Ozarksbill

Regarding the so called Celtic Tiger, doesn't this refer to the computer industry and that mostly in the Limerick area? What are other growth sectors and where?

ozarksbill

moxie

Great report ocnmeg; I really enjoyed your sense of humour. It has not discouraged me at all from my planned trip to Dublin.

It is unfortunate that amy takes herself and her city so seriously; if anything this discourages visits more than the original post!

SiobhanP

Ozarkbill..Limerick is not the centre of the Celtic tiger but it does have Dell and O2 as major employers. Dublin would be more of the economics centre and theis is spreading to the other najot cities. It is not just computers its pharmaceutical and Bbnking as well. The Pharma industry seems to be growing in Ireland these days. Because manufacturing is difficult cost wise companies are relying more on service industries. When I came to Dublin its was tough to get a job and I was making £11,000 a year...I do not know how I survived but things picked up thank goodness.

I was not criticising Ocnmeg just giving another side or exlanation from a Dublin point of view. She obiviously enjoyed her trip and it was a new experience for both her and her son. That's what it is all about. Maybe next time she will tour the countryside and see another part of Ireland and prefer that over Dublin like many posters and that is great too. Happy Travels

oldie

For goodness sake!
Who was calling you a snoutcast?

A snoutcast is the English expression for a person who has to stand in the wind and rain smoking their cigarette (snout) because they are not allowed to smoke indoors.
One assumes that you did not nip out for a quick fag.

MissPrism

I am not in the habit of insulting people although I have bitten my lip sometimes ;-)

I think that my message about snoutcasts had another message nipping in and making it appear out of context.

The definition of "snoutcast" is.

Snoutcasts - the desperate groups of nicotine addicts seen outside the doors of the ever increasing number of smoke free buildings.

Melissa5

Ocnmeg, Thank you for posting your trip report, and telling it honestly just the way you saw and experienced it. I found your trip report to be a tremendous help to me, I am adding it to my Dublin file, of things travellers and locals have shared with me about Dublin.

I have no sense of direction either, so I can expect Dublin to be confusing. I live in the world you described, where when you go around the corner, entire buildings and streets have simply moved!

We are taking our first family trip to Ireland next summer. Your trip report has helped me to decide that for us, 3 nights in Dublin may be too many. Some people on-line had already suggested this, but now, reading your trip report and easily picturing myself in your place, I think 2 nights in Dublin will be plenty! (That's at the end of our trip, then we fly home.)

So that gives me an extra night to put somewhere else on my itinerary. Thanks, Ocnmeg!

You probably didn't realize that you did a brave thing. On fodors, there is an unwritten rule that people posting negative trip reports should be ganged up on. This is totally childish but it happens! Sorry it happened to you a bit here and there. Best thing to do is not to defend yourself, just let it go, otherwise things get way off track.

The best way to volunteer to be ganged up on is to say something like "Dublin is dirty" for example. Wow, mortal sin. Now, you might be forgiven, and get away with saying, "For me, Dublin appeared dirty, but that is just my own experience, my own opinion."

Now, there is another rule, special things that you are supposed to be negative about. These rules are even harder to figure out.

Great trip report! I now know something I didn't know before. For a person with a poor to non-existent sense of direction (ME!), the Dublin bus system will be very trying. I may actually try to book a B&B within walking distance of the sites we want to see, and maybe use taxis if necessary. As you mentioned it is impossible (for us people with no sense of direction) to get more than 3 things done in a day in Dublin, I will trim that down to 2 things in one day for us!

I congratulate you for dealing with being lost and confused in Dublin bravely. Your son will learn from you, has already learned, how to deal with these situations. Great real-life lesson!

Do give Europe another try. I suggest since you have trouble with directions like me, try to choose a central hotel where you can walk to several excellent sites. Take 2 different maps with you, and assign your son (who is good at math it appears) the job of navigating you about on foot...my teens turned out to be quite good at this in Italian cities! We got the Streetwise maps with an index of streets and piazzas for Rome for example.

Good luck with your next trip!

hester

Ocnmeg, Thank you for your trip report. I am going to Ireland this summer and starting in Dublin. We all have different impressions of things that's what makes this world so wonderful. Please just ignore the negative posts. I enjoyed your report!

muzaway

Re Dublin is Dirty....as a Dubliner I'd have to agree. I know it is a generalisation and some areas are spotless but the city center can be filthy.

