Dublin at Easter

The flight gets us into Dublin airport 55 minutes early thanks to vigorous tail winds. Our cabbie takes us ’round Robin Hood’s barn into the city to the Ashling Hotel. Novel and more circuitous route than in the past, but it brings us to the hotel through Phoenix Park , which is bigger than Central Park, 24 miles around, with great fields of daffodils and great herds of deer visible from our road. Pope Francis will hold mass to massive humanity at Croke Park Stadium and at Phoenix Park two days in August. Dublin will be nuts.

The park is not busy as on other, warmer Sundays. Of course it’s still church time on Easter Sunday, plus the cabbie tells us of two major sporting events in the city: Dublin v Galway in Gaelic football, and Dublin v some English team in Rugby. And after our arrival we learn of a downtown parade, large groups and families and traffic stoppage, turning out to watch commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising. And Easter egg hunts and egg rolls all over the city. Hot time in the old town all day, and the evening in Temple Bar will be up for grabs. Best to stay in.

Many stores are closed, but we found a Tesco and bought a couple of SIM cards for our primitive Ireland cell phones. But an hour and a half search and hike on concrete is a little much for us after 19 hours of travel. So it’s back to the hotel to wait for our room to be ready. And of course:

Our favorite law firm of Guinness and Smithwicks, Counselors and Comforters.