An Ireland & Scotland Journey

By: Samie

Travel Dates: May 27th, 2026
Country: Ireland

Day 2

(Blarney Castle, Seaside Alpacas, Cliffs of Moher, Doolin)

The first full day in Ireland, we awoke in our Airbnb in Cork. The first thing on our agenda for the day was going to be visiting the Blarney Castle. The grounds didn’t open until 9:00, and it was only about a 17 minute drive, so we didn’t have to get a super early jumpstart on the day or rush to get there.

As I mentioned in Day 1, we arrived in Ireland in the middle of a record-setting heatwave. This meant we were wildly unprepared for the intensity of the sun. We had spent a good several hours on a remote island the previous day. Despite applying sunscreen to start the day, I’d left it in my suitcase and wasn’t reunited with it until nearly 6 hours later. As a pale-skinned human being, I was well good and burnt by that point. The only positive to being over-dressed was that the only parts of me that had been exposed to the sun and therefore gotten burnt were my face and a triangular portion of my chest where my quarter zip was open. Luke hadn’t applied any sunscreen because he handles sun much better than I do, so even he got a little burnt.

We had showered in cold water the evening before, which had helped soothe our burns, but we still needed something to keep it under control and help it heal faster so we didn’t look like lobsters for the rest of the trip. We figured we could find some aloe at a pharmacy nearby, so we did end up departing our Airbnb at just after 8:00 so that we could at least experience a little bit of Cork before moving on right away.

We made a short drive that brought us into a little area near a shopping center where we would start by visiting Boots, an Ireland pharmacy, to pick up our aloe vera. We knew it would only be able to travel with us until we left for Edinburgh in a few days, so we tried to find the smallest bottle we could. It took us more time than it probably should have to locate the aloe, but we were successful and excited to have some consistent burn relief!

It just so happened that right across the parking lot was a Costa Coffee, so we swung through there to get our morning coffee fix. It was going to be another hot day, so we both got iced coffees to start our day.

We’d still only experienced a small part of Cork, so we thought we could add one more stop so that we could at least say we had enjoyed a culinary experience here as well. We made our way over to a place called Brackens Bakery.

Just as we expected from a bakery, there were so many amazing and delectable options! It would’ve been easy to leave with an entire suitcase of sweets, but we used our self control to limit ourselves to just a few. We opted for a chocolate eclair, a cream and strawberry filled pastry, a slice of tiramisu, and a friendly gentleman customer also recommended a must-try breakfast sandwich to Luke, so he got one of those as well.

By the time we left the bakery, it was a little after 9:00 already, but it was only about a 10 minute drive to Blarney Castle from Brackens Bakery, so we weren’t too worried. We also hadn’t felt like we needed to be there at exactly opening time, so it was all good.

We made it the Blarney Castle grounds and found a parking spot easily enough. The parking lot hadn’t completely filled up yet, so that was a good sign! We’d finished most of our coffee, but we hadn’t much of a chance to enjoy our sweets from the bakery yet, so we sat in our car for a little bit to sample some baked goods.

We’d made sure to generously apply aloe and sunscreen this morning, so when were all fueled up, we were already good to go and head to the castle ground entrance right away. We had attempted to purchase tickets online but were unsuccessful, so we ended up buying them at the gate. It was actually pretty smooth and easy, probably helped by getting there fairly early.

We were through the gates and making our way toward the castle just before 9:30! A lot of people were stopping to take their pictures before getting to the castle, but I thought we could do ours when it was time to leave the castle. I wanted to get up and start making our way to the Blarney Stone right away before we got stuck behind the groups of people entering. That may sound rude, but the groups entering appeared to be groups of people within the happily retired age range and therefor moved at a retired pace. They had obviously earned and put in the time to move at this pace, but we moved at a faster pace, so wanted to be able to move at that pace and not be forced to move at their pace.

As we got closer to the castle, the melodic sound of bagpipes reached our ears! It truly felt like we were walking into a completely different time period or entering a fantasy land that you see in movies/shows or read about in books. It felt like we were being fully transported!

