Celtic Charms: A Traveler's Guide to Ireland
Written by Lila Mabanta
I’m always one for a holiday, because they are great at making the average day feel not-as-average. Getting into the spirit of a holiday can always be a fun way of romanticizing life. I try to stay on theme when getting dressed on a holiday (for example, you’ll always see me in pink or red on Valentine’s Day). So, last year, I stayed on theme with St. Patrick’s Day to the extreme… in Ireland. As I’ll always be one of those people who refer to their study abroad experience at any chance they get, I’m going to tell you all about the fun, and not so fun, parts of my week-long trip throughout Ireland, which ended in Dublin for St. Paddy’s (not Patty’s) Day.
If you’re interested in planning a trip to the homeland of Saint Patrick and all his leprechauns (not to mention Niall Horan, Hozier, Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan, Dermot Kennedy, and Saoirse Ronan, too), or just like to learn about traveling in general, read on for my experience-based guide.
This time last year, I ventured on a 10-day trip from London, throughout Scotland and the Republic of Ireland, with my roommate (if you’ve been here for my other articles–you probably expected that by now). Scotland, I’ll tell the tale of another time; the majority of the trip was spent in Ireland–mainly in Galway, Mullingar (if you know, you know), and Dublin. If you’re looking for advice or tips on Northern Ireland, which includes the city of Belfast, I’m unfortunately not your gal, but Niall Horan’s Homecoming: The Road to Mullingar with Lewis Capaldi is a great resource (and if you didn’t understand Mullingar, now you do).
First, how did I get to Ireland? I flew into Dublin Airport, via British Airways, from Glasgow Airport. The flight was an hour and 15 minutes. Once we landed in Dublin, we boarded a train to Galway, because Dublin was set for the end of our trip to align with St. Patrick’s Day. So, we boarded the train via Irish Rail, which was only about 30 euros, and spoiler alert, all the trains in Europe are much better than the ones in the US. Much cleaner, accommodating, and with window views that I don’t see when on the Long Island Railroad. The train from Dublin to Galway was 2 hours and 15 minutes long. The arrival in Galway was at night, so an easy Uber ride later, we arrived at our Airbnb.
This leads me to my next point, where to stay. As a college student, I highly recommend Airbnbs. You can usually find them cheaper than hotels, and give you greater peace of mind than a hostel (not knocking it, just never tried it). Always make sure to book the whole house/place rather than just a room. Also, my roommate and I typically looked for places with one bed, as they were usually always cheaper than a two-bedroom listing, and just shared it. If you’re traveling in a pair, or more, make sure you are very comfortable with them, because it can save you a good amount of money. Additionally, unless there are Airbnbs within the city center that fit your budget, definitely look on the outskirts of the city, as long as the “commute” is manageable by public transportation or taxis/Ubers (or, if you rent a car, but that’s out of my forte).
Our Airbnb was a tiny, adorable loft apartment, located in the Shantalla neighborhood of Galway, about a half-hour walk or 12-minute drive from the city center. The neighborhood had many cute, similar-looking apartment houses, surrounded by a little park. The walk to the city center was pleasant and scenic, as most of these houses were painted very colorfully. If you’re interested, you can find Airbnb's listing here.
Now, when mentioning the walk to the city center, I need to address another important thing–the weather. This mid-March weather was honestly the rainiest and windiest I’ve ever experienced. The temperature was within the 40°F’s, but the rain was harsh. I have a sturdy umbrella that usually doesn’t invert when the wind picks up, but even this umbrella was pretty useless. Luckily, it was just bursts of downpour rather than throughout the whole day, but I would recommend coming prepared. I truly believe that the rainy stereotype we Americans tend to give London is honestly more applicable to Ireland.
Galway, as a city, is beautiful though. It’s quite quaint, it feels more like a big town than an urban city. The buildings are short, colorful, and closely built together, so it feels like a walkable trail along all the buildings. The streets were also decorated with lines of mini flags hung along the buildings zigzagged across. Truly, a very picturesque area, especially when you get up to the Corrib Harbour, where you might recognize the setup of colorful lined-up houses amongst the edge. Spoiler, it was the outro of Ed Sheeran’s Galway Girl music video, and probably the most iconic spot in Galway, called the Long Walk.
