My Map Pins (28): Dublin, Ireland (posted April 2021)

 

I’ve been to Dublin so many times I can just about find my way around. (Isn’t it good when you reach this stage in your relationship with a place?) It is one of my favourite cities. It doesn’t have a stack of attractions. I’ve just looked up the top ten things to do in Dublin on Trip Advisor and realised I haven’t done any of them. But they sound dull. They are all museums and galleries and churches. The magic of Dublin is in the streets and the bars and the nightlife. Nowhere buzzes quite like Dublin at night when the Guinness is flowing and the fiddles are fiddling and the feet are tapping. My favourite trip was a family weekend in July 2011. Prince was playing at Malahide Castle and we had tickets. We warmed up with a day and night in Dublin, and we ate out at a boxty restaurant (look it up) and did a pub crawl, and heard ‘Whiskey in the Jar-o’ played three different times by three different bands, and we watched some Irish dancing, and we all got very drunk. And the next day the sun shone like blazes, and we fought our way close to the stage to watch Prince play a concert of his greatest hits, and it felt as if this was the world’s best musician playing his finest tracks at the peak of his career in a city of music lovers, and I wondered if it could ever get any better than this.

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Please check out my website for more information on my books. https://www.johnironmonger.com 

Catching Up (8th August 2011)

Everything seems crazy at the moment. Two weekends ago we were in London so that I could give my niece away at her wedding (Dimi you looked amazing - I was a very proud uncle). We got back last weekend from a family trip to Dublin. (Actually we went to see Prince in concert at Malahide Park. He was brilliant - of course - but I guess you need to be a Prince fan to believe me. We also had an evening in the Temple Bar doing some essential research into Guiness drinking, Irish Music, and boxty-based cuisine.) So I was knackered on Monday morning as I caught the 07:35 from Stafford to London to meet with my Saudi connection. Still. We have to earn a crust. Now I'm trying to juggle a host of commitments all focussing on September. We're all off to Florida (long story), I need to be at a business meeting in Riyadh (even longer story), and I don't know if I should be planning to be in Malta. Or not. These Maltesers are keeping me waiting on a decision. And I've just printed off Draft One of The Coincidence Authority for my nearest and dearest to read which is the most nerve-wracking thing a writer can ever do, and I'm expecting to be frantically busy this autumn with re-writes. Hey ho.

For more about my books check out my website https://johnironmonger.com