Last night we went to sleep by 11:30, a bit earlier than we have been. The lodge was quiet by then; no more children were running in the halls. All seemed fine until around 3:30 a.m. when we heard a loud group banging around slamming doors and stomping their feet. That lasted thirty minutes then was quiet again. The night was okay except for that. The lodge is basic but has done a good job of describing itself so we knew what to expect. At the lodge we saw a li...

Today, we planned four stops, but only got to three of them. We started with a tour of Kilmainham Gaol which is listed as the top tourist attraction in Dublin on tripadvisor.com. We enjoyed the tour, and had a knowledgeable guide show us around, but wouldn't give it such high ratings as some others have. It was on the hop-on, hop-off line and free with the Dublin Pass so it was pretty easy. There was no fast track entry though, so we had to wait quite a while for...

Breakfast in the hotel is a bit more formal than other places we have been, with guests expected to wait to be seated and checked off the room list. There were plenty of choices including cooked-to-order eggs along with the buffet. We walked through St. Stephen's Green to Trinity College first for the tour of the Old Library and viewing of the Book of Kells and the Book of Armagh. We entered the college grounds from the south side gate and saw a huge line of peo...

We had a lot of places to see and still turn in the hire car by 4 p.m. so we were up for breakfast in the Vanilla Pod Restaurant early. We mapped out a day to visit ancient sites between Kells and Dublin stopping first at the Hill of Tara, a pagan sanctuary and one of the seats of the Gaelic kings, then moved on to Monasterboice, site of some of the most famous and oldest high crosses in Ireland. Our third stop was at the visitor centre of Newgrange and Knowth,...