My favorite travel memories are usually not of the specific sites we've seen but of the simple experiences and pleasures we've "happened" onto along the way. We've had fun shopping for a picnic in a local village store, watching children or grown-ups playing a game in a park, or searching for the ultimate chocolate carmel shortbread cookie that seemed to be featured in all the local bakeries. Sometimes these simple pleasures are hidden unless you know what to look for. My question: does anyone have any favorite experiences (not neccesarily sites) in any of the following places, that they'd be willing to point out to a first time traveller to Ireland?
Dublin, County Tipperary, County Clare, or Connemara?
Thank you!!!

(I apologize if this shows up as a double post - I forgot to put it on the Ireland board the first time)

September, 2002: I had a B&B booked in Miltown Malbay (Clare). I told Pauleen I would be there around 10:00 AM coming from Shannon airport. Pauleen met me at the door and invited me to tea and biscuits before showing me to my room for a much-needed 'nap.' Nice people!

Here's something that happened to me in Newcastlewest, (Limerick). Nov., '98: The weather was terrible. Most of the Parkland Golf Courses in the SW were closed. My golfing plans were 'out the window!' I left a pair of frayed jeans and a pair of metal spiked golf shoes next to the trash can in my room at the Courtenay Lodge. May, '99, I was back at the Courtenay Lodge. Kate, the housekeeper approached me and asked if I was the Gentleman who had been in Room-6. She told me I had left some things in the room; that she had washed and ironed my 'jeans' and she had them upstairs along with the golf shoes. This is 6-months later!

You can't even throw thing away there!

I stopped at the Courtenay Lodge again in September, '99 - I think Kate had been promoted. She was no longer on the housekeeping staff. She was doing the breakfast.

I ride BusEireann a lot in Ireland. It amuses me to see teenage Irish boys who instinctively start to make the Sign of the Cross when the bus passes a Church, then they pretend to be brushing their hair back from their eyes or some other action because such public display of their faith is not considered 'cool.'

My favorite simple pleasure occurred every night in pubs. Heaven, for me, is sitting in front of the fire in a small pub, sipping a Guiness, and listening to the musical Irish conversation. The fire is warm, the Guinness is creamy, and the Irish way with words knocks my socks off!

Actually, just people watching in Phoenix Park in Dublin... or (ok, laugh at me) seeing the items in the grocery stores ('pizza with corn on it? unheard of!' says the spoiled American)

I loved walking to the local hotel each morning for breakfast, watching the birds sing and the sheep play. Ok, so I'm wierd

Thanks! This is exactly what I'm looking for!!!! Nedsireland, we had a similar experience with teenage boys in Venice. They were flirting with some teenage girls in our group (I was discreetly just out of their site), when all of a sudden their heads went up and they took off down the street. I peeked round the corner and there came a priest in full black robes.

MaryZ, I can't wait to hit the pubs - taking my inhaler so that I can sit out the smoke if it gets to bad - just can't miss the experience!

GreenDragon, you're my kind of traveller. I, too, love grocery stores. On one trip we assigned the kids the job of stocking the self-cater place with soft drinks - as long as it was not a U.S. brand. The Orangina was a hit - the Dandelion Burdock brew was not. Fun though!!!

We went off the main road in Co. Waterford just outside the boundry with Tipperary looking for a waterfall we saw on some obscure map. We tend to do this a lot in Ireland... after all, how lost can you get? It's an island! Anyway, we find the falls up near the top of a pass and after viewing decide to see where the road might lead. Down a tiny farm road, not even fully paved and down again through a pasture. Public road? So hard to tell be we creep on and come upon a flock of the ubiquitous long haired sheep with pink and blue backsides, being herded straight for us up the hill. They pressed all round the card being prodded on by a teenage lad who shared with us the same little teenage smirk that I thought reserved for mall-centric teens back home. Ah cultural differences. We did find our way out though and I'm not sure I wouldn't have been smirking either.

Also, stopping in to see a family doctor in a little village in Kildare. A wonderful patient gent who'd been doctoring for a good while, with a shock of white hair who escorted my into his office himself, he had no staff this afternoon. Introduces himself by his first name, and after casually discussing the major point of the visit proceeds to gently lecture me in that Irish lilt about being sure to take walks on the plane on the way home and to be sure to take aspirin before boarding. Did I have any with me? Otherwise he had some if I needed. Was I sure? Even a trip to the doctors is a pleasant diversion in Ireland.

Then there was the lady curator of a national historic site that insists on driving us home after our visit to Castletown House because it's almost dinner time and we'd walked....

One of the most memorable experiences for us was in Adara (in the northwest - not Adare) and while two members of our party napped in the B&B, three of us took a walk down a quiet dirt road. We saw a lovely grouping of rocks in the distance and the ocean, so we opened a little gate and headed toward the sea. Even though there was a little gate, it seemed deserted and the peaceful spot looked so inviting. NOT! After about a half hour of soaking up the sunshine, fresh air and view, we noticed a bull in the distance heading our way with 20 or so cows following behind. That was our cue to head back to the B&B. Only by the grace of God and the skin of our teeth did we make it back through the "little gate," huffing, puffing, laughing and almost crying. I guess the owner of the property didn't mind our trespassing (the Irish are always so welcoming), but his bull sure didn't care much for it.

We're going back in September....and can't wait. Ireland is WONDERFUL!

Sipping a pint at the local Pub. Irish pubs are the epicenter of local culture.

Watching my then 9 year-old show a bunch of kids in Killarney (while they were at school) how to jump "double-dutch" and play hand games.....,

Last year, watching my now 14 year-old daughter stand nose to nose with English "Gentry" telling them that the people in Ireland are not "quaint", (Something similar to what I did at that age when I worked as a tour-guide in Japan, in my mother?s fishing village) I guess the apples doesn't fall far from the tree.

Had a lovely evening in Ballyvaughn watching 3 little girls "fish" for crabs off the end of the pier using a rasher (bacon) tied with string to a rock tied to a stick on the other end and rolling up the string with crab[s] attached then place said crab[s] in buckets of sea water. Near sunset their father counted out the number of crabs each girl had caught thowing each crab back into the ocean as he went. Those 3 little girls had pulled up 33 crabs EACH in the space of about an hour. Setset was beautiful.

Enjoy,
wendy

And sure there are many splendid memories but the one that stands out the most is meeting my long lost relatives(they would say that I was the one lost) for the first time and spending three wonderful days of getting to know them and nights at the family pub, getting to know them better. They wouldn't let me pay for one round, only saying that I could during my next visit. They welcomed me into their homes as if they had knew me all of their lives and sent me off with presents, including a nice pint of poteen disceptibly marked 'Holy Water'to fool those nasty customs agents. It still warms my heart and I have seen them three more times in the past five years.

Last summer, I did a 6-day horse trek across County Clare, which is my ancestral homeland. It was wonderful! My "simple pleasures" were:

Eating wild strawberries which grew in the vines in the hedgerows along the roadsides. People zooming by in cars and buses didn't know what they were missing!

Spending evenings in the pubs chatting with the locals. I rememebr the old man who was surprised that I, an American woman, could understand his thick accent!

Most of all, I remember the beautiful countryside and all of the animals with their springtime babies. The sheep and lambs, and the mares and foals were my favorites. And how each house in the countryside has a Border Collie or Lab to guard it!