Filed under: Dublin
Tuesday night we had dinner at a very, very nice restaurant – Shanahan’s on the Green. It was very nice. The service was excellent. Their specialty is steak and my came medium rare – not over cooked at all. The price was too high for us for a Tuesday. I think we were the only ones in the place not an expense account.
Then we went to see Miss Julie at the Project Art Centre. We have seen some great shows and some terrible shows at the Project Art Center so we weren’t sure what to expect. They generally do modern and often experimental shows.
The show is originally by August Strindberg but this version was written by Frank McGuinness, one of Patrick’s teachers. The show was very dark but excellent.
Filed under: Bray
On Sunday, Kate had a big birthday party in Bray today. There were 23 girls at the Bray Bowl – and two very brave parents.
Fearghal kindly drove her to the party. So we all hitched a lift to Bray, which is on the seaside. We’ve been up there a few times before. Lily, Aine and I enjoyed skipping stones. I am the champion, if anyone is asking.
I took some pictures and videos. The weather was close to perfect for February. I hope you can see the rainbow in some of the pictures. We do see a lot of rainbows here.
After walking down the strand we went back to get Kate. She was playing an arcade game where you drop coins onto a shelf in hopes that they will push other coins down for you to win. She is pretty hard core about it. She could play for hours.
Then we all got muffins and treats on the way home.
Filed under: Dublin
On Saturday we saw one of the best plays for kids that I have ever seen – Beware the Storybook Wolves. You were supposed to be 6 years old to go – but we scored Aine a fake ID. I was worried that she would be too scared so (trying to cinch my mother of the year nomination) I had been desensitizing her all week by trying to scare her and talking about scary wolves.
She was well prepared. Actually I was nervous for a first few minutes but then the show was so funny that the scary parts weren’t so scary.
I won’t go into the plot – but there was a lot of running around and screaming. Somehow I think there were only 4 actors – so there were a lot of costume changes. When Prince Charming shows up, they played Prince Charming by Adam Ant, which I have been singing every since.
The show was at The Ark, a theater that really focuses on kids. Everything is kid-sized – the seats, the stairs, the toilets… The theater doesn’t seat very many people so you are very close to the action and the actors run all around the space.
We had lunch at the Meeting House Market – which means walking around with hotdogs and chocolate crepes. The girls loved it. Someone we seemed to eat a ton of garbage – but it was all good.
We got to see tons of men in kilts as the Scotland versus Ireland rugby match was on in town. Kilts are not for everyone. Knee high socks do not help the kilt look. Drinking a can of cider out of a bag on the bus in a kilt before noon – is not the classiest act I’ve seen in a week.
I dragged the kids to a show at The Project Act Centre Return Journey. Here the super quick description: 3 movie screens showing scenes from a train station, one person on a platform sometimes rolling around, sometimes tearing up red paper, sometimes folding and unfolding a little kid’s red shoe. There are 2 benches set up for the patrons to sit. Around the space, 2 actors walk around in a square taking off and putting on a hounds tooth coat.
To give the kids credit we sat and watched for about 10 minutes. I asked them to talk about the show in the video below.
At night Patrick and I went back into town. We found a place to sit in a pub in town and considered ourselves lucky. It was a low key but nice night.
Filed under: Dublin
OK I’ve been terrible about maintaining the blog. Sorry! I’m hoping that I can get caught up today.
Last Tuesday we went to Il Primo – a new-ish Italian restaurant in town. I should start a step back… In Ireland there’s a TV show called Guerilla Gourmet where local chefs cook meals in unusual settings. We’ve seen two episodes. In the first the guy cooked and served a meal in the castle on the Rock of Cashel. In the other the show, Anita Thom, the chef and owner of Il Primo cooked and served a meal at Fossett’s Circus.
I have to give Patrick credit he remembered the show and got us into the restaurant. Their specialty is risotto, which really was amazing. I might ad chocolate cake to the specialty too though – as that was definitely worth writing home about. After the meal I happened to talk a little bit to the chef. It was on accident and really because the staff was so friendly that I did talk to her – but it was a tiny thrill. I didn’t mention seeing her on TV.
