The Notebook
Irish Moments, from the notebook.
Everything we have filed under irish moments: what we saw, where we stayed, and what we would do differently.
Irish Moments
Entry No. 01
Added quietly
The Cities, Walked Early
The biggest mistake Americans make in Irish pubs
The mistake is not ordering the wrong beer. It is treating the pub as a sight to be ticked off instead of a room to be inhabited.
Entry No. 02
Added quietly
The Cities, Walked Early
What I tell every American friend before their first trip
An expat's letter to the next visitor. The expectations to set, the mistakes to avoid, and the version of Ireland that only opens for those who slow down.
Entry No. 03
The Pub at Dusk
Guinness in Kilkenny, by the Nore
Tynan's Bridge House at dusk, with the castle floodlights coming on across the water.
Entry No. 04
The Pub at Dusk
Guinness in Dingle, at Dick Mack's
Across the road from the church, a leather counter, and a pint that tastes of weather.
Entry No. 05
The Pub at Dusk
Guinness in Belfast, at the Crown
A Victorian snug, a gas lamp, and a pint that knows the building it is in.
Entry No. 06
The Pub at Dusk
Guinness in Cork, at the Hi-B
Upstairs on Oliver Plunkett Street, where the rules are not written down.
Entry No. 07
The Pub at Dusk
Guinness in Galway, before the match
Tigh Neachtain at one o'clock on a Saturday, when the city is already humming.
Entry No. 08
The Drawing Room Hour
The Difference Between Hospitality And Service
The best Irish hotels are not trying to impress you. They are trying to make you feel like you belong.
Entry No. 09
After Rain
The Irish house is the centre of everything
To understand Ireland, stop looking at the castles and start looking at the kitchen table.
Entry No. 10
The Long Way Round
The Irish weather is not the problem
The rain rarely ruins the trip. The fight against the rain usually does.
Entry No. 11
The Cities, Walked Early
Why nobody is in a hurry
One of the first things Americans notice in Ireland is that things take longer. One of the last things they realise is that this may not be a problem.
Entry No. 12
The Long Way Round
The best day of your trip will not be on the itinerary
The moments people remember most in Ireland are rarely the ones they planned.
Entry No. 13
The Older Rooms
The Irish luxury Americans don't notice
The greatest luxury in Ireland is rarely the castle suite, the Michelin star, or the private driver. It is the feeling that nobody is in a hurry.
Entry No. 14
After Rain
Stephen's Green after the shower
Twenty minutes of Dublin at its most photogenic, and no one looks up.
Entry No. 15
At the Edge of the Atlantic
Dún Aonghasa at first light, before the boats
A three-thousand-year-old fort on the lip of an Atlantic cliff on Inishmore, walked alone in the hour before the first ferry arrives.
Entry No. 16
After Rain
Hook Head, the oldest light in the world, in a winter storm
An eight-hundred-year-old working lighthouse on the Wexford coast, visited when the Atlantic is honest about itself.
Entry No. 17
At the Edge of the Atlantic
Inishbofin, the afternoon ferry out of Cleggan
A Connemara island reached by a forty-minute crossing, where the year still keeps its old shape.
Entry No. 18
At the Edge of the Atlantic
Lough Hyne when the tide reverses
Europe's only saltwater inland lough, in west Cork, at the half hour the Atlantic flows in or out through the narrow rapids.
Entry No. 19
The Older Rooms
Glenveagh and the red deer at first light
A nineteenth-century castle on a Donegal lough, a sixteen-thousand-hectare national park around it, and the herd that walks out of the trees at dawn.
Entry No. 20
The Older Rooms
Loughcrew on the equinox morning
A five-thousand-year-old passage tomb on a hill in County Meath, lit on its inner chamber wall twice a year by the rising sun.
Entry No. 21
The Cities, Walked Early
The Enterprise from Belfast to Dublin, at dusk
The cross-border train at the end of the working day, two and a quarter hours through east Ulster and the Boyne valley, with the light going behind you.
Entry No. 22
After Rain
Guinness in Dublin, after rain
The pint that does not travel, in the weather it was made for.
Entry No. 23
The Drawing Room Hour
Kinsale on a low-tide evening
The harbour town when the day-trippers have driven back to Cork.
