Driving can be stressful, so we just relaxed when we got to the hotel. The amenities included a pool, so we wandered down to the basement to check it out. Really, the time in Dublin was meant to be more about relaxation than about sightseeing so much.
Since we arrived fairly late in the afternoon, we decided on a dinner from the hotel's bar & restaurant. We both got the chili con carne, and it was delish. A bit spicy, cheesy, and all around yummy. It was a nice way to end the stressful day of driving.
From the hotel, it was pretty much a straight shot to walk downtown to the Temple Bar Area. We swam in the morning at the hotel, and got a fairly late start. Taking in the city while we were walking, we decided to stop along the way to have lunch at an Italian place. It was fairly cheap, and very good quality for the price. After lunch, we just wandered the Temple Bar Area, and I tested my memory of the first time I was there, over 2 years beforehand.
On our walk through the area, we saw a place that sold Cornish pasties. So, the next day for lunch, we went back to that place and I got a cheddar broccoli pasty, while mom got some curry chicken one. They were more or less out when we got there, and neither of us was super satisfied with them, but they were sustenance. From there, I tested my memory further and walked us over to St. Patrick's Cathedral, and along the way we walked by the Christ Church Cathedral.
From there we got on the hop-on hop-off bus, and basically just sat and enjoyed the ride around town. As usual, there was a ton of information, never really felt it was worth it to hop-off, and we went in a circle around the town. I did get to see things I didn't see on my first trip, though, like the Guinness building, but as neither of us like beer (nor the smell of it), we just stayed on the bus.
The next day after going for a swim, we wandered down to the center again, and stopped at the Italian place for lunch again. While we were eating, I realized that across the street was the hotel I stayed at the first time I was in Dublin. I had been keeping an eye open for it, but didn't remember exactly where it was. We had walked by it several times and I hadn't even realized it!
We did a little bit of window shopping, then headed for the National Library where, we learned on the hop-on hop-off bus, one could do some genealogical research. This might have been more worth it had we had more time, but as it was we were only there about an hour. One of the people working there helped us to find the types of microfiche files we should look through, but even then it was a shot in the dark. All of the mention of the Finnerty we were looking for was in the same area, and mom ended up looking through a book that was the catholic parish's record of weddings and births. It was pretty difficult to even read what was written, and she saw the name Finnerty a couple of times, but the first names weren't any we knew of, and it just was very uncertain whether they were related to Martin Finnerty. We were also told that there was a similar place to do research in Galway, so maybe one day we'll go back and just do a research trip.
We walked back to the hotel through St. Stephen's Green where everyone was claiming their own patch of green on which to soak in the afternoon sun. We had our last pub meal at a place called The Bleeding Horse by our hotel, which claimed it could quite possibly be the oldest pub in Dublin, but doesn't actually have that distinction because the records don't officially call it a pub as far back as another establishment does.
That night we packed up in anticipation of our departure the next day. Driving to the airport was not as difficult as driving into the city, especially since we found an airport bus and followed it nearly the entire way. Hugs were exchanged, and mom and I parted ways for the next two weeks - that was all the time I had left in France.
Since coming home, we've visited my grandparents where my mom received copies of a sample of Martin Finnerty's writing - apparently he went back to Ireland years later and wrote a correspondence article with the local paper in Missouri By fate, luck, or chance we had visited all of the places he mentioned in his article: Cork, Limerick, and Galway. Maybe his writings will lead to another adventure for my mom and I to go on - trying to find his entire series of articles in the paper about his trip. He writes in a way that makes me think he may have even had a permanent job on the paper, writing more than just about Ireland.
"I see some things that I once saw, but the most is gone. The vallies are cut away and burned; the hills are leveled and thrown into them. The people that were here then are no more, and the young ones have taken their places. I find some of the old people and some of the old landmarks, but both are rather scattering. The ditches are wider than they used to be or I cannot jump as well as yore."
- M. N. Finnerty, July 13, 1897
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