Visit an authentic IRISH PUB

...but it was someplace near Killarney. I was 16 or 17, and everyone around me was speaking in Gaelic.

This is one mine and my friends life long goals. I still have to wait until I turn 18, but it will definitely happen! I’m excited to get to check this one off when I do it.

Irish Pubs are amazing! Great drinks, great food, and most of all, great music! Tip: If plain Guinness is too bitter, try guinness with black currant syrup in it; sweetens it up just enough.

I had the weirdest experience doing this. The pub my friends and I went to out in the country on the way to Glendalough was perfect- but we only ate lunch there. We really wanted a good “pub experience” that night in Dublin. Bad idea. First, the South Africa/Ireland rugby game was that weekend in Dublin, so it was filled with drunk rugby fans. Second, we didn’t really know where we were going. We walked into one, which was extremely full, and were told we were too “young” to be in there (we were 19… but the drinking age in Ireland is 18). Second one we went to was also packed, and we almost got trampled by the hoards of rugby fans in there. Third one my friend pointed out I told her not to go into. It was named “The Bachelor”. Think about it. But, she went anyhow (she was determined to hear traditional Irish music while drinking a Guiness). I went in after her to retrieve her, and yes, it was a “gentlemen’s club”. I pulled her out of there after the guy at the bar gave her the worst look ever. Finally we decided to go back to the hostel, but on the way there we passed a small pub that had Irish music emanating from it… so we went inside, and immediately the band started playing American music from the 50s! It was as if they knew! But we had a Guiness anyhow, even if the music wasn’t there. (This trip also involved getting stuck on a beach at high tide and having to climb a cliff and go through an Irish woman’s house to get back to the street, a tour through the country with a guy that played ABBA instead of traditional music you’d expect from a tour guide, and a ferry back to England full of drunk South African rugby players playing drinking games at 3am).

I’d probably just order a soda anyway, unless I had permission. I wouldn’t get drunk or anything, but after dreaming of Ireland for most of my life I would hate to miss out on a really Irish experience.

On that quest for Guinness on tap the four of us went to a pub in… golly, where was it, I think it was in the Republic somewhere. One of us had to be dragged back to the hostel, where he spent the night hallucinating and laughing sheepishly :P