There's a puddle that springs to my mind on Westmorland street (it's near the currency exchange office and a travel agents) that has been forming in times of rain for a good ten to fifteen years now. How long does it take to fix a puddle?

The pathways are black with chewing gum and since smokers have been driven out doors there are increased numbers of butts on the streets.

litter bins, while getting more prevalent around the city, can still be few and far between, and the culture of using them is not very strong among some citizens.

Even on Grafton street, one of the world's most expensive shopping streets, the shops have to put their litter in black bags on the street for collection...I don't think you'd get that in every European city.

Don't get me wrong, I think Dublin is a great city to live in and visit and many parts of it are as clean as any city, but between uncaring residents, and a disorganised city council the city center is a lot dirtier than it should be.

Still, if we clean it up we'll have to stop singing "Dirty Auld Town"!!

jeanebobene

Thanks, Ocnmeg, for your report.

I went to Dublin during a trip 7 yrs. ago. After being in the Irish countryside, I didn't enjoy Dublin. Of course, at the end of a 10 day trip, I was also homesick.

When I went back to Ireland in Sept., I only spent one night at the airport hotel, totally avoiding the city itself.

It's too bad that you and your son didn't make it to Newgrange, which is about 30 km outside of Dublin and well worth seeing.

Dublin is not for everyone, nor is Ireland. I hope you and your son carry some warm memories of your trip.

My friend and I flew British Air out of SF and we had a great, if long, flight with plenty of food and 6 or more movies to choose from.

12perfectdays

Ocnmeg, enjoyed your report, having just come back a few weeks ago from my first trip to Ireland it was very interesting to read another's opinion.

I enjoyed Dublin very much and saw all that I wanted to see in the time we had and enjoyed it, but I will say that it was not our most favorite part of the country.

I also have to say that even after being the navigator through 600 miles of the country that even after 3 days in Dublin I still couldn't find my way anywhere. I truly lost all sense of direction and literally threw up my hands and tossed the maps to DH and said I would just follow him.

LOL, I actually lost weight on this vacation!

Dawn

Melissa5

Dawn, I always lose weight on vacation due to hubby's love of walking, he walks our legs off.

I have switched our family vacation plans from 3 nights to only 2 night in Dublin, at the end of our trip. What do you all think? There is no way I expect to see much of dublin in this amount of time, but is 2 nights enough to get a taste of Dublin? I was thinking of staying in Kilronan House, near St. Stephen's Green, and getting rid of the car before we visit Dublin.

With only 2 nights in Dublin, I would need to choose just 1 or 2 things to do from this list:

Book of Kells and library, Trinity College

National Museum of Archaeology

Killmainham Gaol

Wandering about St. Stephen's Green, Merrion Square, Grafton St. area

Evening pub visit

What would you all suggest? Our visit needs to be entertaining for hubby and I and for young adult daughters. I should mention that we are flying hom from Dublin after this. Thanks!

tod

Ocnmeg - Thank you for your honest "as seen through your eyes" trip report.
I enjoyed reading it although I have never been to Ireland. At least when I do go ( you haven't put me off at all) I won't be too shocked at dirty streets and grafitti.
I was wandering however why first world countries do have a huge problem with these two curses? Everyone is supposed to be so educated.
Here in the Third World we expect filth etc., because the majority are simple and uneducated.

Melissa5

tod, I haven't been to Dublin yet, and I agree, Ocnmeg's report is a great help...we will enjoy our visit more knowing what might be the worst we will run into, as well as the best.

As for litter, I can relate a true story that I found quite interesting. Hubby's relatives adopted a daughter from China, and then decided to move there for a year. Total immersion for a year. His wife wrote me regular e-mails from China, accounts of her new life. At first she was puzzled why there was litter in the city streets. Then she figured it out. There weren't any trash cans in the city where she lived, no trash pick-up, not like they have here in the USA! If she was home in her apartment in China, they had some sort of waste disposal plan for the apartment. But when you walked through the city shopping, and let's say you bought something to eat along your journey, there wasn't anyplace to throw the wrapper away, so people just threw it in the streets, unless they wanted to carry it all the way home to their apartment! See what we take for granted? Also, if you had a hole in your umbrella, you didn't throw it away. You took it to the repair lady who worked on the street corner, and had it repaired.

flanneruk

Boiled tomatoes:

Detailed textual analysis of ocnmeg's posting doesn't make it clear whether anyone did actually have boiled tomatoes.

