Our first day waking up in Ireland and neither of us was particularly fresh. A few too many pints and not enough sleep. We ambled downstairs for our full Irish breakfast that included cereal, juice, bread, coffee, an egg, sausage and bacon. We then headed into Dublin via the DART (£2.10 round trip). Our first stop was the travel office where we booked the tickets to the soccer matches (2 days, 4 games for £52). Next we headed toward the brewery. Along the way we stopped at a couple of pubs – Brogan’s and one called Baker’s. At Bakers we learned that soccer is only big in the Dublin area. Elsewhere, Gaelic football and hurling rule. It was recommended that we try to catch some matches on Sunday in Cork City.

The brewery tour was typical but we learned that Guinness buys some of the hops from the U.S. and that the family is very generous. After the tour we got our complimentary pints from Andre, our barman. He was an interesting guy, moving to a different country every six months or so. We liked him because he gave us a free half-pint.

We were running late and had to hustle to get to the soccer match. We grabbed some bread on the way and wedged ourselves onto the train.

The first game was Derry City, the Irish champs, against Celtic who had a bunch of fans. It wasn’t a particularly well-played game and ended up a 3-2 Derry City win. The second game, PSV vs. Newcastle was much more entertaining. Newcastle pulled off the 3-2 victory.

We stopped at Trader’s Wharf for a last pint. While there we got a recommendation from this family from Dingle for some places to go there. We decided to try and catch up on sleep so that was it for the night.