We hustled our way up to where you start making the climb up to the top of the castle where you could kiss the Blarney Stone. Thanks to our hustle, there really wasn’t much of a line, and we were able to head into the castle right away. While we were eager to get to the top, we also wanted to make sure we explored and enjoyed the castle on the way up.

It was so amazing to be walking through a castle that had been built nearly 600 years ago and was still standing with some clear visibility as to what it might have looked like when it was an active stronghold. However, walking through the threshold, the first thing that hits you isn’t the history, it’s how massive the stone walls actually are! You quickly realize this wasn’t built as a cozy castle home, it was in fact a 15th century fortress designed to keep people out. As we looked up, we could see different “murder holes” above the entrance (which we actually learned more about on the way back down). These were used to drop boiling oil or worse on unwelcome guests!

My favorite bit of trivia? When rival forces finally blew a hole in the wall with cannons in 1646, they stormed the castle expecting a massive battle. Instead, they found just two old caretakers. The entire garrison had slipped away through a secrete network of underground tunnels called the Badger’s Caves, allegedly dumping their gold into the lake on the way out. Walking through the hollowed out stone shell today, you can practically feel the ghosts of the dramatic escape!

We knew we were about to be dangled out over the top of the castle in order to kiss the Blarney Stone, but I still the scariest part was actually ascending the extremely steep, narrow, and winding staircase up to the top of the castle. Obviously, the reason behind why these stairs were built this way was logical as a practical defense mechanism against invaders and for giving the defenders a massive advantage. If the enemy managed to breach the outer walls, these staircases were the ultimate bottleneck.

They were intentionally engineered to spiral clockwise as you go up because most soldiers were right-handed. An attacking enemy would have to climb up the stairs, which meant their sword arm would be trapped against the inside central stone pillar. Meanwhile the defending soldier above would have their right arm free to swing down into the open space of the stairwell.

The steps, also known as “trip steps”, were also purposely built to be uneven heights and depths. The defending soldiers learned and knew the rhythm of their own steps by heart. However, an invading soldier running up the dark stairwell in heavy armor would easily trip over an unexpectedly high or shallow step, making them an easy target.

Finally, the staircases are only wide enough for one person at a time. This completely neutralized the advantage of a larger attacking army. It didn’t matter if there were 500 soldiers outside. They could only attack the defenders one by one in a cramped, dark tube.

While all of these things made it such a great defensive battlement, it made it an incredibly tricky and hazardous climb for us tourists. Even with the rope handrail, I was constantly worried about slipping on a stair and not only falling and making the world’s least graceful descent, but also taking out everyone trying the climb up behind me with me!

Fortunately, we made it up without tripping or falling or accidentally harming everyone happily ascending behind us! Despite heading straight the the Blarney Stone and being within the first groups to arrive, there was still a decent line to get to the stone itself. We stood and baked in the sun for about 5 minutes before we were at the front of the line and truly facing what we were about to do!

In order to kiss the stone, you have to lie on your back and lean completely backward out over a 90 foot drop. I’m not afraid of heights generally speaking, but my body was starting to tell me that what we were about to do actually went against every natural human instinct. However, we’d made it this far and didn’t come all this way to NOT kiss the Blarney Stone! We would take all the good luck we could after all!

I was up first, and Luke was on camera duty. I sat and inched my way back. I followed the guide’s instructions to scoot back and as I leaned back to grab the two hand bars behind me. He also guided Luke over to where he would get a better view for pictures and videos, so he ended up stepping over to the left of me instead of the right. As I started to pull myself out over the lip of the castle, the guide supported me near my waist and under my back. I leaned down as far as my body would let me before planting a smooch on the stone. The flash of the professional camera posted up top went off, then I was being pulled back up to safety, and it was all over!

Then it was Luke’s turn, so we switched places, and the process was repeated for him. He also planted one on the stone before being pulled back up safely. We both did it, and we both survived! Now it was time to make our way back down the castle, finish checking it out, and then get to explore the castle grounds.

