Day 1: (Pre-road trip day in Dublin)

Arrived on 4/23 and wanted to acclimate a bit timewise before getting behind the wheel for the big road trip, so just got a good sleep and headed into Dublin to meet a friend for lunch. This happened to be in Grafton St. (made famous in part in the incredible film, “Once”), and just around the corner was the tribute statue to famous Irish rocker Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy. Had to take a picture of that after a good hang in Grafton St. listening to the buskers.


Day 2: (Dublin to Wexford)

The first day of my coastal clockwise circumnavigation of Ireland. I picked up the car (an Opel Astra diesel) and set off across Dublin for an hour or so to my first stop which was Deansgrange Cemetery to lay flowers for an incredible musician who died to young, Sinéad O'Connor. I listened to her first single back in 1985 when I lived in London and followed her work for 4 decades. This was an important stop for me.


Here is my route for the day:



From there I drove up into the Wicklow mountains to try my hand at the famed Sally Pass. Simply one of the most insane set of mountain roads you'll ever want to drive. And I did it today in dense fog, so it was like driving at night with the sun being blocked. Hey, growing up in the Berkley hills where we learned to drive in these conditions came in really handy in that respect. I mean seriously, where is the road?! And get this, it is signposted as having a 50 mph speed limit. The road is super narrow single track (single lane for both directions of traffic to share where one pulls over to allow the other to pass if you meet. Two cars cannot pass side by side.), along the edge of a mountain and it was wet and impossible to see. I was in no way going to risk my neck going 50 mph so I kept it at most to a much more sensible 45 mph. And this went on for a good 20 miles or so. Completely nuts! I admit though, I loved it and my fellow road demon friends will totally get this. I found a spot with a soothing mountain stream and stopped for a moment to slow my racing pulse. Here are couple of pictures. Made it to Wexford by about 5pm the rest of the that day was mostly coastal freeways and boring, although admittedly Ireland’s true beauty only really kicks into high gear from the southwest tip of the country, still a full day’s drive away yet.