Traveling to Ireland had been our tentative plan in 2020 before the pandemic. Since then, we had opted for a few different destinations, but this past fall, we finally followed through on a two week visit to Ireland. We decided this was the year for this long awaited trip as my wife’s football team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, were playing a game in Dublin. In our realm of travel planning, that made for a good enough reason.

This was a vacation we were very much looking forward to. The past year had been a bit of a struggle in all kinds of ways, so we decided to be indulgent in a few spots including upgrading to first class for the flight overseas. On account of lots of time spent on planes in 2024 and some points sitting around, we got our vacation started in style at 37,000 feet with Champagne, lots of room to stretch out, some great good, and amazing views. Nowhere near Dublin yet, but the vacation was already well underway!

When we landed, we were remarkably fresh on account of the lay flat beds and a pretty good night of sleep in the air. As we got off the bus from the airport in the centre of Dublin, my wife was excited to have already found a Steelers bar.

After we dropped our bags off at our hotel and sat down for some coffee, we went for a walk through St. Stephen’s Green. It was a perfect day of blue skies and we enjoyed shaking off that little bit of jet lag in such beautiful surroundings.

The setting in the park was idyllic. It was a Friday morning, sometime around 10am, and the park was quiet and peaceful. After the airport and a crowded bus into the city, this felt like a world apart.

The largest question on our first day in Dublin was how long it would take me to have my first Guinness in Ireland. If you guessed 11:00am, you’d be right. We found an open snug in the front window of The Hairy Lemon pub and I discovered that what everyone says is true… Guinness does indeed taste better in Ireland. So much better! I tested this out many times over two weeks.

Not one to stick exclusively to one beer, I decided to try another of Ireland’s famous stouts when we went for a late lunch that first day. I must say, Murphy’s is also delightful.

How to complete a first day in Dublin? We headed to Tallaght Stadium for a derby between Shamrock Rovers FC and the visiting Bohemians. On the train on the way there we were in a car with a lot of the Bohemians fans – they came adorned with drums, lots of open liquor, and as we discovered multiple times during the match, plenty of concealed flares and fireworks. The atmosphere inside the stadium was wonderful with the home and visiting fans trying to drown out each other.

We were treated to an exciting match with lots of chances on goal for both sides. As time went on, Shamrock Rovers took more control of the play and sent all of the home fans away happy with a 2-1 win.

We had a purposefully slow day planned for Saturday. Coffee and pastries followed by a lot more sleep started our day before we headed to Trinity College for a tour of the campus. An amazing tour guide regaled us with stories of the history of the university, its buildings, and its students.

The highlight for us was to visit the Old Library and the Long Room. Even though about 80% of the books had already been removed for a restoration initiative, this space was stunning and almost made me wish I could be a student again. After exploring the library, we were able to visit and see the Book of Kells and learn about the symbolism and artistry in the 1,200 year old manuscript. This was a definite highlight of our trip.

Much like in my university days after long hours in a library, we headed to a pub for drink before dinner. I took the opportunity to try my namesake whiskey and I must say, with no bias, I quite liked it!

I expect Dublin is busy and overrun at most times of the year. While we were visiting, it was pretty obvious that a lot of the crowd was in town for the football game on Sunday. We didn’t spend much time in and around the Temple Bar area, but on our way to dinner we walked through the area and got a nice, perfectly dosed taste of the colour of the area.

Speaking of dinner, we picked Gallagher’s Boxty House because it made both of us very excited – gluten free boxty for my wife, and offerings of Jack Smyth craft ales for me. Put those together with a delicious spice bag and we had an incredible meal.

Sunday morning dawned and the threat of rain never really materialized more than a few very scattered and short-lived showers. This was my wife’s day to celebrate all things Steelers fandom related so we made our way to a Steelers pre-game rally where we got to meet their mascot, Steely McBeam who is arguably the worst mascot in professional sports. But, as you can tell from my face, I’m a sucker for any mascot meeting!

After the rally we were off to Croke Park for the game. Just inside the stadium we were both excited for the game. I love the feeling inside a stadium an hour or so before kickoff.

You can see the skies clearing away for a perfect afternoon. We may have been in the nose-bleed seats, but our seat mates were all incredible. The people around us were all from Ireland or Northern Ireland and were intrigued to see an American football game and as the game went on they were happy to have two knowledgeable football fans to help explain some of the finer points of the game as it went along.

A few rows behind us was the family of Steelers backup offensive tackle Spencer Anderson. A number of times he checked into the game when the Steelers opted to have an extra offensive lineman in for a play. Each time, the referee over the stadium microphone would say “#74 reporting eligible, 74 is eligible” and his family behind us would go crazy cheering. As the game went on, this kept happening and the people around us had no idea what was going on so turned to me for an explanation…. Getting to explain eligible receivers and offensive line formations to people watching their first football game was a hoot and everyone around us was leaning in to hear me explain why his family was losing their minds every time he came into the game. Fun times!

The game itself had it all… lots of huge plays – long touchdowns, turnovers, turnovers overturned on video review, big hits. Even without my wife’s cheering interests, we found this a thoroughly entertaining game. There was so much going on throughout the game – a house band, Clada, performing traditional Irish music with a modern twist, commercial break crowd singalongs (“Zombie” by the Cranberries was easily the most fun)… it was just a great day from start to finish.

The Steelers jumped out to what looked like a safe lead going up a couple of touchdowns to the utter joy of my wife and all of the terrible town waving Pittsburgh fans. A couple of questionable decisions by the Steelers let Minnesota back in the game for a tense 4th quarter finish with the Steelers holding on for a 24-21 win.

We left Dublin for a visit to Belfast, and then explorations to the west and north of Ireland before making our way back to the city for a quick stop before the flight home. On our last day we decided to spend it pub hopping and doing some whiskey tastings (this is one of many, many reasons I know I married the right person). Before hitting our first pub, we found a little cafe (“Goose on the Loose”) that did a number of gluten free breakfast items and also made a traditional Irish breakfast. As I hadn’t had one of these on the trip, I decided this was the best way to prepare for a day of whiskey.

At the ripe hour of 10:30am, we took up residence in Devitt’s Pub. They are known for the extensive whiskey collection and my wife, ever the planner, grabbed a menu and began plotting which whiskeys they had that were also carried at the airport duty free. We turned the morning into a “what are we going to bring back home” taste test and it could not have been more fun.

This is but a small selection of what the pub carried. We tried and shared many whiskeys on this morning and throughout we played our Ireland Yahtzee championship. My wife is on an unprecedented international losing streak now as I claimed the morning’s game and will be the reigning Yahtzee champion here until we return someday in the future.

Some afternoon music was up next for us and we headed to the Old Storehouse. We had a great time over whiskey sours for my wife and pints of Kilkenny for me along with those addictive Tayo potato chips and some gluten-free fish chowder. The musician was lovely and after hearing us applaud extra loud for his rendition of a Gordon Lightfoot song, he threw in a couple of other Canadian folk classics from Stan Rogers, the Fables, and Ron Hynes. A perfect afternoon all around!

With only some packing left to do for the morning flight the next day, we finished our self organized pub crawl with a final drink at our hotel bar… a Redbreast 12 for my wife and a last pint of Smithwicks for me. As we sipped on these, we reminisced about what a great trip this was and how we have so much we want to see of Ireland…. I expect we’ll be back.