Since we had gotten our Blarney Stone kiss done right away, it was much more leisurely heading back down. There were also less people going down, so I felt less like I was going to become a victim of the “trip stairs” and take other unsuspecting tourists down with me. That was nice.

We got to check out a few more offshoot rooms. Some of them had extremely narrow doorways that we had to squeeze through, which almost made it feel more like cave spelunking than castle exploration. We also got a closer look at some of the “murder holes” since we were now in the position to be in the place of the castle’s defenders looking down on the people just entering the castle taking the place of where the fatally surprised attackers would’ve been.

By the time we made our way out the exit part of the castle, the line of people waiting to climb up to the Blarney Stone was extremely long! Not only was it all the way down the walkway leading to the castle entrance, but it wrapped around the slope leading up the castle. The wait was at an estimated 45 minutes! Heading straight up to the Blarney Stone was a good call!

We stopped at the little gift stand on the way out to view our pictures and check out a few of the souvenirs. Luke wasn’t interested in his photo, but I liked mine, so we purchased a copy of my professional Blarney Stone kiss photo and then headed out to start exploring the castle grounds.

We got to completely immerse ourselves in the grounds exploration because we didn’t have to worry about our Blarney Stone opportunity because we had done that right away, and our next excursion wasn’t until 1:00pm and about an hour and 20 minute drive there. It was only about 10:00, so we had a good hour and a half to explore!

At the start, that seemed like more than enough time. However, we soon realized that it would’ve been easy to spend a whole afternoon walking around the castle grounds. We didn’t realize just how expansive they were! On top of that, every nook and cranny was extremely intentionally landscaped! It was all stunning, so it was easy to make the most of the time we did have.

We started by walking through the Blarney Castle Poison Garden located right next to the castle itself. They were created with the purpose of educating visitors about the poisonous plants that can be found in the wild but also in the castle’s own garden. It aims to show both the positive and negative aspects of these plants by looking at their various uses, both traditionally and in modern times. The site where the garden stands now may also have once been a similar garden used for medical and culinary purposes during medieval times.

As we continued our walk, we came across an absolutely gorgeous Laburnum Arch/Tunnel. It starts to bloom in late spring, which just so happened to be when we were visiting, and it forms a striking vibrant canopy of cascading golden-yellow flowers. We snapped some beautiful pictures of us there, but the only bummer was the impressive yellow of the blooming flowers really contrasted against the red of my burn, and it made it quite obvious how burnt I was. I guess most of the pictures at the castle showcased by burn, so thank you unexpected heat wave for photobombing all my nice pictures.

As we continued, we came across the Carnivorous Courtyard, filled was some plants that bite and the Witch’s Yew, a big and unusual Western Red Cedar. Posted in front of the cedar tree was a direction sign pointing out different ways that would lead us to different areas of the gardens, including the Blarney House, Himalayan Walk, Jurassic Fern Garden, and Woodland Walk. We decided to start by going to the left, the direction of the Blarney House and Himalayan Walk.

As we walked, we came across all sorts of lovely surprises. First of all, the large, blooming flowers we passed seemed endless! It made everything smell amazing, and made it feel peaceful and magical. We also came across a little carved mushroom, one of many wooden sculptures located in the gardens. Taking a smaller walking path brought us to a gorgeous oriental shelter. It had been marked on our map, just like the mushroom, but we hadn’t been looking for it. The mushroom had been right off the walking path, so it isn’t surprising that we came across it, but coming across the shelter was definitely a lot luckier!

We continued our walk through the Himalayan Valley until we came up to the Blarney House. It was way larger than we’d expected it to be! The property fence only allowed us to get so close. There are tours that can be taken of the mansion, but the tours don’t open for the season until June 1st, so they weren’t an option for us at that time, even if we’d had enough time to take one. Fortunately, the beauty of the outside of the house was enough to capture our attention!