The city is filled with many fun shops, a lot of which were gift shops, which is honestly, my biggest travel guilty pleasure. In one Galway gift shop alone, I spent over 100 euros (but it was so worth it). Other shops included Irish wool sweater specific-shops, and local boutiques.
If you’re going to Galway, I recommend going to the Galway City Museum, to learn why the Republic of Ireland is separate from Northern Ireland and isn’t a part of the United Kingdom (hint hint, revolution!). The Galway Cathedral, as well, is a must-see, especially if you’re caught in the rain. Additionally, you’ll end up spending time in Eyre Square, the city’s plaza center that is surrounded by pubs (including O’Connell’s which was also featured in the Galway Girl music video), a shopping mall, and coffee shops.
For food, we had great breakfasts at 56 Central, Revive Cafe, Esquire’s Organic Coffee Shop, and Dela. For dinners, we went to the city’s most famous fish and chips restaurant, McDonagh’s, and, actually an Italian restaurant, La Collina, in southwest Galway near Galway Bay, where I actually saw the big dipper in the sky afterward (the difference in the quality of star visibility is insane).
We had a day trip from Galway as well, on a coach bus tour to the Cliffs of Moher. The coach drove us down Ireland along the west coast, where we saw amazing spots, including Dunguaire Castle, Poulnabrone Dolmen (an interesting rock formation, and the cliffs. We were lucky that we got a good view of the cliffs because often it’s so wet and foggy that the mist completely hides them. However, don’t think that it wasn’t still wet. It was cold, windy, and rainy like continuous thick water vapor in the air, to the point that my entire face was covered in droplets, and my clothes were continually wet for the rest of the day. So, it was amazing and worth it, but, that’s not to say I was totally pleasant the entire time.
Overall, I loved Galway, but it is a pretty small city. We were in Galway from Sunday night to Thursday afternoon, and by the end, we felt like we knew every block of the city’s center. So, I’d recommend maybe two full days, three nights in Galway, instead.
Next on the trip was Mullingar, via Irish Rail. There was a slight debacle in that, that we ended up getting off the train at a nearby stop and praying for a taxi (which we luckily got) to drive us the 30 minutes there (long story short, the train would’ve taken us all across Ireland back to Dublin, just to get on another train to bring us about halfway back, to Mullingar). Now, we stayed in Mullingar for four nights, because we had wanted to do that in Dublin, but during St. Patrick’s Day weekend, staying in Dublin was way over budget. So, we chose Niall Horan’s hometown, about an hour and a half train ride from Dublin, to book an Airbnb instead. And, honestly, it was the most surreal part of the trip.
Mullingar as a whole, is quite small, and not the typical place for tourists to be, until, Niall Horan from One Direction came about. Now, the town is like a little shrine for him–they painted a mural of him (which we took pictures with), have a literal shrine and guest book signage for him at the Greville Arms hotel (you can even find Lewis Capaldi’s written note to him in that guest book), and practically everyone there is somehow connected to him. From the town square to our Airbnb, we had to take a taxi for about 10 minutes. Our Airbnb was in Ladestown next to Lough Ennell Lake and served as the perfect little Irish countryside-living moment. It was the only Airbnb in the Mullingar area… every taxi driver knew it from the moment we said “Airbnb” or our host’s name. You can find it here.
Everything you’d want to do in Mullingar could practically be done in a day trip, but it was nice to have some slowness. When we spent time in Mullingar, not just as a commuter-hub or obsessing over Niall, we walked around and saw many cute and quaint sights. And, FYI, I learnt that Subway (the sandwich shop) is much better in Ireland than America–they actually had faux meat options!
Now, for Dublin. We had two days in Dublin, each a day trip from the Mullingar train station (it was like a prettier LIRR). The first day was on St. Patrick’s Day. You best believe that everyone was dressed in green. The streets were very crowded, but we found our way to a barricade spot for their St. Patrick’s Day parade. The parade was maybe two hours at most, and ironically, didn’t feature any leprechaun costumes, but instead, were mainly different groups of marching band students from American high schools. So, that was honestly pretty unexpected, but it was a very wholesome experience. Like seriously, what is more cool than seeing a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Dublin?
