Wild Weekend in Dublin

Wild Weekend in Dublin

My gift to John for his 60^th birthday was to celebrate this memorable occasion with an Irish flair and to take in St Patrick’s Day with its entire splendor. In other words…a three-day party!

The signs were there on the aircraft flying over to the Emerald Isle; lots of green and everyone pumped up with the air of anticipation. It was a bit like going to a final of Crusaders rugby game.

We were booked into a great hotel ‘The Shelbourne’ in a perfect location with grand bars and close to the action. It’s a pity the bed was over-plumped and the pillows only fit for Irish giants.

Now, as for the next 72 hours, it was just a blur.

The Highlights:

Day One. Dinner at that well know Lebanese restaurant ‘The Cedar Tree’ where John made the mother of all faux-pas. When asking the owner if the shaky, doddery waiter who had served us a couple of years back, when dining with our friends the Cockcrofts, was still above ground, only to be served thirty seconds later by this same doddery old fart! Oh dear. It has to be said that John was very good at disaster recovery. Impressive!

Post dinner drinks at The Foggy Dew.

Day Two. John’s BIG DAY of the big SIX O!

We started with a huge Irish brekkie including monstrous wedges of the famous black and white puddings.

We followed this near death experience with a feeble attempt to explore the sights but were constantly distracted by the green throng being sucked into the local pubs. It was raining, so that was our excuse. The queue to see The Book of Kells would have left us drenched so we abandoned that to head off down to The Brazen Head, where by 11.30am the Guinness was flowing like it was the last day on earth. Hoards of small green persons (not leprechauns) poured through the door and mingled with the increasingly intoxicated patrons. The mood was buoyant and getting higher all the time as the German group near us descended into drinking songs and we all joined in. Yah. It was overwhelming.

We left there and crawled around the other Dublin pubs like O’Neil’s and Donoghues that were swelling with partygoers.

To finish off this special day we dined at an enormous French Bistro ‘Café en Seine’ which is packed to the rafters with French décor and we sipped our French Champagne into the wee hours.

Day Three. The day arrived in a riot of green and orange. It took me a wee while to realize that the little green grassy masses tucked or pinned on to the staff at the hotel were fresh shamrocks. Cute.

After another Irish breakfast, five hundred thousand others and we couldn’t wait to hit the streets to take in the parade and general mayhem. We found our spot, enjoyed watching the antics of Irish teenagers in some sort of mating ritual and harassing the Garda by drinking banned alcohol and climbing up on to restricted fences. The parade was grand but it did bring back memories of old street marches of the past with pipe bands and garish floats.

Then into The Foggy Dew and we quickly became drinking buddies with our new Irish friend Marcus and his German friends. Lots of shenanigans then off to ‘Head for the Border’, another bar, to view the Ireland vs. England, six nations rugby battle. When we said we were New Zealanders the response for the Irish patrons around us was ‘ R E S P E C T’. That makes you feel good being a Kiwi. Thanks All Blacks.

Well, as you can see it was a fantastic three-day break and well worth repeating.

Now we are back in London to a more normal and liver friendly existence.