After the Blarney House, we turned and made our way back down the path we had come from so that we could go back and explore the Jurassic Fern Garden. Then we circled around to go past the other side of the Blarney House through the Upper Arboretum and over to the Rock Close. While walking through the Upper Arboretum, we came across the Herbaceous Border & Pergola, a 100-metre-long double herbaceous border, topped off with an 80m rose pergola. It was still considered spring, and the roses don’t bloom until mid-summer, but it was still beautiful with what was already blooming, so I can’t imagine how it continues to transform throughout the summer!

Before getting ready to head back toward the gates that would lead us off the Blarney Castle grounds, we made sure to head back to the large grassy area outside the castle to get the pictures we’d pushed off for later so that we could get to the Blarney Stone right away.

It was a challenge to capture the entire large and looming expanse of the castle as well as us within the same picture, but we made it work!

Finally, we made our way through the gift shop to pick out our souvenirs to honor our trip to this wonderful place. We can only imagine how many visitors come through in the season if it was already so busy at the end of May, but we can also see why it’s such a popular destination. There’s a reason so many people have this stop on their Ireland bucket list itinerary, and we personally think it was absolutely worth the visit! In fact, if we make our way back to Ireland again, we might even make another stop just to explore the gardens!

After exiting the Blarney Castle grounds, there are a couple of shops and gift stores that we had some time to meander through and check out.

We decided to start the drive toward our next excursion destination a little early so that we could give ourselves some wiggle room in case we got lost or had to wait for passing cars as we got further away from the already narrow two-lane roads and into the actual Irish country roads.

We got a little confused trying to get back to the parking lot where our car was after visiting the last store outside the grounds. Fortunately, a very kind local opened the gate through what must’ve been his yard or property and then back out the other side which lead right to the parking lot!

Once we got back to our car, we polished off the remaining bakery pastries from that morning before officially hitting the road.

As we got closer to the destination, we came across the first limited space driving obstacle. It was a long and narrow bridge across a wide river. You have to look all the way across to the other side to see if there is another car because there isn’t enough room for two vehicles to be on the bridge at the same time. There wasn’t another vehicle when we started across. Another vehicle did pull up as we were nearing the other side. There are a few wider spots across the bridge where you can pull off to the side if you happen across another car while you’re crossing, but since we were already almost across, the car waited until we were on the other side before taking their turn.

Once across the bridge, the road remained narrow. We had known we were heading out into the Irish countryside for this next destination, so we thought we had mentally prepared for this. However, no amount of mental preparation can really prepare you for one-lane that are supposed to work as two-lane Irish roads with uncomfortably high speed limits! We had watched videos on what to do on these kind of roads and noted the pull-outs when we passed them that were mentioned in these videos so that we knew the closest one if we did come face to face with another driver.

Fortunately, it only happened once or twice, and Luke handled it like an expert! Because of where our adventure was located, you actually can’t fully get there by vehicle. Parking instructions are included with your ticket purchase, so we found where we were supposed to park our car and began the uphill 10-15 minute walk to the final location. We’d ended up timing it nearly perfectly and were walking up for our Seaside Alpacas tour at just before 1:00!

Our Seaside Alpacas tour was one of the things I was most looking forward to when booking our trip! When we were first researching things in Ireland to put together our itinerary, I just so happened across a video about this experience as an Instagram reel. I was immediately sold and looked into being able to make it work with our road trip. Fortunately, it fit right in between the Blarney Castle and the Cliffs of Moher, so I booked those tickets so fast!

What I had seen in the video is that we would be getting to take an alpaca for a walk down to the nearby beach. However, the experience ended up being so much more than just that!

First of all, we met with the young lady that would be serving as our guide for the day. She lead us over to the alpaca enclosure to meet the alpacas and give us a little background information. We learned that there are two main breeds of alpacas. The most common type of alpaca is the Huacaya Alpaca. The Huacaya Alpaca makes up about 85-90% of the total alpaca population. They are the fluffy teddy bear looking alpacas. The other kind is the Suri Alpaca. The Suri Alpaca only makes up about 10% of the total population. They have fleece that is long, silky, and dreadlock like.