What was kind of funny was that she seems about as likely to be in a TV show as Billy (my brother the chef).
After dinner we ran down (literally) to the Abbey to see Romeo and Juliet. I think Patrick put it best when he said R&J just really isn’t Shakespeare’s best. It’s very up and down – the exciting bits are exciting (and were very exciting in this production thanks to rain on the state which is always a crowd pleaser) and the boring parts get long.
Also I think maybe it’s a sign that you’re getting old when you wonder why Juliet wouldn’t just marry the rich guy her dad set up rather than chase some guy who professed to be in love with Rosalind 20 minutes before he met Juliet.
Filed under: Dublin
Here are the videos from the Irish Film & Television Awards last night. Patrick helped me go through to figure out who everyone was. The girls were very good about sitting out in the crowd with us – but I figured when are we ever going to get a chance like this again? Especially since we scored pretty good spaces. That being said, CNN is not asking us for our video, it’s not that good.
Mel Gibson
Aidan from Sex in the City (& Bo Derek)
Aidan’s ral name is John Corbett – otherwise know as Ben Cornbett by the Irish Times (maybe they need to hire a librarian)
– also includes daughter from Fair City, an evening Irish soap opera
Rene Russo
– also includes Colm Meeney Neil Jordan
Jonathan Ryhs Meyers
Amazing dress. I just thought it was fun to see the real world experience of a great dress in less than great climate.
Sean McGinley – was in Braveheart and Marie Mullen who was in Druid Theatre’s Long Day’s Journey
Miriam O’Callaghan (RTE presenter)
Grainne Seoighe, RTE presenter (she has a ‘breakfast TV’ style show.)
Fionnuala Flanagan (TV, Film and theatre actress).
Someone from Prison Break
Kathryn Thomas (Presenter of the Year)
Ryan Tubridy (radio and TV host); Brian O’Driscoll (Irish Rugby Captain and his girlfriend, Amy Hubermann.)
David Kelly (Irish star of stage, TV and film).
Patrick’s mom has been in Galway this weekend. So there was no Fearghal out on Sunday – but we managed the longest day ever.
We started with a nice lunch at our favorite Dun Laoghaire – the GastroPub. Then we were going to walk to Monkstown to see a skateboard and bike event. We walked for more than an hour and we never made it. We walked by a church (see photo below). The view of the sea was nice. It was actually a nice walk until we realized that we were no where near the Monktown gym/pool. So eventually we got a bus into town.
Once in town we visited the Hugh Lane Gallery. Lily showed us about the Francis Bacon exhibit – she had gone to see it with school. Patrick wanted to go to the wax museum around the corner – but it had moved. So my tip of the day is to NOT use a book when you’re making your plans for touring Dublin. They are nearly outdated as soon as their printed with all of the development in Dublin.
So we walked to the opposite end of town to have yummy treats at Bewley’s Café on Grafton Street. The girls got hot chocolate and treats, which was good because it gave them energy for our surprise task…
The Irish Film and TV Awards took place in Dublin tonight. We walked by the theater (The Gaiety) just in time to see the people lined up to see the stars. I am uploading the video of the stars now I will post it on the blog as soon as I can, which might be tomorrow as uploading is VERY slow from here.
Saturday during the day we met us with a friend of Elaine Walsh (Who lives in MN but is from Ireland). Pauline has 3 kids just about the same age as our kids. They live in a beautiful house in Killiney. The kids had a great time. It was nearly like being at home. They played and neighborhood kids stopped by to play too.
After a while we left to meet up with an old friend of Patrick – David Kelley. We met up with David and his wife Andrea a couple of weeks ago. They invited us over for dinner with their 5 year old, Alex. They live in Greystones.
Again it was a really nice time. I know that Patrick especially enjoyed just hanging out with an old friend. But we all had a good time.
