We visited Ireland for the first time almost 3 years ago. Dublin, Dundalk, Bray, Waterford, Youghal, Cork, Cliffs of Moher, Lisdoonvarna, Galway, and Athlone, packed into 11 days. We were, in a word, tourists.
It’s not an inherently bad thing to be. First time in a different country, you naturally want to take in as much of the surroundings as possible. Every stream, every cobblestone, every pint is a new experience.
But there’s also a discomfort in being a tourist. You’re in other people’s homes, gawking at their alien ways. I’m much more relaxed trying to fit into my surroundings. Much of that first visit felt comfortable. While the Cliffs of Moher, say, are indisputably a tourist venue, in Yeoghal we parked the car, had lunch, hung out with some toddlers on the 30 square meter pebbly beach, and felt at home. Of our time here, only Galway felt like a city geared towards tourism. The joke I made for a while was that it was the only place we saw people juggling firesticks.
Cork City was our favorite stop, precisely because it had almost nothing in the way of tourist attractions. Our biggest draw was the Butter Museum, which turned out exactly as we imagined. Sin É is a cramped bar in the Victorian Quarter, with traditional music nightly, that may or may not appear in lists of things to do in Cork. But we felt very much at home over our 2 1/2 days here. Enough so that it was our first choice of a city to stay in for a couple of months. We checked in to our apartment Saturday afternoon, returned the rental car Sunday morning, and have spent the past couple of days figuring out where to buy things like bread, coffee beans, post cards, and books.
Our neighborhood has 3 supermarkets, a dozen or so small grocers, more secondhand shops than I can count, twice as many bars as secondhand shops, and street food from a dozen different cultures. I’ve heard at least that many languages spoken as we learn to navigate the city.
We’ve also met a couple of the immediate neighbors, younger than us for sure. A man from India working in tech, who we met in the elevator. A couple, he from Croatia, she from Portugal via France. She was chock full of suggestions on where to eat and drink when we get to Coimbra and Porto later this spring.
The latter we met outside our apartment on the common patio area last night when we returned from our walk. They had set up to practice their firestick juggling routine.
Cork Spring 