The Huacaya Alpacas had just gotten their annual wool shearing, just in time for this heat wave, so instead of seeing them all fluffy, we got to see them freshly shaved! The farm did have a couple of Suri Alpacas despite how rare they are, and they can be sheared every other year, so the Suri Alpacas were the only ones that kept their long fur for our visit.

During the summer months, the tours tend to be more fully booked, but for our tour that day, it was only me, Luke, and one other lady. We got to enjoy a nice intimate group tour, which made the experience even more enjoyable, which didn’t seem possible.

After giving us the low down, our guide grabbed the three alpacas we would be walking with. They have their own walking order, so part of how we decided to choose which alpaca we would be walking with was deciding what order we wanted to walk in. The first alpaca she brought out was a Huacaya Alpaca named Paddington or Paddy, and he liked to be the leader. Luke said he was willing to lead, so he got paired up with Paddy. I knew I would want to be next so that I could walk behind Luke, so I would be getting the next alpaca she brought out. She lead out the only male (the females are kept in another area that we would end up walking by on our beach walk) Suri Alpaca named Sunny. The final alpaca preferred to take up the rear. He was another Huacaya Alpaca named Chocolate Cream Sprinkles, but they call him Choco.

After being handed the leads and getting acquainted with our alpacas, it was time to begin our journey down to the beach! The nice part about walking alpacas is that we have to take it at their pace, and their pace isn’t very fast. We would be especially grateful for that going back uphill! It was about a 20 minute walk down to the beach, and it was an absolutely gorgeous day! Still pretty warm, but there was a nice breeze and more cloud coverage that left it seeming much more manageable.

All the way down, we got to enjoy the company of our alpacas, as well as the absolutely astounding views! We had a great view of the Rabbit Islands. No, they aren’t overflowing with the bouncy critters. From the top, the islands resemble a rabbit head. We also got a nice lookout over the beautiful Celtic Sea! Our guide said we could stroke their necks (they would pull away if they weren’t into it) and lean in for selfies. We didn’t have to worry about getting spit on. Llamas are the spitters, not alpacas! Alpacas only spit at each other as a way of communicating warning.

In all the pictures of Sunny and myself, I am smiling from ear to ear, looking as happy as can be. In fact, you’ll notice a pattern that any time an animal is involved, I am absolutely glowing. I enjoy doing other things too, don’t get me wrong! But I am animal person through and through, and you can just tell in any pictures taken when I’m with just about any kind of creature.

We arrived at the beach and were able to drop the leads to let the alpacas do their own thing. Sometimes they’ll go for a little dip, but because of the wind, the waves were a little too high, so they kind of just wandered around in the shallows instead. They seemed content inhaling the sea breeze and dipping their toes in the water, so to speak. Our guide said that sometimes they will snack on the seaweed on the rocks, but I guess they weren’t feeling that snacky. To be fair, my Sunny had paused to snack on grass several times on the way down, so I’m not surprised he wasn’t that hungry.

While the alpacas enjoyed their beach time, I made the most of it as well. I waded just far enough into the water for the waves to splash the dirt off the top of my boots. There’s something innately peaceful about watching a bubbling wave gently wash over your toes, even if your toes are safe and dry in some waterproof boots. I also enjoyed walking the beach and seeing how many seashells there were scattered about! It was very tempting not to pocket some seashells or one of the stunning beach rocks, but they belonged here. They were not mine to take.

The very nice lady on the tour with us offered to snap some pictures of together with the alpacas, and they all happened to be huddled together in a group, so we were able to get pictures with all three of them! You can almost see the personality shining through in each of their little faces in the photos.

After about 10 minutes on the beach, it was time the make the trek back up. This is where we were very grateful the alpacas were setting the nice and slow pace because it was a pretty steep climb. Choco had stopped to use the bathroom at least 3-4 separate times between the walk down and back up, whereas Sunny and Paddy hadn’t stopped to use the bathroom even once. This mean we spent a decent amount of time waiting for Choco. Fortunately, we got to use this time as a break to catch our breath a little bit.