But they aren't at all rare. Remember the first rule of cooking in the Celtic regions of the British Isles: vegetables* come from tins. Breakfast tomatoes, in particular, come from tins. Peeled, boiled plum tomatoes, straight from the Napolina (or more often, Tesco) tin.

Generate far more juices than those things food snobs buy in the produce section. Cut through the unctuousness of streaky rashers far better. Great on toast: better still (with lashings of WHITE pepper) on fried bread.

*I know.But whatever pedants may say toms is veg.

12perfectdays

Melissa5,
I think the you can do it, depending on where you start, here is a quick version of what we did...I actually will do the trip report but anyway...

thurs: 4pm arrive by train in Dublin...settle in, pub, walk, theatre, room.

Fri: 10am-4pm tour newgrange plus a little shopping, restaurant dinner, Ha'penny Bridge and surroundings, grocery store and back to room

Sat (The BIG day!): started at opening of Trinity College Tour (30 min.), Book Of Kells & library (2.5) hours, Lunch 90 minutes, tried for the national museum (walked into 2 of the wrong ones 45 minutes), shopping (40 min), Dublin Castle Tour (one hour), 5:30pm evensong service at Christ Church Cathedral
(1 hour), temple bar pub ending at 11:30pm back in room.

Sunday 7am off to airport

The only things missed was Nat'l museum but we were mis-directed 3 times and the walk to the right one on would have been in a downpour.

The jail was out of the way from all else but, had we not had to wait 55min. at Gallagher's to get our food and had I skipped the shopping for cheapie souveniers and waited until the airport for that, we would have made the jail as well although I would still have crossed it off for the museum if we lingered overlong there.

Hope this helps!

Melissa5

12perfectdays: Whew! I think you just blew right by me, leaving me trailing far behind you in Dublin, as I am slow! Thank you for sharing the detailed itinerary, as it helps to see what somebody else actually did, and what they might have changed.

Ocnmeg, your trip report is different from others and has started what I think is a very helpful discussion. I am getting the realistic notion that me in Dublin will be like this: slow and confused. But now I know, so I can plan a realistic visit for the family! Maybe we will do something together after breakfast, then I will send the energetic family members off to do something else while I have a nice slow unwinding time back at the B&B (or near it at least, in a cafe or tea shop if there is one.) Since this will be at the end of our trip, I might use my time to catch up in my journal.

I think that for me, planning just one activity per day in Dublin will be plenty! It won't be enough for hubby however, so I will have to get him a list and a map. (He works long hours and really appreciates me planning his vacation.)

Then maybe we can all meet together at dinnertime and maybe have one activity after dinner (theatre or pub visit, something.)

SiobhanP

The tomatoes are not boiled but mereley grilled or my parents way put in the frying pan after cooking the bacon to get the flavours. It becomes soft so may appear boiled but trust me it was probably grilled. Very tasty.

flanneruk

Siobhan:

You obviously lead a privileged life.

I've lost count of the Irish B+Bs (and the more culinarily challenged of the Flanner clan aunties and even some hotel buffets) that decant tins of tomatoes, heat them and serve them at breakfast. And the cooking process these tomatoes go through in their Campania factories is boiling.

Indeed, there's even been some research quoted lately that this err, unusual (to some), way of serving tomatoes builds up greater resistance to some cancers than fresh grilled tomatoes.

tod

Melissa5 - Is China also part of The Third World then? At least we make an attempt at a few bins but they are never emptied enough. Some people think throwing down litter helps to create jobs (mindset again). Others just don't care about their enviroment.

lawchick

Your first trip overseas!

Dublin - dirty buildings? They are old for Gods sake!

Everyone smokes? There is no smoking allowed anywhere except outside - which is more than can be said for many US States.

I must say your choice of culinary adventures amazes me - Thunder Road? US style burger joint! I presume the rest of the trip was spent in McDonalds. Gallaghers boxty house coupled with the Ilac! A native would not set foot in either place.

When travelling again - do a bit of research!