Despite our flight being moved back by 90 minutes, we still had to stick with our arranged pick-up time of 7:30AM. That meant we had lots of time at the airport, which did include a visit to the airport version of Harrod’s – so the ladies did get to have a shopping fix. Unfortunately for Michele, her flight was delayed for 4 HOURS, so she was going to have a long wait after we left.
We met Marty Lynch, the planner of our golf trip, at the airport. We had no issues with the flight or transportation to our hotel – The Portmarnock Hotel and Golf Links. After arriving we taxied to downtown Dublin – about 45 minute drive. We went through the heart of the bustling city (it was Friday evening rush hours) and saw the old and the new of Dublin. We journeyed to the Guinness Brewery for a tour, the most visited site in all of Ireland. When we entered the reception area where the self-guided tour starts, we were met by a Staff member who explained that we were on the first floor of a seven story glass tower that was in the shape of a pint of Guinness. Where we stood at the bottom of the glass, there was enshrined the lease contract negotiated by Arthur Guinness in 1759. The terms were outlandish for the day, especially since the 55 acre plot of land was completely undeveloped and included lots of marshy lands. The terms were 100 pounds down and 45 pounds per year … for 9000 years!!!! Yes, to this day (and for many, many days to come) Guinness pays 45 pounds per year for their 55 acre plot of land.
Anyway, the tour was an interesting lesson in making beer from only four ingredients – water, barley, hops and yeast. The very most interesting element of the tour (at least for this statistician) was the plaque dedicated to master brewer William Sealy Gossett who first derived the t-test (a statistical test to compare groups) and used it to compare batch of barley for quality control process. OK, for non-statisticians this is a ho-hum thing, but for me to stand at the birthplace of modern statistics was a really cool experience.
We ended our tour on the seventh story of the pint of Guinness, which is a 360⁰ glass enclosed bar with a spectacular view of Dublin and surrounding countryside. Steve and Debbie had a taste of Guinness (it is only the second taste of beer for Steve in his lifetime!) and found it passable. It did not inspire Steve to become a beer drinker though.
We made our way to Grafton Street, which seems to be the central hub-bub of Dublin with many shops and restaurants. We found a really nice restaurant for dinner and had some great food. Stave had some seafood chowder that was great, and Chris Lawson got her first taste of lamb – a large lamb shank that was tender and moist. Steve and Chan had the lamb, which Marty told us the Irish do very well. Others had fish and chips.
We met our taxi driver after dinner for the ride to the hotel and retired for the evening.
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