We’d also passed the female enclosure going both ways where we were able to spot Sunny’s sister and a heavily pregnant alpaca that was due any day now! Our guide mentioned how heat can often induce labor, so she was surprised the alpaca hadn’t popped in these recent hot days!

The walk down had taken us just under 20 minutes, but the trip back up ended up taking us closer to 25 minutes, so we didn’t slow down that much on the way back to the top of the hill!

After arriving back up at the main house and alpaca enclosure, our guide took the leads off our walking buddies and brought them back inside the enclosure with the other alpacas. Then, we had a chance to feed the alpacas!

She placed a big bowl filled with pellets off to the side for us to grab handfuls to feed them with. They knew it was feeding time and very quickly crowded the gate to get as close to us as they could, knowing we would be handing out the food.

There was the cutest little baby alpaca that I was intent on feeding. However, it was surprisingly challenging to get to him. Because he was just a baby, he had a much shorter neck, which made it a lot easier for the adult and equally hungry alpacas to swoop in and scoop up the food before he could get any. Fortunately, I was able to make it work and got to feed the adorable little guy and snap some pictures of his unfairly cute face.

Once the pellets were all gone, we made our way around the house to back yard where some snacks and tea had been set out for us to enjoy while our guide set up the wool demonstration just inside, in a room behind a set of sliding glass doors. For snacks, we got to enjoy a few different things including chips and cheese, as well as a jar of local honey. We dipped some of the snacks in the honey and added some to our tea. A thick set of clouds had rolled in, and the breeze had really picked up, so it had actually gotten a little chilly, especially compared to the temperatures we had been experiencing. So a nice, hot cup of tea was absolutely perfect.

After snacking, we went inside the room and sat on a brown couch to watch the wool demonstration. She walked us through how the wool is collected, how it’s brushed out and special little metal teeth, and finally, how it’s spun into yarn. We got to feel different samples and different wool thicknesses, measured in microns. The smaller the number of microns, the more fine and softer the fiber. It was crazy how soft the finest wool was!

To end our experience, we got to look at a few premade items they had for sale and on display. I found a nice hat I would definitely appreciate during our cold winters, as well as a keychain with some of Sunny’s fur so that I could remember him! They didn’t have one with Paddington’s, otherwise we would have gotten that one too.

The experience was over before we knew it, which was about 3 and a half hours later. It didn’t seem like that much time had passed, but it was absolutely time well spent! When people ask me what my favorite part of our Ireland trip was, this excursion tends to be my answer. I enjoyed every minute of it, and would absolutely support this local farm by doing it again!

Believe it or not, our day wasn’t even close to over yet, despite how much we had already done. However, we hopped back in our car, who we had decided to name Murphy, or Murph, and began the drive to our next designated location, the infamous Cliffs of Moher!

From Seaside Alpacas, it was about a 3 and a half hour drive to the cliffs. Because we left around 3:30, this put us arriving at the Cliffs of Moher around 7:00 that evening. Between parking and buying our ticket, it was closer to 7:30 by the time we were actually making the walk over to the view of the cliffs. Unless you go hiking further, the main visitor part of the cliffs have safety walls up. The rock wall barrier went up to just below my chest, so I could see this being an obstruction for some, but it’s safety precautions far outweigh working around it. There were also plants up near the barrier, so we got to get up close and personal with some cute little snail friends hiding in the plants (rather unsuccessfully), which was also fun!

As we got closer and really got a good look at the cliffs, I could feel myself becoming overwhelmed with emotion and my eyes filling with tears. Part of this could’ve been the violent wind that had somehow managed to roll in that evening, but part of it was definitely that I was here and actually looking at these cliffs. I had imagined being here, in this exact place, for years. Ireland had been a place I’d wanted to visit since at least early high school. And now I was here, seeing it with my own two eyes, and it was hard not to have your breath taken away by it all.

