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The Irish customs officer in the Dublin airport booth looked my passport over and inquired as to how long I planned to stay on the Emerald Isle.
“One week,” I said.
“For pleasure?” he questioned.
“I hope so,” I replied, hoping he didn’t think I was being a smartass.
He just smiled, stamped the passport and said, “Enjoy.”
Thus began what turned out to be the most enjoyable travel experience I’ve had thus far.
Mitch Kirsner, a longtime friend from Newport News and owner of the music head-shop Fantasy, and I have traded tales of travel over the years ranging from high-time adventures in Amsterdam and drunken stumbles through the streets of New Orleans to biking across fields of hops in the Belgian countryside on the way to an Abbey where monks brew some heavenly ale and jetting to Vancouver just to catch a Tom Waits concert. Ironically, neither of us had ventured to Ireland – an omission that had to be remedied.
Earlier this year I had the pleasure of interviewing two of my travel gurus: Rick Steves and Anthony Bourdain. When I asked Steves which European country he most enjoys when simply vacationing, not working, he didn’t hesitate: “Ireland.” Bourdain, in response to my wanting to know his best overall experience, replied, “A Guinness, 5:00 PM, any pub in Dublin.” It was unanimous.
After a bit of research, I determined a car rental would be imperative to exploring Ireland on an ambitious schedule that would take-in music sessions within the pubs of Galway, Doolin, Dingle and Kilkenny as well as the spectacular scenery the Southwest coast has to offer.
A piece of advice, however, about renting a car in Ireland: travel with one or more friends to split the cost. Because the island nation has the highest accident rate in all of Europe, the collision insurance is more expensive that the base price of the car. We paid roughly $600 US dollars for a week, not to mention $9 per gallon for gas.
As for driving in Ireland, it is a lot of fun, but you have to pay close attention. Except for the few large motorways connecting major cities like Dublin, Cork and Galway, the majority of the roads are narrow, single lane and twisting with curve after curve. There isn’t much shoulder area, either, as walls of stone and hedges border the lanes. Connor Pass, which Steves described as “a little unnerving,” is a shared, one-lane stretch of road cutting across the magnificent Dingle Peninsula with two sections where the mountain wall face nearly squeezes the car off the steep cliff. Oncoming vehicles must backup and wait their turn to “pass.”
Cow and sheep crossings can occur at any moment, too. And to make things all the more interesting, there are signs on poles pointing in every direction towards the next village, down a lane to B&Bs and even the town undertaker’s office, but no signage informing what street you’re on. You either have to guess correctly and use a map, or ask a local. Speaking of which, I must say the people of Ireland are the most friendly I’ve encountered anywhere. And that made the trip memorable.
When Mitch and I arrived in Dublin, we immediately drove our rented Nissan compact car coast to coast to Galway in three hours. We had only one night planned for Galway and the medieval city was in the midst of its 2011 Galway Sessions, a week-long festival taking place in music halls, churches, museums and pubs. The Sessions is an annual event shared with its sister city Sterling, in Scotland. Where there is an admission charge for big named Celtic acts like Dervish and The Kinlochard Ceilidh Band, most of the session entertainment is free and features a gathering of local musicians filling the pubs, most notably Tigh Neachtain, The King’s Head, Monroe’s Tavern and The Quay’s.
Sessions are when local musicians come in to town pubs and essentially engage in a jam session of traditional Irish music. These are generally lively jigs and reels played on fiddle, accordion, banjo, guitar, whistles, uillean pipes and bodhran (percussion). The musicians often gather around one table or booth in the center or corner of a pub and patrons circle around to revel in the swirling sound.
One aspect of the pub experience in Ireland caught me off-guard. In a week’s time, I wandered into nearly 100 pubs. What I found was the same beer selection across the board and few Irish-brewed options: Guinness, Smithwick’s, Heineken, Carlsberg, Budweiser and/or Coors Light and a pub cider. Murphy’s and Beamish stouts were a rare find.
As the title of the article suggests, Mitch and I were on a road trip, but never did we drive once we entered a town and became publicans for hours on end. In Ireland, we were warned, consuming just one pint of beer puts you in the legally drunk category and police (garde) have been cracking down with roadblocks. That’s probably a good thing as it seemed to me Ireland is a nation of heavy drinkers.
After our first day of drinking our way through jetlag, Mitch and I made way for Doolin. The surrounding countryside is famous for being the home of many of Ireland’s finest traditional musicians and they were out in force in the seaside town’s three main pubs: McGann’s, O’Connor’s and McDermett’s. In the process of closing down McGann’s Pub for the night, we were fortunate to catch singer Geraldine McGowan, her brother Shay on guitar, and banjo player Kevin Griffin, said to have once been considered the best picker in all the country. The display of musicianship was impressive and the vocal crowd was enthusiastically supportive.
On the way to Doolin, rather than cross the massive rocky territory called The Burren, we skirted its edge along the coastline for scenic views of Galway Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, meandering by thatched roof homes, burial sites dotted with stone Celtic Crosses, castles and ruins. Just beyond the southern side of Doolin are the Cliffs of Mohr. The Cliffs are certainly worth a brief visit for a view of their magnificent vertical drop to the crashing waves and rocks below. 

Between Doolin and Dingle we found lush countryside and numerous picturesque towns like Adaire. Everything we Americans dream of when we think of the classic enchanting Irish countryside and breathtaking coast is found on the Dingle Peninsula. The mountains spill onto the sea in a dramatic way at the western tip known as Slea Head, with views of the Blasket Islands in the distance and stone huts called Beehives dating back to Neolithic times and early Christian settlements. We even happened upon a microbrewery on the northern side of the peninsula called Tig Bric’s Pub. They brew a cask-aged brown ale that’s pretty good.
Where the Dingle Peninsula was the highlight of our driving portion of the trip, the charming town of Dingle equaled the experience with its brightly colored buildings, gourmet local seafood selections and music-infused pubs. On a Sunday night at the Dingle Bay Hotel Pub we were treated with a unbelievable performance by local uillean piper and recording artist Eoin Duignan, who was accompanied by a multi-string instrumentalist and a fiddle player name Philip, whom I had seen perform an hour before in a moving session at O’Grady’s Marina Inn Pub. Several locals at O’Grady’s sang nationalist ballads that spoke of their Irish pride but also lamented that so many of their countrymen had immigrated to America to escape the hardships during troubled times.