Entry No. 24
At the Edge of the Atlantic
The Burren on a grey afternoon
Limestone, low cloud, and the part of Clare that rewards bad weather.
Entry No. 25
At the Edge of the Atlantic
An evening walk on Howth Head
Forty minutes from the city centre, and the cleanest air in Dublin.
Entry No. 26
At the Edge of the Atlantic
Lahinch on a still morning
The first tee at half past seven, the Atlantic on three sides.
Entry No. 27
The Pub at Dusk
Dublin when it rains all day
Bookshops, gallery rooms, bar light. What to do when the weather decides for you.
Entry No. 28
The Older Rooms
Glendalough at first light
The upper lake before the car park fills.
Entry No. 29
The Older Rooms
Newgrange on a clear morning
Five thousand years old, and still the quietest hour of the Boyne Valley.
Entry No. 30
The Older Rooms
The Irish hotel test we use before booking
The most expensive mistake is not the wrong county. It is the wrong hotel. Six tests we apply before we book, and why we are not booking rooms. We are booking moods.
Entry No. 31
The Cities, Walked Early
What Americans get wrong about Irish people
The mistake is not that Americans think Irish people are unfriendly. It is that they expect friendliness to arrive in the American way.
Entry No. 32
The Long Way Round
Why we never stay one night anywhere in Ireland
The most common American mistake on the itinerary is also the most fixable. A note on the two-night minimum, the three-night luxury rule, and the half-day every hotel change quietly costs.
Entry No. 33
The Cities, Walked Early
Pubs at dusk in the west
On the half-hour before anyone orders food.
Entry No. 34
The Long Way Round
Dublin in December
When the city is gentler than people warn you it will be.
Entry No. 35
The Cities, Walked Early
Trinity College, just after dawn
The cobblestones of Front Square, before the day starts.
Entry No. 36
The Cities, Walked Early
An afternoon in Marsh's Library
Dublin's three-hundred-year-old reading room, almost empty in the rain.
Entry No. 37
The Cities, Walked Early
Kilkenny Castle on a quiet Thursday
The river side, the rose garden, the long room at the back.
Entry No. 38
The Long Evening of Summer
The Titanic Quarter at blue hour
Belfast's docks, the half-hour the building lights up.
Entry No. 39
The Cities, Walked Early
Derry walls on foot
The full circuit, mid-afternoon, ending at the Guildhall.
Entry No. 40
The Long Way Round
Kinsale harbour before the boats leave
Cork's south-east town, the half-hour before lunch in summer.
Entry No. 41
At the Edge of the Atlantic
The Burren flora in May
Ireland's strangest landscape, the week the gentians come out.
Entry No. 42
At the Edge of the Atlantic
Music in Doolin on a Tuesday
Gus O'Connor's, before the season starts in earnest.
Entry No. 43
The Cities, Walked Early
A pint in John Mulligan's
Poolbeg Street, the bar that hasn't changed since the war.
Entry No. 44
The Pub at Dusk
The Stag's Head after six
Off Dame Street, the late Victorian room with the original mirrors.
Entry No. 45
The Cities, Walked Early
The Long Room at Trinity
Two hundred feet of oak and marble, taken before the queue.
Entry No. 46
The Cities, Walked Early
Georgian doors on Merrion Square
Walking the south side, the half-hour the light is on the brick.
Entry No. 47
At the Edge of the Atlantic
Skellig Michael when the boat runs
The hardest day-trip in Ireland to plan, the easiest to remember.
Entry No. 48
At the Edge of the Atlantic
The Aran Islands on a bicycle
Inis Mór in a single afternoon, hired wheels and the wind behind you.
Entry No. 49
At the Edge of the Atlantic
The Cliffs of Moher at five thirty
When the bus tours leave and the cliffs are yours.
Entry No. 50
The Long Way Round
Blarney Castle, without the stone
What every visitor misses by going straight to the top.
Entry No. 51
The Cities, Walked Early
The Dark Hedges with no one else
Antrim's beech avenue, taken before seven in the morning.
Entry No. 52
At the Edge of the Atlantic
Howth cliffs on a bright Sunday
Dublin's coastal village, with the cliff loop ending at the Bog of Frogs.
From the notebook
Editorial itineraries from Ireland.
Collected notes. A few times each season.