Even with pictures, it’s hard to capture this natural wonder, and nothing is the same as actually being there and experiencing it. I just couldn’t believe it was all real and that this was officially getting crossed off my bucket list.

Because the Cliffs of Moher closed at 9:00, there really weren’t that many people there by the time we got there. It was cooling off fast, and a rainstorm was rolling in, so even though our time was limited to an hour and a half, that ended up being plenty of time. We got to see the cliffs, enjoy the view, and snap some photos with a beautiful sun setting as the background.

Just as we were finishing up and decided to head back to the car, the rain started to come down. Thankfully, we’d grabbed our rain jackets because it had cooled off so much, so our pants and hair got a little wet, but we otherwise were able to stay mostly dry.

After making it back to our car, we plugged in the coordinates to our Airbnb and followed the host instructions to find where we would be staying that night. We’d found a place extremely close to the cliffs so that could enjoy some great views during our time there.

We were nearly as close to the cliffs as we could be without actually being on the cliffs themselves. We couldn’t quite see the cliffs, which was definitely a slight bummer, but for what we were paying, it was still tough to beat!

After successfully finding our Airbnb, unloading our stuff, and taking just a small window of time to actually relax after a day of go, go, go, we were ready to head into the small little nearby town of Doolin for some food!

It was about an 11 minute drive to Doolin, and it was around 9:00 when we left our Airbnb to head that way. Another reel we had come across mentioned a stew in Doolin that was absolutely worth trying after a chilly visit to the Cliffs of Moher. The sun was still setting as we were driving, and we definitely slowed to take some pictures of the golden, glowing light illuminating all the greenery and old buildings of the area.

We arrived in Doolin just after 9:10, had to do a little driving to find a parking spot (one nice thing about having such a small vehicle was not having to worry too much about fitting into tight spaces), walked the main street deciding where we wanted to go, before officially walking in to Gus O’Connor’s Pub, which was really the only place that was still open.

The main part we walked into was quite full and had live music playing. However, we kept walking and were able to find a little separate area on the other side of the building that had open spots, so we nabbed one of those!

By the time we had sat down, it was just after 9:30pm. We didn’t have anyone approach the table, so Luke went up to talk to the bartender, and she informed us that they stopped serving food at 9:30. We had just missed our opportunity to order food, and nowhere else was open. We weren’t really sure what we were going to do.

We decided to start with a drink. We were in an Irish pub after all! We both ordered a pint of Guinness. I’m not much of a beer drinker because I just don’t care for the taste. However, I couldn’t come all the way to Ireland and not try a Guinness! It’s worth noting that at this point in time, I didn’t know there even was a proper way to drink Guinness and definitely didn’t know how to do it, so I drank all of my Guinness, but I can’t say I enjoyed it all that much.

Even though the kitchen was closed, the bartender said we could still get desserts, so we each ordered a dessert to fill our bellies! It wasn’t an official meal, but it was better than nothing. It was quite obvious how empty our bellies were when I was only about a half my beer in and already feeling drunk (and a few of my pictures prove it). Luke had finished his Guinness before our desserts came out and ordered a Beamish to enjoy with our sweets.

Luke got a chocolate brownie with ice cream, and I got there apple & cinnamon crumble that came with custard. We listening to the live music carrying in, the buzz from sipping on our beers, and the incredible flavor from devouring delicious desserts, made tastier when you’re already hungry.

At around 10:00, staff were coming and saying they needed to close this room up and that we were welcome to move into the other room to continue enjoying our evening. However, we were pretty much finished and ready to call it a night after a very full day anyway, so we bid Gus O’Connor Pub adieu and made our way back to Murph so that we could drive back to our Airbnb and enjoy the rest of our night in our cozy space.

It was a very quiet wind down. We enjoyed changing into comfortable pajamas, washing off the sweat, sunscreen, and aloe from the day with a shower, and filling our bellies a little bit more with some of the snacks we had picked up at some point during the day. Then it was time get some sleep and prepare for another adventure-filled day!