It looked kinda like this
but BIG

After driving through Dublin City Centre on the left side of the street (Harrowing! Don't do it!), we arrived at our hotel.
Note: Don't ever ask an Irishman for directions -- They are very friendly, but they assume you already know, and if you don't--well--you probably don't need to. We found the hotel eventually...It was VERY different from our place in Wales.

The shopping center across the street from our hotel.

Thereafter, we took the bus everytime we wanted to go to City Centre. We went there for the first time on Sunday, Father's Day. We were guided by a lovely woman, a dancer from Latvia named Ija (eee-yah), who showed us that the appearance of the monument (Millenium Spire on O'Connell Street) meant "Get off the bus".

The Post Office on O'Connell Street where the famed show-down and stand-off happened.

Ija led us to the Haepenny Bridge, but then she had to go to her rehearsal as her troupe was about to do a tour in the U.S. We crossed the bridge and found ourselves in Temple Bar....which is just what we wanted!

The Temple Bar was the Temple family's riverside walk (by the Liffey). Bar means "walk", but the word's been put to good use since then. I went to buy a book from one of the kiosks in the square and Andy sat down to talk with a musician from Bolivia named Raoul -- who was very surprised to be addressed in Spanish in Dublin.

This was going on all around us, as it does most days in Temple Bar. In fact, Raoul had been playing just before he and Andy met. After they talked awhile, they agreed to toast one another with a Guiness for Father's Day, since they both were one. They bought me a drink too :-)

Raoul brought us here to The Temple Bar (get it????) where we heard Lad Lane, some of the finest traditional music we heard all week. Fabulous! And the guitar player (virtuoso) had a capo that he was sliding up and down the neck as he played!
Every time he changed key, the tempo got faster....
On the last song, some of the women in the crowd asked me to get up and dance with them. I'd never done that kind of dancing, so I hung back. Now I really wished I had danced. How hard could it have been? Next time!

The Village of Malahide was near the hotel, the opposite direction from City Centre, so we went one day to try to find a laundromat. No dice! No one has dirty clothes in Malahide, so we had it done at the hotel -- €22! Ouch!
They do, however, have beautiful yachts berthed in their harbor, and....

some very nice shops.

On Wednesday, we drove to the Sennheiser plant in Tullamore, where Andy had been invited to take a tour of the plant. They were so gracious to us (I took the tour too!), personal attention and lots of detail. Having taken apart my much cheaper headphones to see why they weren't working, I even knew what was going on...most of the time. Imagine my delight to discover that the pieces were put together by people, not machines.
Sennheiser put us up that night in Tullamore, at the Bridge House -- one of the finest hotels in all of Ireland.

This is the lobby. Isn't that gorgeous?
It poured rain all day that day, so we just enjoyed the hotel, even going to hear a C & W dance band, led by John Hogan.
It was a fun night, everyone danced and had a terrific time, and we met John backstage and had a long, lovely conversation.

The next day we went south to a cottage in Kilbrittain...

This is the cottage where we stayed in Kilbrittain. It belongs to the Hatton family. Margaret Hatton gave us directions and warned us it was hard to find. And it was! After a few trials and many errors, we stopped at a curio shop and called the neighbor, Mossie O'Regan, keeper of the key, who offered to send a cow after us -- I swear that's what he said. But he ended up sending his daughter who led us to the cottage.

That evening we had dinner at the Pink Elephant, owned by Jeremy, who let us play his psychedelic piano for the crowd. The Pink Elephant is right on a small, beautiful bay, and you can see out into the ocean from there.
We also played at the Kilbrittain Inn Pub, and made a little money! :-)

The next morning we went to Kinsale

which looks like this, and is a tourist town. Small, quaint, sweet, and with lots of stuff to buy -- naturally.

The Tourist Center
Specializing in directions and stuff to buy,
so we did

The Kinsale Town Centre
Stores....

....and more stores....

The Newman's Mall, where we sat down to rest, and I looked up and saw

The Stone Mad Gallery, where I got some gifts for the girls.
This place sparkled and shimmered, inside and out.
Even the owner's business card sparkles and says:
"Handmade by the Handmaiden"

This is just the smallest example. Her name is Deidre Gillespie and you can find
her at the Stone Mad Gallery, Kinsale, Ireland.
Phone Country code + 353 21 4773633
After that, we got back in the car, drove back through all those greens, to Dublin, got up early next morning to catch the ferry at 8:30 a.m. and drive back to Manchester. We caught our flight the next morning and were home 7 hours later...... as if we dreamed the whole thing, sparkles, green and all.....

Except today I got a letter in the regular mail, along with two CDs from Virginia Barrett (see the Wales album in this gallery). It wasn't a dream, after all. Thanks, Virginia!