Articles in Ireland

Friday started with a twist. We had received an email a couple of hours earlier from Hainan Airlines advising that our flight from Dublin to Shenzhen in September had been cancelled. Uh-oh. We frantically tried to call Hainan Airlines to confirm what our options were. The phone cut out a couple of times, but they ended up ringing back to continue the discussion.

As usual we started the day by opening our eyes and then wandering down to breakfast. Breakfast was quite good – we had a seat next to the full-length windows with a view of the castle.

Our route today was to go further West out to Shanagolden and Glin and then loop back East to Kilkenny, via Tipperary. Shanagolden and Glin are two towns that Ros’s family are from.

The drive from Limerick to the cliffs was very scenic, and quite wet. It rained quite a lot along the way but also cleared to have beautiful patches of sunshine. Along with lots of other tourists we arrived at the cliffs and parked. Ros wanted to get a scarf as it was windy and cold outside, we also decided to buy a poncho at a shop just in case it rained. That would be a wise decision. Well, mostly.

Our destination was the Absolute Hotel, Limerick – 210kms or about 2 hours 15 minutes away.

This time we were flying on the Dreamliner – Boeing 787. Given the improvements made to the airplanes over the years we wanted to test out the theory that it is better for people. This plane had two separate business class sections. We were in the second half, just in front of Economy (not that you would know it).