Just got back from Ireland with the family in May 2026. Quick notes before I forget everything.
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The pubs. Every pub feels like a living room someone forgot to charge admission for. Ordered a Guinness within about 40 minutes of landing. The pour, the patience, the two-stage tap — it's a ritual, and the pints genuinely do taste better here. I don't care how many times I've heard that claim, it's true.
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Dublin is compact in the best way. We covered a huge amount of ground on foot. Trinity College, the Book of Kells, Grafton Street, St. Stephen's Green, Temple Bar — all within a sensible walk of each other. Coming from a North American city mindset, the density of interesting things per square kilometer is almost disorienting.
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The coast. Took a day out to the Cliffs of Moher and the Aran Islands. The cliffs are exactly as advertised. Standing at the edge with the Atlantic hammering the rocks 700 feet below — it's one of those places that makes you feel appropriately small. The Aran Islands felt like stepping backward in time by about 400 years, in the best way.
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The history is everywhere and taken seriously. The museum coverage of the Irish Famine, the 1916 Rising, and independence was excellent — rigorous, honest, and obviously still very much alive in the national consciousness. I kept drawing parallels to other colonial histories I've read and written about. The resilience embedded in Irish identity feels similar to what I noticed in South Korea — a people who've been pushed around by larger powers and emerged with an almost defiant cultural pride.
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Galway. My favorite city of the trip. Small enough to feel manageable, lively enough to feel electric. The Saturday market on Saturdays is excellent. The session music spilling out of every other pub door on Quay Street is exactly the cliché that turns out to be completely accurate.
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Transportation. Trains between Dublin and Galway: fine, scenic, affordable. Within rural areas: rent a car, full stop. The roads are extremely narrow, hedgerows inches from each side mirror, and everyone drives with a casual confidence that I can only describe as terrifying until you realize it's the only rational response to the infrastructure.
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Food. Irish food has quietly undergone a serious upgrade. Seafood chowder, brown bread, fish and chips — the classics are still the classics for a reason. But the restaurant scene in Dublin and Galway is genuinely strong, with a lot of local sourcing and smart cooking. The full Irish breakfast remains a national institution and should be protected by law.
Stay curious, y'all.