## Day One - January 20, 2025

We landed in Dublin around 9:15am local time on Monday, 20 January 2025. The flights from AUS to PHI and PHI to DUB were pleasant enough, but the overnight flights from the U.S. to Dublin are kind of a jet lag boot camp. You land early in the morning, and are encouraged to sleep during the flight, but your body clock says it’s not really the right time to sleep. And it’s tough enough to sleep sitting up anyway.

We collected the rental car, and made the drive to Banagher, right on the River Shannon in the Midlands. The AirBnB we booked was about 2km/1.2miles west of Banagher.

When we arrived at the cottage, the host had left the back door unlocked. We took a brief tour, and found a number of issues. The heater wasn’t working in the main bedroom, there were lots of cobwebs and dead bugs in the inside rooms, and the toilet in the main bedroom had a broken seat making it functionally unusable.

We tried to contact the host, but she wasn’t available either in-person or by phone.

We soon came to the conclusion that this AirBnB wasn’t going to work for us, and I made the call to find somewhere else for the night. The nearest city with a modern hotal is Birr, about 10 miles south of Banagher, and we booked two nights at the County Arms Hotel - it’s an older building, but the rooms are fully modern, and we settled in nicely.

For late lunch/early dinner, we found a nice little coffee shop/restaurant in downtown Birr.

## Day Two - January 21, 2025

We had a nice breakfast in the hotel restaurant, and enjoyed the view out the window. We spent most of the day resting up from the long day yesterday. In the late afternoon we stopped by the local Tesco to get some supplies, and I went and got take-out burgers from a local pizza/burger/kebab place downtown.

## Day Three - January 22, 2025

Carole was finally able to resolve the issue with the original AirBnB booking, so now we needed to find another AirBnB for the remainder of our trip. One-bitten/twice-shy, we decided it was necessary to visit the prospective options to make sure they were what they claimed to be and everything was in good working order. This kind of pre-visit isn’t really a thing with AirBnB, but we were pleased to find that each host was very willing to show us their offerings.

Carole found two options - one in Blackrock, a neighborhood on the Irish Sea in the south part of Dundalk about 45 minutes north of Dublin, and aother in Kilgraney, about half-way between Carlow and Kilkenny about 2 hours southwest of Dublin.

We first drove to Blackrock, and met with a very nice host named Karen. Her lodging is a 3-bedroom, 1 3/4 bath detached house about half a mile west of the main business district of the small coastal town. We knew early on that this was a great option. It had a washer and dryer (which only a few AirBnB’s in Ireland have), a nicely appointmented kitchen, an super-fast broadband. We had a nice tour and chat with the host, and then headed out to the next option.

The drive to Carlow was long but scenic, and the first hints of the on-coming storm were beginning to show. We stopped for gas at what would be called a truck-stop in the U.S. It included a McDonald’s, so we had an early dinner there.

The name of the second AirBnB is Lorum Old Rectory, a beautiful old stone building that had been the local rectory until the mid-1970’s. Adjacent to the main building was the Stables, which had been actual stables back in the day. The interior had been lovingly updated, with a noticeable effort at maintaining the historic feel of the place. The Stables were the offering for the AirBnB booking.

The hostess Rebecca was also quite nice, and we left feeling this was also a very acceptable option.

When we got back to the hotel in Birr, we had decided to go with the house in Blackrock. It had the modern amenities we wanted, and was closer to Dublin. We had plans to meet with an Immigration Solicitor based in Dublin, so it would be easier to manage the drive from Dundalk/Blackrock.

The drive from the Rectory back to the hotel in Birr was challenging. It was rush hour in Kilkenney, and the sun had just set, and the only reasonable route took us on curvy R roads almost the entire way. We were happy to put a close on the long day.

## Day Four - January 23, 2025

After a nice, final breakfast at the hotel in Birr, we headed back to Blackrock around 11:00am, trying hard to avoid Storm Eowyn which was hitting the west coast of the island a few hours later. We made good time on the way there, taking a slightly different route to add more motorway time in place of the N and R roads we had used yesterday. (In Ireland, M roads are motorways, compable to interstates in the U.S. N roads are National roads, roughly equivlant to U.S. highways. R roads are regional roads, comparabale to state highways. L roads are local roads, which can vary between single-track roads with tall hedgerows a foot from either side of your car, up to near R-road quality.)

We arrived in Dundalk around 2:30pm and stopped by the nearby Tesco for food and supplies. We arrived at the AirBnB in Blackrock around 4:30pm, unloaded the car and settled in. We split a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner, and met with Danny, the co-host with his wife Karen. Danny went over some of the minor quirks of the place, and made sure we knew what to expect from the storm.

## Day Five - January 24, 2025

Storm Eowyn arrived in Blackrock around 1:00am, with winds of 90mph, driving rain, and lots of noise. The power went out around 1:45am, which was to be expected. We slept as well as we could under the conditions.

The power came back around 1:15pm, and other than a few loose flower pots from the back garden that had been blown around there was no noticeable damage. The winds died down to 45-60mph later in the afternoon and remained relatively high the rest of the night. There were wide-spread power outages throughout the island, but the Blackrock/Dundalk area was not heavily impacted, thankfully.

Chicken Nachos for dinner.

## Day Six - January 25, 2025

We spent most of the day unpacking the rest of our gear and getting things organized. We made use of the washer/dryer to clean our traveling closes, and went back to Tesco to grab a few more items.