and St. Stephen's green, and to good restaurants, and at the same time to be able to get a quiet sleep at night...this is looking difficult in Dublin, with all the night-clubs, beer gardens, and pubs! Any suggestions?

Thanks!

Itallian_Chauffer

With apologies to Siohban P (we've got to stop meeting like this - I don't normally feel the need to apologize to anyone as much as I seem to have with you), Croppie's Acre is really more a state of mind. The actual grounds are very low key and unimpressive visually, but it is the intangibles that touch me most.
During the time of the 1798 Rebellion, the Acre was unreclaimed swamp land that drained off into the Liffy. What is now Collins Barracks was an English Garrison. Many Rebels were brought there to the Garrison and publicly executed. Afterwards, their bodies were dumped, unceremoniously, into the adjacent marshland that served as the barracks garbage heap. Among the most notable victims were Matthew Tone (younger brother of Wolfe Tone) and his comrade in arms, Bartholomew Teeling (hero of the Battle of Collooney). Both were commisioned officers in the 1,000 man French Expeditionary Army that General Jean Arable Humbert landed at Killalla, Co. Mayo and stormed through Ballina, Castlebar and most of Connaught, before finally succumbing at the Battle of Ballinamunck, in Co. Leitrim to the 10,000 British troops, under the command of Lord Cornwallis and the Butcher of Vinegar Hill, General Lake.
Despite the British assurrances given at the time of surrender, of fair and honorable treatment of his men, Tone and Teeling were singled out as "traiterous Englishmen".

Their's are just two of the Ghosts that haunt the unassuming Acre. So small a space could never really contain such men as they. Their spirit echoes through out Dublin, just as it lives through all of Ireland.
I AM a bit of a History buff and, no doubt, a bit of an old-fashioned romantic, I suppose. There really isn't much to see in Croppie's Acre, but each time that I am in Dublin, that fact doesn't stop me from looking.

SiobhanP

Wow Italian_Chauffer You have the best info. Never apoligise to me you always have great info. I only know my tiny bit of the croppy acre from the web even though I walked by it every day for 3 years! I personally like the Collins Barricks Museum and my other half gets a kick out of going back to visit it ashe was in the FCA (Kinda like the reserves here in Ireland) when he was 18. He remembers marching in the large square when you enter the Barricks. The openend up a new section last year that just had glass cases of items they did not show or had no room to show and it was really interesting. Lots of Asian artefacts that I never knew the had in the collection.

My all time favourite place is the Chester Beatty Library Museum behind Dublin Castle. It's in the building that was the former oficer barricks and houses the largest collection of Asian art in europe. Chester Beatty was a real renaissance man and collected a lot of important book, artefacts etc on asia. He donated the collection to the People of Ireland when he died. I met someone outside who was over from Japan studying some of the scrolls and writing a book about it in Japan. Food is excellent in the cafe as well.

waffle18

M,

I would stick with Siobhan's or katy's suggestions as they are Dubliners and have the best first hand sort of knowledge. My in-laws live too close to Dublin for us to spend any overnights in the city itself so I have little "been there, done that" kind of info.

My parents did stay at the FitzWilliam hotel (rooms not facing the street were more quiet but less scenic) for a few nights and they really enjoyed being that close to down town & St Stephen's Green. That was back in 2001 but I can ask if they recall any sleeping/noise issues. (Step mother is a very light sleeper...)

Glad to hear that both girls are going! The family will have a lovely time.

Wendy

flbronc

Cannot say any more than other postings - hop on/off bus is great. The Paramount Hotel is at the very end of Temple Bar and is very quiet and a wonderful hotel. This summer their specials were 100 euros per room - not per person and includes a full Irish breakfast. Awesome hotel. web site: http://www.paramounthotel.ie/index.htm Also stayed at Temple Bar Hotel which is in the middle of Temple Bar but didn't find it noisy at all although their rates are a little higher than Paramount . Great music and food in the pubs - never had a bad meal anywhere ! People are amazing there - the Irish have to be the friendliest ever ! Enjoy !