Welcome aboard from central North Carolina, U.S., which is about as green as ireland itself. I've been to Ireland twice, once driving from west to east from Shannon and around about to Dublin, and later the next trip, a week in Dublin. You get about five weather changes a day, or so it seemed to me, from dense fog, to bright sun, to rain, and then windy, for example. I was intrigued by the palm trees nurtured by the Gulf Stream, not what you associate with Ireland. Guinness on tap in Dublin spoiled me for the bottled version in the U.S. I learned to wait for the bar man or woman to let the foam settle for a perfect pint. I attended Oscar Wilde's 150th birthday at Trinity College, with readings by his grandson who looks just like him by now.
I visited the New Grange temple chamber under the mound. I visited Jonathan Swift's burial spot in St. Patrick's cathedral, buried next to his long time woman friend, which seems a most urbane attitude way back then, and was pleased to discover a Unitarian Universalist church right beside St. Stephen's Green. When I asked a coffee vender on the shores of the Liffey if there was a boat ride on the river, he gently led me to the rail above the shore and pointed out a grocery trolley only half submerged in the middle of the river. I saw the bullet holes in the facade of the Post Office building from the 1920's. I threw a pair of my late wife's earrings off the pedestrian bridge over the Liffey, and was immediately embraced by a drunk college student who seemed to grasp the ceremonial moment.