After that, we walked around and tried to find some pubs, but it truly was packed (both from Irish people and lots of Americans also on their spring breaks). We couldn’t do too much sightseeing that day, besides seeing scenes of pure chaos among drunk people in the streets (I was taking pictures of my roommate in front of a pub, and in the corner of the camera, I noticed there was a girl, butt-naked, taking a wee). We found some pubs and got some good cider (don’t hate me, Guinness lovers), and spent a few hours just chillin’ and sippin’. Pro-tip though: you aren’t allowed to drink on the streets, so keep it in the pubs. It was an early end though, to catch the last available train back to Mullingar.
We went back to Dublin the next day, for a much longer, sightseeing day. I recommend starting in St. Stephen’s Green Park, for some bird watching along the lake (which honestly became one of my favorite activities while abroad). After, you need to go to the Little Museum of Dublin, which was a greatly entertaining and funny experience that explained the history of Dublin, and U2. For a snack, The Rolling Donut has the best donuts I’ve ever had, that are actually made from sourdough. Just the thought of them makes my mouth water–so thick, bready, and such fun and interesting flavors.
After that (my stomach just growled), you should simply walk through the city and explore. Dublin, as you might expect, is much bigger than Galway, and feels much more like your typical city–some call it a little London. Some sightseeing spots include the Ha’penny Bridge, and the iconic Temple Bar. We didn’t go in but snatched many pictures of its red exterior. Afterwards, probably the most touristy thing, the Guinness Storehouse Experience.
The Guinness Storehouse is one of those experiences that you just have to do if you’re in Dublin for the first time. It’s like going to New York City and not going to Times Square. Like Times Square though, most local Dubliners are not there. It was actually (a bit to my horror) packed with American college students, all with the same St. Patrick’s Day spring break idea (guilty, but it’s funny when other people do it). It was fun and included both a giant gift shop, exhibits, pubs, and a sky-deck pub where you get a free complimentary Guinness (which took me about an hour to get down), but it was a one-and-done type experience.
One of my most recommended things to do in Dublin (besides getting those sourdough donuts) is to walk along Grafton Street in the evening. It’s essentially their main shopping street (and mentioned in Galway Girl… Ed, did you get your cities right?). The buildings were lit up in green and Irish flag-colored lights. The streets had many young buskers, who were all very talented. There was one girl that we stopped at for a bit, who was really good, and kept playing all my favorite songs. I still follow her on Instagram, you can find her at @orlaithtoral.
Dublin, overall, was a great time, as well. However, it really is a city, and there was much that I didn’t have the time to do. I’d definitely recommend staying for more than two days, and ideally, staying somewhere in the city. If you’re trying for St. Patrick’s Day as well though, try our method of commuting if you can’t spend hundreds and hundreds per night. But, if it’s the off-season, try to stay there. For my trip, we definitely could’ve done fewer days in Galway, and more in Dublin… but it just gives the excuse to go back!
We left Ireland by plane, back to London (train from Mullingar back to Dublin, Uber from Dublin’s center to Dublin Airport). The trip, in whole, was amazing. The people were so nice and kind, the cities and countryside were beautiful, and the culture was just so fun to be around. On the late-night train back from Dublin to Mullingar, the Ireland football team was playing against England (don’t quote me on that), and won. Everyone on the train cart started cheering and singing an Irish song. I didn’t even fully know what we were cheering for, but I was happy to be cheering.
All in all, if you’re looking for a little Celtic charm in your life, I hope this provides you with some guidance for an Ireland trip. I definitely want to go back, and explore so many more places (I’m talking about you too, Northern Ireland). I pray that I’m lucky enough to, and you as well. So, with all this in mind, I hope you have a happy, fun, and celebratory St. Patrick’s Day, because we all deserve some luck in our lives.
Be well,
Lila
