Ireland, Finally!

Traveling to Ireland by plane can be grueling until you realize it used to take months to cross the Atlantic. Our flights went from Birmingham to Houston, Texas, to Newark, New Jersey, to Shannon, Ireland. We were afraid we were going to miss the flight to Shannon since we were held out on the taxiway for over thirty minutes. When we finally got off the plane we rushed up the jetway, only to be told our flight to Shannon was going to be on the same plane. Somebody was watching out for us.

We made it to Ennis without smacking any car mirrors and found Sleepy Hollow Bed and Breakfast, run by Elizabeth Ryan. It is easy to find and a very comfortable place to stay. 

Our Ennis adventures included driving down O’Connell Street, the main shopping district, on a Friday afternoon. We managed to find multi-storey car park. The Music Man got the car in a spot, the whole while, muttering “I don’t like this."

We found Custy’s Music Store and wandered around in there for a short time. It’s much smaller than I expected but they did have a button accordion that my husband wanted to play. 

On the recommendation of my friend, Renee, we ate at Brogan’s, which is right around the corner from Custy’s. There is a restaurant in the front and a bar in the back. Kind of like an Irish pub mullet. We found a seat in the bar and The Music Man started looking at the posters for local bands that play there. Of course, he recognized one of them as a facebook friend and asked the waitress about it. She got on her cell phone and called the guy, finding out that he would be playing in Brogan’s that night. My husband vowed to go back after we had rested. I wasn’t so sure about it. We had smokey bacon panninis and chips for dinner. The food was delicious, but I've realized that by bacon, the Irish mean smoked ham. If you have bacon for breakfast, they are called rashers.

When we got back to Sleepy Hollow, I plugged my iPad in to recharge it. The power inverter lasted about twenty seconds. I tried not to panic and managed to be just disappointed. The Music Man came up with a plan to find a USB car charger. That would mean I couldn’t use the computer much but the iPad would be operational. There aren’t Best Buy stores on every corner here, so I decided I’d have to punt and use the low tech option.

Driving north on Saturday, we tried to find an electronics store in Galway City, but Race Week was due to start on 25 July and the traffic was already horrendous. We waved at Galway Bay and kept traveling north to Sligo. No luck there, either. We made one last ditch effort in Donegal Town. Nope. That’s when I decided to just relax and have a good time. After all, we were almost to Gleann Colm Cille!