We did end up taking a lot more public transportation than anyone else going from one suburban location to another. Mostly not having a car doesn’t bother me that much here – but today it did. I think it was the day of suburban life on the bus and train that got to me.
Filed under: Dublin
Again the girls were out of school. Patrick decided we should go to the Georgian House Museum. He has a great interest in Georgian Houses; the girls and I don’t. We got to the museum and Patrick had to leave to tutor a class. So, the girls and I went through the house. They don’t allow pictures but we did take one outside.
Here’s what we remember about the house:
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The house was built in 1794
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They had 3 servants and they couldn’t read or write
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The people sat in bed instead of lying down (as we do) because of the prevalence on asthma – also they were afraid that people would think they were dead.
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The governances were young – so often once they ages they would be stuck for work or a home. They built two homes for former governances in Dublin.
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The wives didn’t go downstairs in the morning; they spent most of their day upstairs in their own parlor.
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They had bells to ring for the servants – each room had a different tone.
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The boys wore dresses – to disguise themselves as girls and lessen the threat of being kidnapped.
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Near the fireplaces women put boards in front of their faces o keep their faces/makeup from melting.
So I guess we remembered more than I thought. After the Georgian House we went to the National Gallery for lunch. At the Gallery, we ran into two friends – Robert Tynan and Eunan O’Donnell from Excaliburprima, Dublin’s top event planners.
We got the great kids’ packs and toured some of the art. Eventually Patrick met up with us. He noticed that Gabriel Byrne was in the coffee shop so we went back and sat near him. He is as hot in person as he is on screen. We chickened out and didn’t get a picture of him. I’m still mad at us for not snapping us.
Eventually we went home and had a pretty quiet night in.
Filed under: Bray
The girls were off from school on Thursday and Friday. We didn’t have a very exciting day but we went to the library, the coffee shop and the park in Cabinteely.
The weather was pretty good and our timing seemed to be good all day. We arrived at the library just in time to drop off our books before they closed for lunch. (We pick up books on the way back home.) There was exactly one table left when we got to the coffee shop and it sat 4.
The park had a lot of kids. But we weren’t there too long as it was kind of cold and I was freezing!
We had dinner at Shelby’s in Bray. It was a romantic restaurant – especially on Valentine’s Day – but we promised to be quick so they fed us. It was a nice meal
Thursday afternoon we headed to the Mermaid Theater in Bray to see Lily’s friend Ailbhe (Alva) in a play – Gone with the Breeze. She was great. The play was very fun. It was created by kids for kids so it was not unusual to have someone answer the phone before it was done ringing or for someone to get a few offstage line prompts.
Ailshe won a bear after the show, which she very kindly delivered to Aine the next day as Aine had coveted it the night before.
Filed under: Dublin
On Monday Kate made her first confession. I offered to help compile her list of sins – but she decided to go solo. The service was nice. Confession services are always a little funny to me with the “I am sorry” banners and the songs aimed at 7 year olds about being sorry.
Aine enjoyed the ceremony – mostly she enjoyed singing with the fifth class choir. She didn’t sit with them or know the words or anything. She just belted it out from our pew. Kate was not impressed. She kind of reminded me of one of the Bay City Rollers singing with her new hair cut. (I’ll post a picture proving the point below.)
Tuesday was Kate’s birthday. She is 8 years old now. She got a bunch of great presents – a Pixel Chix, Webkinz, clothes, markers and stuff. The present from Grandma and Grandpa arrived on her birthday. She requested carbonara for dinner and we all got to eat chocolate cake despite the fact that it’s Lent because Lent is not a good reason to cheat someone out of a full birthday celebration.
We might go to the Leisureplex in Bray to celebrate some more.
We woke up today to great fog. The big girls and I took a picture. Aine is slow to get up so she was running behind us. She kind of misunderstood was sad not to see a hog on the way to Montessori.
Finally our big news is that we finally tracked down a copy of the Dun Laoghaire Gazette – Lily and Kate were on the cover and the picture gallery from the winter event at the People’s Park. (The Dun Laoghaire event is a weekly neighborhood newspaper.)
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