Ireland day 0880. Sunday 25 February 2024- UK Guests 3 *

Ireland day 0880. Sunday 25 February 2024- UK Guests 3

Today’s summary	Drove into Dublin with our friends to visit the Hugh Lane Gallery for a (free) lunchtime concert then across town to the Guinness Storehouse for the full on Irish experience. Drove back again to Malahide via the M50 afterwards. Excellent day out.
Today’s weather	Rain overnight but mostly dry and overcast for the rest of the day. Moderate easterly wind. Appx 7c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (No GPX today)

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

Another very full day with our guests today. After breakfast in the flat, we drove into Dublin to go to a (free) lunchtime concert at the Hugh Lane Gallery. I decided we would drive in as we wanted to cross Dublin afterwards to go to the Guinness Storehouse and I just didn’t fancy doing battle with the public transport system on a cold Sunday afternoon.

The drive in was straightforward and we parked at the ILAC shopping centre car park. The gallery was only 10 minutes walk away and we were there with 15 minutes to spare for our noon concert. Today’s performance was a piano – violin duet featuring Patrick Rafter (a 29 year old from Kilkenny) on violin and Ciara Moroney on piano. I must admit I’m not a particular fan of classical music but even I could tell that today’s performance was superb. Absolutely faultless and unbelievable that the gallery had laid it on for free.

By the time the performance had finished, we were all ready for lunch and headed down to the restaurant for an excellent light snack of panini and soup. After lunch we took a quick look around the gallery (and peered into the Francis Bacon studio – complete with faithfully reproduced mess) then headed back to the car and drove across town to the Guinness Storehouse on the other side of the Liffey.

Even though we have been to the Storehouse before, it never fails to disappoint and today was no exception – especially as one of our guests is a distant relative of John Purser, the original master brewer at Guinness in the eighteenth century. So we had a fascinating look around the exhibitions and then managed to get a table in the Gravity Bar at the top of the storehouse as we watched the sunset.

An easy drive back round the M50 saw us hack at the flat by about 7 then we rounded off the evening with Lough Avalla beef casserole and a wee dram of Tullamore Dew whiskey. All in all another great day out.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The Hugh Lane gallery on Parnell Square	Our performers – Patrick Rafter on the violin and Ciara Moroney on piano. They were simply brilliant

Today’s programme	One of our favourite paintings “Honolulu Garden” by Mary Swanzy. Makes you feel like you are somewhere warm and sunny

After he died, Francis Bacon’s studio was transported meticulously, all 7000 pieces, from his home in London to its new home in the Hugh Lane Gallery here in Malahide	Look how strong I am!!

Enjoying our beers – free with our €25 tickets! (Except I wasn’t as I was driving so everyone else shared my pint)