To Dublin for the Trip Home

It wasn’t a long drive to Dublin even though we took the back roads.  Keep in mind that the entire island of Ireland is about the size of Indiana and the Republic of Ireland is just slightly larger than West Virginia.  In any case as we headed south from the town of Roscommon we started thinking about stopping along the way for a break and a bit to eat.

Then we spotted this big yellow hotel, restaurant and bar along N61 just south of town.  What happened to the “H” on the sign over the door?  We noted that this 30 room hotel and restaurant was very busy…obviously a popular place. 

We were lucky to get a table.  The bar and restaurant area at Hannon’s was packed!  We also noted a large wedding party forming up in the lobby area.

For once, we didn’t drink any beer!  It was all about coffee, lattes and hot chocolate… Coffee (2.30E/$2.75 US); Latte (2.50E/$3.00 US); Hot Chocolate (2.95E/$3.55 US)

We stuck to appetizers and ‘light’ dining items from Hannon’s menu.  This was the fried calamari with little salad on the side. (6.95E/$8.35 US) It was very tasty indeed…

Another option on our table was this nice offering of spicy Chili Prawns, once again accompanied by a bit of salad. (7.95E/$9.55)

Not everyone wanted protein and lite went out the window after we looked at the dessert menu!  This slice of Gluten Free Carrot Cake was well received. (5.95E/$7.15 US)

Another sweet to grace our table was this nice slice of Lemon Tart. (5.95E/$7.15 US)

This is one of my favorite sweet treats.  This was Hannon’s satisfying version of Apple Crumble! (5.95E/$7.15 US)

Hannon’s was a nice stop for us along the way and the food was pretty good too.  FYI…Hannon’s Hotel, Bar and Restaurant can be found on the Internet at http://www.hannonshotel.com/.

Then we were off down the road headed southeast toward Dublin…

This is something that you don’t see every day..at least in the USA.  We found ourselves following this handsome old-time horse drawn hearse for a bit.  We managed to capture this photo as we passed this old time final conveyance.

 

Apparently this is one of the services offered through RIP.ie, whose catch phrase is “End of Life Matters”.  Horse drawn hearses must be fairly common in Ireland.  Check out the numerous photos (current and past) at https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=horse+drawn+hearse+roscommon+ireland&qpvt=Horse+drawn+hearse+Roscommon+Ireland&FORM=IGRE.  Only a portion of these photos are of hearses. 

Moving south along N61, I suddenly stopped and did a U-turn!  I was sure that this home had once been a railroad depot… It had all the architectural ‘earmarks’ and it was adjacent to railroad tracks so I had to take a closer look.

This is a view of the track headed north toward Roscommon.  It turned out that this building was the old Knockcroghery Railroad Depot.  It was built back in 1860 on the Mayo Branch of the Midlands and Great Western Railroad.  The last rail service to any Midlands and Great Western Railroad depot was in 1985.

Notes: 

·         In the 1600s, a siege was laid to a nearby castle.  The O’Kelly chief and clan resisted and for their defiance they were taken to “Creggan” (a nearby stony hill) and hanged.  To mark this event, the name of the village was changed to ‘Cnoc na Crocaire’, the Hill of the Hangings.  It’s been Anglicized to read Knockcroghery. 

·         This little village has seen some history!  In the early hours of a June morning in 1921, the Black and Tans set the village on fire.  It was an act of vengeance for the killing of a British general 2 days earlier.  British intelligence agents mistakenly believed that the killers had come from Knockcroghery.

·         FYI…the Black and Tans were a force of Temporary Constables recruited to assist the Royal Irish Constabulary during the Irish War of Independence.  This force, which was infamous for its attacks on civilians and their property, was the brainchild of Winston Churchill.

As we approached the Dublin metropolitan area, the storm clouds built up and it was really a downpour for quite a while.

From all nasty things, some positives often appear.  Laurie captured a photo of this double rainbow as we neared our hotel and Dublin’s International Airport. 

This is a look at our hotel’s bar and restaurant.

 

I’d booked our rooms in the Dublin Airport Hilton Hotel.  It was close to the airport, I could drop off our rental car the night before and there was shuttle service available for our flight the next morning. (I also picked up points for a future stay at a Hilton property)  

We did indulge in a couple of pints, plus we really enjoyed this big bread board with with olives, fennel infused Irish rapeseed oil, hummus, almond and tomato dip and whipped butter. (7.00E/$8.40 US) I’m hungry just looking at it again! 

One entrée on our table was the Manor Farm Corn-fed 1/2 Chicken, roast carrots, leeks and chicken jus. (18.00E/$21.60 US)

Of course we had to have Fish and Chips one more time!  These were Howth Beer Battered Fish and Chips with mint peas and tartar sauce. (17.00E/$20.40 US)

This luscious looking snack appears to be beef short ribs but I couldn’t identify it from the current menu.  I do know that although this wasn’t the best meal that we had in Ireland, it was very satisfying and well presented.

FYI…Our rooms at the Dublin Airport Hilton were nice but fairly standard.  The cost per room was about 160.60 including a 10% VAT tax. ($192.70 US) This hotel’s website can be found at http://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/ireland/hilton-dublin-airport-DUBAPHI/index.html.

  

…and the next morning it was a short van ride to the Dublin International Airport.  In 2017, this airport served 29,500,000 passengers, its busiest year on record.  I was a bit surprised to discover that it was ‘only’ the 14^th busiest airport in Europe! 

As you might expect, the airport was busy with early morning departures.  Really, don’t most airports look the same in the passenger areas?

Five of the top 10 passenger destinations from Dublin are in England.  Scotland is #9 on the list and New York City is #8.

…and here was our view of our cabin from our seats on our American Airlines flight back to the USA.

From what I could determine, 5 airlines have direct flights to and from Dublin from the USA.  They are American, United, Delta, Aer Lingus and Ethiopian Airlines.  FYI…the latter airline serves Los Angeles. 

Laurie took this photo of the Irish countryside as we flew west toward our destination in Philadelphia.  From Philadelphia, we took another plane directly to Knoxville.

...and I really liked this photo of the wing with the countryside in the distance.  So long Ireland!

Year around, only New York JFK, Newark, Philadelphia and Los Angles have direct service to Dublin.  I would have thought that Boston and Chicago O’Hare, with their significant Irish immigrant populations, would be on the year around list…but they’re only seasonal destinations.

Well…that’s it for our Scotland and Ireland adventures.  We had a great trip and I hope that you enjoyed my lengthy series of posts about our trip!

Thanks for stopping by and following along…

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave