Patrick’s birthday landed on one of the nicest days in January. We went to Dun Laoghaire – only wearing sweaters. We had lunch at our favorite Asian restaurant – Mao. It was good but as I told Kate, I will be so glad to be at home where they fill up your diet coke throughout the meal. But despite my complaining – we really did have a nice meal.
After the meal we walked down the Dun Laoghaire pier, through the People’s Park and got on the bus back to Cabinteely. Patrick’s mom got a nice cake and we all had a piece.
Sunday night Patrick and I went in to see the Traditional Music Gala Concert at the Olympia (same place we saw I, Keano a couple of nights before). Our seats were excellent, the music was nice – the woman humming long behind us was a little crackers. But we left at the intermission – we were just too tired from a long weekend and both being a little sick.
So, maybe that wouldn’t be my favorite way to spend a birthday, but Patrick seemed to enjoy it.
Filed under: Dublin
Lily had a birthday party on Saturday. So Kate and I hit the town alone. We shared a hotdog and a chocolate crepe (mostly Kate didn’t share that) at the Meeting House Square market. They have a nice selection of produce, cheese, and food you can eat right away.
Then we scored Kate a place at the free tin whistle mini-lesson, which was part of the Traditional Music Fest! You can see the video of the class below. It was great. The teacher was clearly a musician with tons of patience. At the end of the class Kate did know enough to keep learning new songs. Also – they let her keep the tin whistle.
We walked around for a while and saw some fun things. Then we waited to meet the rest of the crew. We were just in time to see a storyteller, who was part of the festival. He was very good. Again you can see the picture below.
We had a nice Italian restaurant and we found ourselves in the rare occasion of being too early. We had tickets to the pantomime at the Gaiety Theatre. (We saw the more budget version before Christmas.)
The Gaiety production is the big production. It was Beauty and the Beast. The theatre is old and fancy – kind of like the Orpheum or State Theaters back home. It was fun to see both productions. This was a little more high brow. The other used a lot more street humor, which I think the girls preferred. The Gaiety production included two narrator/jokers types and one was a little person. As Aine pointed out, he was little like a kid and that’s why she liked him so much. He was very funny.
At the end of the night (very late given the kids were with us) we took a cab home. It had been a long, cold day – so the cab home may have been the highlight to me.
Filed under: Dublin
Friday night we’re back out with Sheila! We met us with Mary (who usually lives in MN) and Sheila’s friend from here, Pauline. Our goal was to take part in the free Traditional Music Festival pub crawl. I must admit there was more beer than music.
The idea of the traditional music pub crawl was nice – but in the end there were 2-3 musicians in each pub, which really isn’t enough to be heard very far or to set a tone in the busy Temple Bar locations. We did manage to get to: Purty Kitchen, The Clarence Hotel, and The Auld Dubliner. I have to say that I actually enjoyed the Auld Dubliner, a pub I have walked by 100 times before. We went upstairs and there was a musician. It was kind of hokey – but friendly and enjoyable.
Filed under: Dublin
Wednesday night I met my friend Sheila in own. First we had a nice Indian meal – then we decided to try to get tickets to iKeano. We didn’t realize it but it had been sold out for quite a while.
So we back to the pub to retrench and meet up with Patrick. We decided to try to scalp tickets and were successful. Well, we got two tickets – we were able to score another seat for Patrick who met us after the first half – but it was just me and Sheila for the first half.
I, Keano is a part Roman epic, part musical and entirely focused on the Irish World Cup team of 2002. Here’s a brief description of I, Keano from RTE:
The decision by McCarthy to send Roy Keane home from the 2002 World Cup divided a nation. Those, with only a passing interest in the beautiful game, soon become embroiled in much heated debate as to who was right and wrong. Coming shortly after a mundane General Election campaign, what was to become known as the ‘Saipan affair’ enlivened those rain-lashed days at the end of May 2002.
About 90 percent of the show went right by me – since as most readers will know I have absolutely no interest sports – Irish or American. The part I did get was funny. We were in the upper circle at the Olympia. I did learn that I would never pay big money to sit there again – since you can’t really see the whole stage – but this was a good show to learn that.
After the show we went for a drink at Mulligan’s on Poolbeg Street – a pub I had completely forgotten about. It is still a super nice pub!
