A Very Full Family Trip to Ireland

NEAR THE HOTEL

The strawberries were enormous, the currants came with an accurate warning, and the village looked a little like a movie set.

We spent our first day near the hotel, exploring Enniskerry while recovering from the previous day’s travel. At a local produce market, we met an older Irish farmer who let us sample nearly everything he was selling. He warned us that the currants would be gross. My mother ate one anyway. He was right.

The strawberries were sweeter than any I had tasted before. They are still the best strawberries I can remember eating. It is funny how many restaurant meals fade together over the years, while fruit from a small market stays with you.

We wandered through the shops and picked up fish and chips to take back to the hotel. It was about as much as we felt like doing after traveling all day to get there.

A DAY IN THE CITY

Our day in Dublin covered a fairly random assortment of interests.

We visited Trinity College and the Old Library. The Long Room felt like stepping backward in time, or into the private library of a fictional person with questionable morals and excellent taste.

We also saw the Book of Kells. I had not understood its significance beforehand and expected it to be something I appreciated mostly because I knew I was supposed to. It was much more impressive than I expected.

Outside, I saw Arnaldo Pomodoro’s Sphere Within Sphere for the first time. A week later, I saw another one at the Vatican Museums in Rome. At the time, I thought this was a very strange coincidence. I did not realize versions of the sculpture were installed in prominent places around the world and I’ve now seen five.

From there, the day became less scholarly. My younger sister got a tattoo in Temple Bar. We visited Dublin’s General Post Office, where damage from the 1916 Easter Rising is still visible. Then we ate at McDonald’s and the Hard Rock Cafe. The food was not the cultural highlight of the visit, but my sister got to add another Hard Rock to her list.

THE DAY THAT NEEDED ANOTHER DAY

We spent another day at Powerscourt Estate and easily could have stayed longer.

The gardens were breathtaking, particularly the Japanese Garden. There are formal terraces, wooded paths, ornamental lakes, and views of the surrounding mountains. It is a large property, but it never felt overly manicured or stuffy.

We had lunch at the café and expected the usual attraction food. Something convenient and acceptable before getting back to the gardens. It ended up being genuinely good.

ANCIENT HISTORY & THE COAST

Rain and gloom are not the worst atmosphere for exploring 5,000-year-old Irish tombs.

Our farthest excursion took us north to Brú na Bóinne in County Meath. The archaeological landscape includes the passage tombs of Newgrange, Knowth, and Dowth, which were constructed around 3200 BC. They are older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids.

We visited Newgrange and Knowth, learning about the sites at the visitor center and during the guided tour. We were able to enter one of the passage tombs. Walking through the narrow stone passage made the age of the site feel much more real.

After leaving the burial mounds, we continued to Malahide Castle. The Talbot family’s history there stretches from the 12th century into the 1970s, with one interruption during the Cromwellian period. The castle had grown with the family over centuries, with rooms, fortifications, and decorative details added until it became the house we toured.

The interior was beautiful and still felt connected to the people who had lived there. It was furnished with family belongings, portraits, and art rather than presented as a series of empty historic rooms. The gardens were not open during our visit, but the scale of the surrounding grounds made it clear that the castle could have filled much more of the day.

On our way back to Enniskerry, we stopped in the fishing village of Howth. The weather had cleared a little, although it was still gray and damp. We walked along the waterfront, ate seafood, and enjoyed the harbor before heading back to the hotel.